“We contend that modern anti-Semitism lives in the disproportionate criticism Israel receives, and the refusal to accept its right to exist,” John Baird told the annual Religious Liberty Dinner.

“The world cannot take the words of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran as mere rhetoric and risk appeasing these malicious actors in the same way the world appeased the Nazis …. Under our prime minister, and under this foreign minister, Canada will stand with the Jewish state and people as they struggle to protect their very right to exist.”

The Religious Liberty Dinner is a big event in the U.S. capital, attracting VIPs, diplomats from around the world and top-level American lawmakers. Past keynote speakers have included senators John Kerry, John McCain and Hillary Clinton before she became U.S. secretary of state.

Baird was asked to speak at the dinner, organizers said, due to Canada’s intention to open a religious freedom office.

But one of the dinner’s key sponsors, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, is vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage and homosexuality, in opposition to Baird’s outspoken support of gay rights around the world.

The minister has often assailed other nations for persecuting gays and lesbians. Just this week, he commended the government of Malawi for repealing laws that targeted homosexuals.

Baird didn’t touch explicitly on those hot-button issues in his remarks on Thursday at the dinner, held this year at the Canadian Embassy on Pennsylvania Avenue.

But at one point in his remarks, Baird noted: “We cannot be selective in which basic human rights we defend, nor can we be arbitrary in whose rights we protect. We don’t compromise on basic rights. Nor do we consider these rights to be the privilege of a select few.”

His remarks focused mostly, however, on those persecuted for their religious leanings, not their sexuality.

“Reformers and reformists around the world are literally under daily attack,” he said. “In too many countries, the right to believe and practise one’s faith in peace and security is still measured in blood spilled and lives lost.”

Christians are “far too often” targeted, Baird added.

“In Iran, we have grave concerns about the persistent and serious violations of the rights of Iranian citizens to practise Christianity,” he said.

“In Egypt, Coptic Christians have come under frequent attack …. And elsewhere, Roman Catholic priests and other Christian clergy and their laity are driven underground to worship while their leaders are detained by the state.”

Canada speaks out and takes action against these “truly egregious situations and abhorrent acts,” he said.

It’s showing its commitment to the cause by establishing the Office of Religious Freedom, Baird suggested.

The office was part of the Conservative platform in the last federal election, but since then there have been scant details about its establishment.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has touted the new office, viewing it as an opportunity for Canada to step forward as a high-profile champion of international religious rights. Critics have suggested the office represents a potentially dangerous mix of politics and religion, a charge Baird has dismissed.

The minister didn’t offer up many fresh details on the office on Thursday, except to say Canada was consulting with various stakeholders at home and abroad as it worked to set it up.

“As anyone who has ever worked in, or with, government can appreciate, an endeavour like this takes some doing,” he said.

“Nothing is easy. And you really only get one chance to get it right …. So we in Canada have consulted widely and listened intently. We are taking the time to get it right the first time, and to set it up for success.”

Announcements about the office will be forthcoming “in due course,” he added.

And he noted that Canada’s diplomatic corps will play a role in its work.

“What most excites me about this new office is how it might help our diplomats around the world support religious freedom,” Baird said.

The agency says it will not add to the existing number of terminals, in keeping with provincial government policies.

The terminals being replaced are almost ten years old.

Spokesman Byron Bridger says it’s difficult to get parts for the old machines.

He says the new terminals will continue to have “responsible gambling features,” such as length-of-play reminders, forced cashouts and a $60 deposit limit.

Allan Piche was fined at a sentencing hearing Thursday on two charges of feeding the bears, said Aaron Canuel, an inspector for the B.C. Conservation Service in the Kootenays.

Piche and his wife Kathleen were each charged with one count of feeding dangerous wildlife between June and October 2011 near Christina Lake in south central B.C.

Piche’s wife will appear in court June 19, Canuel said.

Piche was first arrested in August 2010 when police investigating a grow-op discovered tame black bears.

The animals watched passively as officers removed 2,300 marijuana plants from the property.

Piche pleaded guilty to feeding them, but was charged a second time with the same offence.

After the first incident, conservation officers had to kill two of nearly 30 black bears that had been eating Piche’s dog food because they repeatedly approached backyard decks in the community about 500 kilometres east of Vancouver.

Canuel said Piche’s fine included restrictions barring him from feeding dangerous wildlife in B.C. and from leaving attractants on his property.

Smoke was seen at the eatery early in the evening, prompting everyone inside to leave the restaurant.

A Montreal fire official said nobody was hurt.

The restaurant is now owned by a consortium that includes singer Celine Dion and her husband, Rene Angelil.

They purchased the landmark eatery earlier this year.

Jean is representing the international organization of Francophone states who have inked a deal with the Games since 2004 on the use of French, which is one of the two official languages of the Olympic movement.

Negotiations for the London deal had been lengthy, due to what Jean had earlier called a reluctance on their part to accept that French had a major role to play at the Games.

But the deal signed Thursday was heralded by both sides.

It sets out the areas where French must be used, including on billboards, in communication with athletes and in services.

Among its components are the deployment of French-speaking Facebook moderators who will help London organizers make sure their social media communications are in both languages.

Jean signed the agreement with London Games CEO Sebastien Coe, who addressed the mostly Francophone crowd in Quebec City entirely in English.

“Wherever possible we’ve sought to find innovative approaches to the use of French with the aim of delivering our information to its audience in the most efficient way,” he said.

For example, French versions of spectator guides will be downloadable via mobile phones.

Jean will attend the Games in August to monitor how well the deal is carried out. She called the agreement a team effort.

“Previous Games have left a linguistic legacy that’s inspired London,” she said.

The 2010 Olympics in Vancouver were heralded by La Francophonie for setting a gold standard for the use of French, despite criticisms levied at its CEO.

John Furlong was pilloried for not learning enough French during his tenure as Olympic boss and for the fact that many considered the opening ceremonies to not include enough French language elements.

The Conservative government announced Thursday it will hire a consultant to do the work.

Health Minister Susan Sullivan says the goal it to improve efficiency, particularly in rural and remote areas.

Sullivan says the consultant will look at best practices in other jurisdictions and make recommendations about staffing strategies, new technology, information systems and other areas of concern.

As well, the consultant will look at the integration of the existing helicopter and fixed-wing ambulance programs with the road ambulance program.

The current ambulance systems costs the province $52 million annually to operate.

The accusation is levelled in new court filings that say the group is more concerned with attacking the Conservatives and raising money than getting to the bottom of the so-called robocalls affair.

Conservative party lawyers called the council’s conduct improper, unseemly and a clear abuse of the court’s process.

The council has asked the Federal Court to review the May 2011 election results in seven ridings where Conservative MPs narrowly won their seats.

The council alleges misleading or harassing phone calls in those ridings kept some people from voting and may have affected the outcomes.

In separate documents filed earlier this week, the seven Conservative MPs targeted in the council’s court action asked the court to toss out the request to review the results in their ridings.

The council posted some of the latest Conservative court filings on its website Thursday. The entire Tory motion is said to be more than 750 pages long.

The law lets voters legally challenge the results in their ridings. If a judge finds anything that would have changed the outcome, a new byelection can be ordered.

Such decisions are extremely rare. But last week, an Ontario judge ruled that enough suspect votes were cast due to clerical errors to warrant overturning last year’s election result in a Toronto riding, where Conservative MP Ted Opitz beat Liberal Borys Wrzesnewsky by a mere 26 votes.

If the ruling stands, a byelection will have to be called in Etobicoke Centre.

But the Conservative lawyers accuse the council of trying to cash in on the robocalls affair.

“It is evident that the Council’s ‘business plan’ is to leverage anti-Conservative sentiment in order raise money and continue to employ professional agitators like (national chair Maude) Barlow,” the document says.

The RCMP said the investigation dubbed Project Cranium involved the U.S. Secret Service, the RCMP and Surete du Quebec.

The force said four arrests were made and that the raids made Wednesday in the Trois-Rivieres and Drummondville areas dismantled a crime group able to produce millions of dollars in phoney currency.

“The RCMP alleges that the counterfeiting ring had the capability to produce very high quality counterfeit bank notes that were basically undetectable to the naked eye,” the Mounties said in a release.

“Not only is this alleged ring believed to have distributed large amounts of counterfeit bank notes in Quebec, but similar bank notes have also been traced by the US Secret Service in several US cities and in other countries.”

Police said they seized $949,000 in phoney US$20 bank notes.

They said they also uncovered a laboratory mainly used to add finishing touches to counterfeit notes like serial numbers and holographic features.

The RCMP release said the fake notes were printed using an offset press with non-sequential serial numbers, which police called “rather uncommon” for a counterfeit operation.

Among those arrested was 42-year-old Trois-Rivieres resident Francois Bourassa.

RCMP said he faces charges of production, possession and distribution of counterfeit currency.

Police said the other three suspects arrested could face prosecution in Canada or the United States

“It does seem things are, on this question, becoming more polarized between Quebec and the rest of Canada,” said Harris-Decima consultant Robert Hughes.

It is a Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey conducted between May 17 and May 20 that indicates a rise in support for Canada’s royal connection. The poll was conducted just before Prince Charles and Camilla made a whirlwind visit to the country.

Those surveyed were asked whether they thought the monarchy is an important part of Canadian history and political culture that ought to be maintained or if it is a relic of our colonial past that has no place in the Canada of today.

Overall, the poll showed some 51 per cent of Canucks want to maintain Canada’s links to the monarchy.

That is a six per cent increase in support for keeping the Queen as head of state when the survey’s results are compared to a similar poll conducted in 2009. The increase is mostly seen among those over the age of 35.

In Quebec, however, just 24 per cent of residents say the monarchy is an important part of Canadian history, a figure that’s actually down six per cent from the previous poll.

But the royals have increased in popularity in all other parts of the country.

One possible reason for that increase in English Canada is likely the incredibly popular Canadian visit of Prince William and his wife Kate last summer — the first international trip the couple made after being wed.

“That’s probably given people a more positive view of the monarchy in general Canada,” said Hughes. “They’re younger, they’re more photogenic, more popular…I think when they do come there’s a bigger star power.”

Another element driving support for the monarchy could be the federal Conservative government’s efforts to highlight the country’s long-standing links to the monarchy, said Hughes.

“There’s been a shift in the way the Harper government has been approaching the monarchy, it’s become part of their cultural policy,” he said. “People have gotten on board with that.”

As part of its efforts to strengthen ties to the monarchy, the Harper government restored the word “royal” to divisions of the Canadian military.

Ottawa has also pledged $7.5 million to help fund months of activities across the country this year commemorating the Queen’s sixty years on the throne.

When looking at the political leanings of the survey’s participants, the poll found 66 per cent of Conservative supporters were in favour of the monarchy in Canada, compared to 55 per cent of Liberal supporters and 44 per cent of NDP supporters.

Meanwhile, 75 per cent of Bloc Quebecois supporters polled feel the monarchy has no place in Canada today.

The lack of support for the monarchy in Quebec could have less to do with geography and more to do with politics, said Hughes.

“It likely has something to do with the fact that the Conservative party seems to be supporting the monarchy more, and they’re less popular in Quebec than they have been,” he said.

The telephone survey of just over 1,000 people has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The results of the poll come as no surprise to the Monarchist League of Canada.

“The numbers would be consistent with what we tend to see,” said Dominion Chairman Robert Finch. “The majority of Canadians support the monarchy and support for the monarchy in every region except for Quebec is overwhelmingly positive.”

Given what he called years of separatist parties decrying the country’s ties to the monarchy in Quebec, Finch said the low support for the Crown in the Francophone province continues a historical trend.

“I’m thankful there’s any support for the monarchy in Quebec,” he said. “It’s always an opportunity for us to reach out and make sure that Quebecers understand that the monarchy is there for them.”

The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee — which will culminates a lavish ceremony in London on the anniversary of the coronation next month — should also be noted as a key factor driving interest in the monarchy this year, said Finch.

“We’re celebrating the remarkable reign of a remarkable woman,” he said. “It’s no coincidence that Canadians start to rally around the monarch in the news.”

Police say multiple shots rang out around 2:15 p.m. near a privately run gym on Quinpool Road.

When officers pulled over a late-model Cadillac moments later near Robie Street, they discovered that one of the occupants had been shot.

The injured person was taken to hospital but is expected to recover from his injuries.

About 30 minutes later, a second vehicle was stopped in the Victoria Road area of Dartmouth.

One person in the car was taken into custody, but a second person escaped on foot.