Day's and Harper's remarks are rather reckless but it remains to be seen how much if any effect they will have. As Dobbin notes the Liberal introduced the SPP and it was no less secretive then than now. Interesting that according to Dobbin Dion sees the Afghan war as part of the SPP agenda.
Canada up for grabs
>by Murray Dobbin
August 30, 2007
Stephen Harper's behaviour around the NAFTA leaders' Security and Prosperity Partnership summit was politically reckless, and he will pay a price for it. The summit was really about the deep integration of Canada with the United States, a major concern to anyone concerned about Canada's sovereignty, our ability to manage our borders and regulate trade and corporate behaviour.
Harper's dismissal of the demonstrators outside the Montebello summit as “sad” and his condescending rejection of critics from every opposition party leaves the impression that Mr. Harper thinks he is a monarch, not a minority prime minister.
Even worse, Stockwell Day's outrageous fabrication after the Sûreté du Québec admitted sending agents among the demonstrators: “They were being encouraged to throw rocks.... That's the irony of this. Because they were not engaging in violence, it was noted that they were probably not protesters. I think that's a bit of an indictment against the violent protesters.”
There was no violence, no rock-throwing at the site of the incident—not even the police make this claim.
But if Day and Harper believe they can continue to portray the SPP as the jelly-bean initiative, they may be in for a nasty surprise. All the opposition parties have taken a critical stand on the SPP and deep integration in general.
The NDP has been leading the charge for months, and successfully flushed out the government on the issue of energy security by forcing SPP hearings in the International Trade Committee. New Westminster MP Peter Julian has been digging up dirt on the process for over a year, and has identified a massive deregulation effort involving some 300 public policy areas. Leader Jack Layton is making speeches across the country on the issue.
Orchard's bounty
On the Friday before the summit, the Liberals got in the game in a major way with a 14-page position paper—courtesy, I expect, of anti-free trader David Orchard. Orchard was the low-key kingmaker at the Liberal leadership convention, delivering the win to Stéphane Dion with his 100-plus delegates. The Liberal position paper, called “Strong and Free: The Liberal Blueprint for the North American Leaders Summit,” takes extreme liberties with the truth when it claims the Liberal conception of the SPP “was one all Canadians could embrace.”
In fact, Paul Martin's version of the SPP (he initiated it at the first summit in 2005) was every bit as insidious and secretive as Harper's. Nonetheless, Dion has now staked out a new position: demanding complete transparency in the process, identifying the Afghan war as part of the SPP agenda and reiterating the party's position that the mission end in 2009, calling for water exports to be taken off the table, and demanding the return of Canadian Omar Khadr from Guantanamo. The energy issue—the massive, Kyoto-killing tar sands expansion—however, was conspicuously absent.
The Green Party's Elizabeth May also has a lot riding on the deep integration issue, having stated several times that it will be the core of the party's next election platform. The Greens held a counter-summit in Ottawa, with their U.S. counterpart also taking a stand against the SPP. The party is focusing much of its attention on the North American Competitiveness Council—the body of 35 corporate CEOs (the U.S. gets 15, Canada and Mexico 10 each) that has been formally established as the only non-government body making recommendations to the three governments.
Even the Bloc has taken a critical stand, a reversal of the sovereigntist position on free trade and NAFTA.
How the opposition parties decide to play the SPP and its critical component parts—the environment, energy security, Afghanistan, the militarization of Canadian culture, water exports and the relentless corporatism of the process—in the next election remains to be seen.
The Bloc has already threatened to try to bring down the government over Afghanistan. The NDP is extremely well placed to take the issue on, but seems reluctant to make it the centrepiece of their electoral vision. The Green Party's intentions are good, but they have almost no resources to carry them out. And the Liberals always run from the left, so their “strong and free” document is likely to suffer the same fate as other such promises (like Paul Martin's Red Book), even if does end up in their platform.
Creating traction
Despite these positive signs, if the opposition parties believe deep integration has little traction, they will drop it as an issue. So it will be up to the social and environmental movements and organized labour to make deep integration and the SPP the central issue of the next election. That it should be the central issue seems obvious. There is no better time to reverse 20 years of Americanization of Canada. We will likely still have George Bush as U.S. president, a gift to Canadian nationalists. The U.S. itself is in rapid decline by most measures, and Canadians' alarm over global warming creates a perfect context for challenging the power of oil companies to determine Canadian public policy.
The Montebello summit, and the unprecedented exposé of police provocateurs, marked the end of the secrecy phase of deep integration. The parallel with the fight against the Free Trade Agreement of Brian Mulroney is striking. Following years of secrecy, Mulroney and his Bay Street cronies finally had to come out in the open and defend the substance of the deal—and they almost lost the 1988 election. But the NDP got it wrong that time and Mulroney walked away with the spoils. This time the stakes are even higher. Everyone will have to get it right or we really will lose the country.
Murray Dobbin writes from Vancouver. This column has appeared in The Tyee.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Ignatieff falls for loyal, clean, puffin
I agree with the scientist that birds should not be judged in terms of humans. Birds do not create Weapons of Mass Destruction and they do not watch hour long memorials on the tenth anniversary of Princess Diana's death. They go about their bird business. It seems that there are in most societies linkages between birds and animals and human culture though.
Liberals may approve of hiding excrement to keep their politics clean but the opposition will go to any length to dig it up again. The puffin is hot a very good flyer and has to work like the devil to keep aloft. It often crash lands. This is a good metaphor for Liberal fortunes.
Ignatieff falls for loyal, clean puffin
'A Symbol For Our Party'
Craig Offman, National Post
Published: Friday, August 31, 2007
Move over, mighty eagle. Here comes the proud puffin.
Outside the Liberal party caucus retreat being held in St. John's yesterday, deputy leader Michael Ignatieff praised the morals of Newfoundland's provincial bird and suggested his party make it the symbol for the Grits.
"It's a noble bird because it has good family values. They stay together for 30 years," Mr. Ignatieff said, adding that the bird is an industrious creature that embodies Liberal values. "This seems to me a symbol for what our party should be."
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Atlantic Puffins nesting on Machias Island in the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick.
Diane Doiron/National Post
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Font: ****The MP and philosopher also added that "they lay one egg [each year]. They put their excrement in one place. They hide their excrement. ... They flap their wings very hard and they work like hell," according to a report from The Canadian Press.
Formerly called the common puffin, the Atlantic puffin is one of four species in the Alcidae (Auk) family of seabirds and the most prevalent in the Newfoundland area. In the late 1800s, scientists gave it the Latin name fratercula arctica, or "little brother of the north." A potential pun, the puffin's black and white plumage resembles the robes of a friar, or brother.
Dr. Stephen Kress, an ornithology professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and the director of the Seabird Restoration Program of the National Audubon Society, said he agrees with Mr. Ignatieff 's assessment of the bird's nobility, though he questioned the Liberal MP's estimate of their conjugal time.
"They are noted for monogamy," said Dr. Kress. "But we don't have any records for birds who stay together that long."
The bird's typical life expectancy is 20 years, but on occasion can stretch to 30.
Dr. Kress said the birds are discriminating mate-pickers. They have an engagement period and will cohabitate for a year before having a chick. This happens around the age of five. During the five-week incubation period, the parents share responsibility in the home, which is often nestled in soil burrows on sides of cliffs. Both father and mother will take turns keeping the egg warm under their wings. Indeed, only one egg is laid annually, and the same burrow is kept every year.
Once the chick is born, parents fret over cleanliness, which in part entails a separate spot for the young bird to relieve itself. "The puffin goes to great lengths to keep the burrow clean," added Dr. Kress. Oils from the excrement could damage a young bird's feathers. As the chick matures, the toilet is moved closer to the burrow entrance, eliminating the risk of exposure.
Contrary to common perception, puffins don't starve their young so that they'll leave. Parents collect fish for their chicks, who leave of their own volition, and then protect the area from invaders. The puffin wards them off by puffing up their cheeks and showing the orange insides of its mouth, a form of what scientists call "gape display." No noise is made during the exchange.
While some Liberals might welcome the suggestion, some scientists might be dismissive. "In my view, birds shouldn't be judges in terms of humans. This is what scientists have been fighting for centuries," said Michel Gosselin, an expert on birds who works at the Canadian Museum of Nature. "There is no such thing as a noble bird. What? Would the bird be more noble if he laid 20 eggs a year?"
Liberals may approve of hiding excrement to keep their politics clean but the opposition will go to any length to dig it up again. The puffin is hot a very good flyer and has to work like the devil to keep aloft. It often crash lands. This is a good metaphor for Liberal fortunes.
Ignatieff falls for loyal, clean puffin
'A Symbol For Our Party'
Craig Offman, National Post
Published: Friday, August 31, 2007
Move over, mighty eagle. Here comes the proud puffin.
Outside the Liberal party caucus retreat being held in St. John's yesterday, deputy leader Michael Ignatieff praised the morals of Newfoundland's provincial bird and suggested his party make it the symbol for the Grits.
"It's a noble bird because it has good family values. They stay together for 30 years," Mr. Ignatieff said, adding that the bird is an industrious creature that embodies Liberal values. "This seems to me a symbol for what our party should be."
View Larger Image
Atlantic Puffins nesting on Machias Island in the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick.
Diane Doiron/National Post
Email to a friend
Printer friendly
Font: ****The MP and philosopher also added that "they lay one egg [each year]. They put their excrement in one place. They hide their excrement. ... They flap their wings very hard and they work like hell," according to a report from The Canadian Press.
Formerly called the common puffin, the Atlantic puffin is one of four species in the Alcidae (Auk) family of seabirds and the most prevalent in the Newfoundland area. In the late 1800s, scientists gave it the Latin name fratercula arctica, or "little brother of the north." A potential pun, the puffin's black and white plumage resembles the robes of a friar, or brother.
Dr. Stephen Kress, an ornithology professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and the director of the Seabird Restoration Program of the National Audubon Society, said he agrees with Mr. Ignatieff 's assessment of the bird's nobility, though he questioned the Liberal MP's estimate of their conjugal time.
"They are noted for monogamy," said Dr. Kress. "But we don't have any records for birds who stay together that long."
The bird's typical life expectancy is 20 years, but on occasion can stretch to 30.
Dr. Kress said the birds are discriminating mate-pickers. They have an engagement period and will cohabitate for a year before having a chick. This happens around the age of five. During the five-week incubation period, the parents share responsibility in the home, which is often nestled in soil burrows on sides of cliffs. Both father and mother will take turns keeping the egg warm under their wings. Indeed, only one egg is laid annually, and the same burrow is kept every year.
Once the chick is born, parents fret over cleanliness, which in part entails a separate spot for the young bird to relieve itself. "The puffin goes to great lengths to keep the burrow clean," added Dr. Kress. Oils from the excrement could damage a young bird's feathers. As the chick matures, the toilet is moved closer to the burrow entrance, eliminating the risk of exposure.
Contrary to common perception, puffins don't starve their young so that they'll leave. Parents collect fish for their chicks, who leave of their own volition, and then protect the area from invaders. The puffin wards them off by puffing up their cheeks and showing the orange insides of its mouth, a form of what scientists call "gape display." No noise is made during the exchange.
While some Liberals might welcome the suggestion, some scientists might be dismissive. "In my view, birds shouldn't be judges in terms of humans. This is what scientists have been fighting for centuries," said Michel Gosselin, an expert on birds who works at the Canadian Museum of Nature. "There is no such thing as a noble bird. What? Would the bird be more noble if he laid 20 eggs a year?"
The "other" war at home.
I don't know why Riley thinks it is obvious that Canadian troops will be withdrawn in 2009. Harper probably wants to extend the period and no doubt some people in the military as well. The drug trade depends on the co-operation of many people besides the Taliban and many of those who profit have connections with or are even part of the government. Partial destruction of the crops is worse than useless. It hurts the farmer's concerned who will then turn to the Taliban but the dealers remain unscathed as drug prices go up because of the relative scarcity and so their income may not decline at all. For some reason the news media never mentions that under the Taliban production was severely curtailed.
Susan Riley . The "other" war at home
Susan Riley
The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, August 31, 2007
It is amazing the way politicians can make simple things so complicated. It seems obvious, for instance, that Canada's troops will be withdrawn from Kandahar in February, 2009, as originally planned.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said the final decision will be made by the Commons, where a majority of MPs support withdrawal - in the case of the New Democratic Party, immediate withdrawal. Even if New Democrats insist, as they have before, on their own timetable and no other, it would be suicidal for them to support the government if it risks extending the mission, even if it risks prolonging the ambiguity.
On the other side, there isn't much political downside in voting for withdrawal. If anything, support for the war is likely to wane, rather than rise, with mounting casualties and increasing evidence of the mission's futility. Nor can Canada be accused of cutting and running, given the costs born by our much-admired military and the conspicuous reluctance of other countries to join the battle.
But instead of accepting reality and beginning the crucial debate on what role, if any, Canada should play in Afghanistan after Kandahar, the parties are consumed with domestic positioning. Gilles Duceppe has declared that he will not vote for the Throne Speech, expected in October, unless it confirms plans to leave Kandahar by 2009. Duceppe has little choice: with Quebec opinion massively against the war and hardening with every death, it is his best wedge against a resurgent Conservative party.
Yesterday, Liberal Leader Stphane Dion was more circumspect: he appears not to want a sudden election, but he keeps pushing Harper to make Canada's position clear to our allies. He has a point: why prolong the uncertainty, when everyone knows we are headed for the door? On the other hand, Harper - accused by Dion of wanting to extend the mission, not end it - has no reason to hurry. Anything could happen in the next 17 months (including, of course, increasing pressure for a speedier withdrawal). Whatever, even a delayed decision by Canada to pull out will hardly surprise our NATO allies; they read newspapers, too.
While this petty skirmishing continues, only glancing attention was paid to a report from the Senlis Council this week, an international research agency headed by Canadian lawyer Norine MacDonald. The council found scant evidence that Canada's aid money is finding its way to Kandahar. Although CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) has earmarked $5.3 million for Kandahar's main Mirwais hospital, for instance, MacDonald's team found starving children on the wards and over-taxed doctors dealing with acute shortages of drugs, beds and cleaning staff. As for $350,000 allocated by CIDA for a maternity facility at the hospital, MacDonald's video team found only an empty tent that was removed after it finished filming.
Newly appointed CIDA minister Bev Oda said MacDonald didn't have "all the information" and insists Canadian aid money is finding its way to Kandahar - even though CIDA only has three officers in the country and a small local staff to track it.
But whom to believe? A minister, two minutes into her job (and not a notable success at her last), confined, as are all Harper's ministers, to reading approved lines from the PMO? Or MacDonald, who has lived and worked in Kandahar for more than two years and travelled widely in the region, sometimes disguised as a boy? Nor does Senlis have a notably anti-Tory agenda: it supports the mission in Afghanistan and believes premature withdrawal would mean disaster for the people it is trying to help.
However, it is also urging western governments to divert some of Afghanistan's flourishing poppy crop to the production of legal medicines, much needed in poorer countries. This seemingly sensible suggestion has been met mostly with silence from our government. Meanwhile, U.S. forces continue destroying poppy fields, while some NATO countries quietly disagree, others take a hands-off position - and Afghanistan produces a record heroin crop destined for the world's most squalid neighbourhoods.
There are, in fact, two wars in Afghanistan: the real one that MacDonald, and other eye-witnesses describe, the one the Taliban and the drug lords appear to be winning. There is also the largely notional war being waged by western ideologues and politicians.
The fact that the Taliban is now killing our soldiers with roadside bombs, instead of bullets, for instance, is offered as evidence that we have beaten them on the battlefield. (Talk about Pyrrhic victories). The $1 billion earmarked by CIDA for reconstruction is advanced as proof of our humanitarian concern, although there is little to show for the money on the ground.
Never mind. This is the war we are winning.
Susan Riley's column runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
E-mail: sriley@thecitizen.canwest.com
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
Susan Riley . The "other" war at home
Susan Riley
The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, August 31, 2007
It is amazing the way politicians can make simple things so complicated. It seems obvious, for instance, that Canada's troops will be withdrawn from Kandahar in February, 2009, as originally planned.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said the final decision will be made by the Commons, where a majority of MPs support withdrawal - in the case of the New Democratic Party, immediate withdrawal. Even if New Democrats insist, as they have before, on their own timetable and no other, it would be suicidal for them to support the government if it risks extending the mission, even if it risks prolonging the ambiguity.
On the other side, there isn't much political downside in voting for withdrawal. If anything, support for the war is likely to wane, rather than rise, with mounting casualties and increasing evidence of the mission's futility. Nor can Canada be accused of cutting and running, given the costs born by our much-admired military and the conspicuous reluctance of other countries to join the battle.
But instead of accepting reality and beginning the crucial debate on what role, if any, Canada should play in Afghanistan after Kandahar, the parties are consumed with domestic positioning. Gilles Duceppe has declared that he will not vote for the Throne Speech, expected in October, unless it confirms plans to leave Kandahar by 2009. Duceppe has little choice: with Quebec opinion massively against the war and hardening with every death, it is his best wedge against a resurgent Conservative party.
Yesterday, Liberal Leader Stphane Dion was more circumspect: he appears not to want a sudden election, but he keeps pushing Harper to make Canada's position clear to our allies. He has a point: why prolong the uncertainty, when everyone knows we are headed for the door? On the other hand, Harper - accused by Dion of wanting to extend the mission, not end it - has no reason to hurry. Anything could happen in the next 17 months (including, of course, increasing pressure for a speedier withdrawal). Whatever, even a delayed decision by Canada to pull out will hardly surprise our NATO allies; they read newspapers, too.
While this petty skirmishing continues, only glancing attention was paid to a report from the Senlis Council this week, an international research agency headed by Canadian lawyer Norine MacDonald. The council found scant evidence that Canada's aid money is finding its way to Kandahar. Although CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) has earmarked $5.3 million for Kandahar's main Mirwais hospital, for instance, MacDonald's team found starving children on the wards and over-taxed doctors dealing with acute shortages of drugs, beds and cleaning staff. As for $350,000 allocated by CIDA for a maternity facility at the hospital, MacDonald's video team found only an empty tent that was removed after it finished filming.
Newly appointed CIDA minister Bev Oda said MacDonald didn't have "all the information" and insists Canadian aid money is finding its way to Kandahar - even though CIDA only has three officers in the country and a small local staff to track it.
But whom to believe? A minister, two minutes into her job (and not a notable success at her last), confined, as are all Harper's ministers, to reading approved lines from the PMO? Or MacDonald, who has lived and worked in Kandahar for more than two years and travelled widely in the region, sometimes disguised as a boy? Nor does Senlis have a notably anti-Tory agenda: it supports the mission in Afghanistan and believes premature withdrawal would mean disaster for the people it is trying to help.
However, it is also urging western governments to divert some of Afghanistan's flourishing poppy crop to the production of legal medicines, much needed in poorer countries. This seemingly sensible suggestion has been met mostly with silence from our government. Meanwhile, U.S. forces continue destroying poppy fields, while some NATO countries quietly disagree, others take a hands-off position - and Afghanistan produces a record heroin crop destined for the world's most squalid neighbourhoods.
There are, in fact, two wars in Afghanistan: the real one that MacDonald, and other eye-witnesses describe, the one the Taliban and the drug lords appear to be winning. There is also the largely notional war being waged by western ideologues and politicians.
The fact that the Taliban is now killing our soldiers with roadside bombs, instead of bullets, for instance, is offered as evidence that we have beaten them on the battlefield. (Talk about Pyrrhic victories). The $1 billion earmarked by CIDA for reconstruction is advanced as proof of our humanitarian concern, although there is little to show for the money on the ground.
Never mind. This is the war we are winning.
Susan Riley's column runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
E-mail: sriley@thecitizen.canwest.com
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Slogan on Billboard endorsed by National Citizens Coalition.
Support our troops has always been politicised. You can hardly support the troops and not the mission when supporting the troops has come to mean supporting them in the mission. We should support the troops by bringing them home.
This pitiful patriotic mindless but emotionally compelling drivel about supporting the troops is imported from the USA together with the ribbon logo. The constant coverage of the cruel losses and heartbreak of families shown on TV reinforces the effects. So far we have not had the absolutely nauseating maudlin ads that are now being inflicted on the US public that are even more transparent in misusing people's natural feelings for purely propagandistic purposes.
Support our Troops slogan endorsed by National Citizens Coalition
Toronto's famous political billboard confirms politicization of the slogan.
TORONTO, August 29, 2007: A billboard at the intersection of Bay and Gerrard that is usually used as a political message board is currently rented to the right-wing National Citizens Coalition to promote the "Support Our Troops" slogan. Promoters of the slogan who stage "red rallies" and lobby to put bumper stickers on public vehicles usually maintain the slogan is not political and does not promote Canada's warlike mission in Afghanistan. This slogan's prominent endorsement by the organization of which Stephen Harper was President before returning to politics - Canada's leading right-wing lobby group - argues otherwise.
This pitiful patriotic mindless but emotionally compelling drivel about supporting the troops is imported from the USA together with the ribbon logo. The constant coverage of the cruel losses and heartbreak of families shown on TV reinforces the effects. So far we have not had the absolutely nauseating maudlin ads that are now being inflicted on the US public that are even more transparent in misusing people's natural feelings for purely propagandistic purposes.
Support our Troops slogan endorsed by National Citizens Coalition
Toronto's famous political billboard confirms politicization of the slogan.
TORONTO, August 29, 2007: A billboard at the intersection of Bay and Gerrard that is usually used as a political message board is currently rented to the right-wing National Citizens Coalition to promote the "Support Our Troops" slogan. Promoters of the slogan who stage "red rallies" and lobby to put bumper stickers on public vehicles usually maintain the slogan is not political and does not promote Canada's warlike mission in Afghanistan. This slogan's prominent endorsement by the organization of which Stephen Harper was President before returning to politics - Canada's leading right-wing lobby group - argues otherwise.
Dion urges Harper to pull troops from Afghanistan in 2009
There is no danger of the Liberal motion causing much problem for Harper since the NDP will vote with the Conservatives since they take the view that the troops should be withdrawn right now.
Not only regular troops and some support people serving in Afghanistan but our secret special forces are serving alongside their US counterparts. Nothing like togetherness of the spooky groups. I quote:
The Department of National Defence has also admitted that Canada's secret special forces, Joint Task Force Two, has been operating alongside the American and other special forces units in Afghanistan but no details have ever been released.
Dion again urges Harper to pull troops from Afghanistan in 2009
Last Updated: Thursday, August 30, 2007 | 2:29 PM ET
CBC News
Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion again urged Prime Minister Stephen Harper to commit to a full troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2009 and to notify NATO and participating countries of that plan so they can find a replacement.
(CBC) Parliament had approved the mission until February 2009. If the Conservative government doesn't commit to end the deployment at that time, Dion said he will make the issue the Liberal's first motion when Parliament reconvenes on Sept. 17.
"We'll do that as our first gesture in the public," Dion said at a news conference following the party's caucus retreat in St. John's, where members have been plotting strategy for Parliament's fall session.
Dion said he won't make it a confidence vote, but that there may "come a time we'll not be able to keep this government alive."
The Liberals have said the government may be planning to extend the mission because it is buying military equipment, including some equipment that may not be ready until after combat operations in Afghanistan are scheduled to end.
Other opposition leaders have also been calling for the government to firmly commit to the withdrawal date.
Earlier in August, Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe vowed in the wake of the deaths of three Quebec-based soldiers to bring down the government if it does not commit to a full troop withdrawal in 2009.
Duceppe also said if Harper does not soon notify NATO of Canada's plans, the Bloc will vote against the expected autumn throne speech with the hopes of bringing the government down. Duceppe would need the Liberals to vote with his party in order to succeed.
NDP Leader Jack Layton has been calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops.
In April, a Liberal motion to end Canadian combat operations in southern Afghanistan by February 2009 was defeated in the House of Commons.
Canada has more than 2,500 soldiers serving in the NATO-led international deployment in Afghanistan. Sixty-nine soldiers and one diplomat have died since the mission began in early 2002.
Not only regular troops and some support people serving in Afghanistan but our secret special forces are serving alongside their US counterparts. Nothing like togetherness of the spooky groups. I quote:
The Department of National Defence has also admitted that Canada's secret special forces, Joint Task Force Two, has been operating alongside the American and other special forces units in Afghanistan but no details have ever been released.
Dion again urges Harper to pull troops from Afghanistan in 2009
Last Updated: Thursday, August 30, 2007 | 2:29 PM ET
CBC News
Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion again urged Prime Minister Stephen Harper to commit to a full troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2009 and to notify NATO and participating countries of that plan so they can find a replacement.
(CBC) Parliament had approved the mission until February 2009. If the Conservative government doesn't commit to end the deployment at that time, Dion said he will make the issue the Liberal's first motion when Parliament reconvenes on Sept. 17.
"We'll do that as our first gesture in the public," Dion said at a news conference following the party's caucus retreat in St. John's, where members have been plotting strategy for Parliament's fall session.
Dion said he won't make it a confidence vote, but that there may "come a time we'll not be able to keep this government alive."
The Liberals have said the government may be planning to extend the mission because it is buying military equipment, including some equipment that may not be ready until after combat operations in Afghanistan are scheduled to end.
Other opposition leaders have also been calling for the government to firmly commit to the withdrawal date.
Earlier in August, Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe vowed in the wake of the deaths of three Quebec-based soldiers to bring down the government if it does not commit to a full troop withdrawal in 2009.
Duceppe also said if Harper does not soon notify NATO of Canada's plans, the Bloc will vote against the expected autumn throne speech with the hopes of bringing the government down. Duceppe would need the Liberals to vote with his party in order to succeed.
NDP Leader Jack Layton has been calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops.
In April, a Liberal motion to end Canadian combat operations in southern Afghanistan by February 2009 was defeated in the House of Commons.
Canada has more than 2,500 soldiers serving in the NATO-led international deployment in Afghanistan. Sixty-nine soldiers and one diplomat have died since the mission began in early 2002.
US tourism to Canada declines
There is no specific data on tourists from countries other than the US. The by the numbers section does not list the money spent in Canada by Americans. In spite of the decline perhaps there is still a balance in Canada's favor. Who can tell the way the data is presented.
It is not surprising there is a decline given the fact that our dollars will soon be close to par. The tourist gurus of course think of the issue in terms of branding. We should up our image to an exotic but more expensive destination. However much of Canada is similar to the adjacent US states. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and North Dakota and part of Montana are quite similar except that Winnipeg is larger than any city in North Dakota. As mentioned as well worries about border crossing may be a factor.
On the matter of being cheap, friends who live near the border in Manitoba go to the US because they think it is cheap with our dollar so strong.
TOURISM: CANADA'S BAGGAGE
Boring and not-so cheap
MATT HARTLEY AND JOANNA SMITH
August 30, 2007
Fewer Americans made the trip north in the first three months of this year, making it the weakest first quarter for overnight visits from the U.S. in a decade.
According to data from Statistics Canada, there were fewer than 1.8-million overnight trips to Canada by Americans in the quarter, down 6.3 per cent from the same quarter of 2006. It was the eighth consecutive year-over-year quarterly decrease.
"I think we have a 'lack of an image' problem," said Mark Weisbarth, president of Due North Communications, a Toronto advertising agency. "I think we are just not seen as exotic or interesting in the way that other countries are."
Martin Beauvais, creative director at Toronto ad firm Zig Inc., said Canada's image problem lies in not being expensive enough.
"We're probably in their minds a cheap place to go, or a cheap alternative to the States, which is terrible," he said. "You want to go to London, you want to go to Paris ... you go to Canada because it's cheap."
Gas prices were only slightly higher in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2006, according to the report.
Some said the confusion over passport rules may have contributed to the decrease.
Since January, anyone flying between the U.S. and Canada has been required to carry a passport. Although the law doesn't apply to those travelling by car, experts suggested many thought it did.Howard Blank is the vice-president of Richmond, B.C.-based Great Canadian Gaming Corp., which owns 18 casinos and race tracks across Canada, many within driving distance of the U.S. border.
"We have noticed the U.S. visitor has gone down while some of the other countries' visitors have either remained the same or gone up," he said. "I think that is all due to the fact that many U.S. visitors are worried about the border, and passports and identification whereas in the past it was basically show your driver's licence and you're in."
And now that the Canadian dollar is trading closer to par with its American counterpart, U.S. travellers aren't getting as much bang for their buck as they once did. "It wasn't five years ago that if you were an American coming up to Canada, fundamentally you could stay two nights and the third night was free when the dollar was trading at 66 cents," said Tony Pollard, president of the Hotel Association of Canada. "Now the dollar is 94 cents and it doesn't make any difference any more."
Of the10 states that supply the most overnight travellers to Canada, eight sent fewer than last year. Michigan travellers posted the largest decrease with 16.9 per cent fewer overnight trips in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2006.
Christine Melnyk is the general manager of Quality Suites Downtown hotel in Windsor, located just across the Detroit River from Michigan.
"Our numbers are down, particularly earlier this year when I think there was confusion about the passport issue," she said. "January and February were very soft for this market. There's still a fairly high level of confusion on the passport issue."
American spending in Canada was down 5 per cent compared with the first quarter of 2006, at an estimated $915-million.
Real Robichaud, executive director of the Tourism Industry Association of New Brunswick, said the Atlantic provinces have seen fewer Americans on their streets over the past three or four years.
"Certainly there's the exchange rate," he said. "Price of gas is another reason, but you also have the security aspect."
Part of the problem is that Americans typically travel less while they're at war, he said.
*****
By the numbers
3.6 million
Number of overnight trips by Canadians to the U.S. in the first quarter of 2007, up 4.8 per cent from the same period last year.
$3-billion
Amount of money Canadians spent in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2007, up 5 per cent from the same period last year.
$10-billion
Amount of money Canadians spent in the U.S. in 2006, up 7.3 per cent from the previous year.
1 million
Number of overnight trips by Canadians to Florida - the most popular state to visit - in the first quarter of 2007, up 14 per cent.
$1-billion
Amount of money Canadians spent in Florida in the first quarter of 2007, up 10 per cent from the previous year.
It is not surprising there is a decline given the fact that our dollars will soon be close to par. The tourist gurus of course think of the issue in terms of branding. We should up our image to an exotic but more expensive destination. However much of Canada is similar to the adjacent US states. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and North Dakota and part of Montana are quite similar except that Winnipeg is larger than any city in North Dakota. As mentioned as well worries about border crossing may be a factor.
On the matter of being cheap, friends who live near the border in Manitoba go to the US because they think it is cheap with our dollar so strong.
TOURISM: CANADA'S BAGGAGE
Boring and not-so cheap
MATT HARTLEY AND JOANNA SMITH
August 30, 2007
Fewer Americans made the trip north in the first three months of this year, making it the weakest first quarter for overnight visits from the U.S. in a decade.
According to data from Statistics Canada, there were fewer than 1.8-million overnight trips to Canada by Americans in the quarter, down 6.3 per cent from the same quarter of 2006. It was the eighth consecutive year-over-year quarterly decrease.
"I think we have a 'lack of an image' problem," said Mark Weisbarth, president of Due North Communications, a Toronto advertising agency. "I think we are just not seen as exotic or interesting in the way that other countries are."
Martin Beauvais, creative director at Toronto ad firm Zig Inc., said Canada's image problem lies in not being expensive enough.
"We're probably in their minds a cheap place to go, or a cheap alternative to the States, which is terrible," he said. "You want to go to London, you want to go to Paris ... you go to Canada because it's cheap."
Gas prices were only slightly higher in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2006, according to the report.
Some said the confusion over passport rules may have contributed to the decrease.
Since January, anyone flying between the U.S. and Canada has been required to carry a passport. Although the law doesn't apply to those travelling by car, experts suggested many thought it did.Howard Blank is the vice-president of Richmond, B.C.-based Great Canadian Gaming Corp., which owns 18 casinos and race tracks across Canada, many within driving distance of the U.S. border.
"We have noticed the U.S. visitor has gone down while some of the other countries' visitors have either remained the same or gone up," he said. "I think that is all due to the fact that many U.S. visitors are worried about the border, and passports and identification whereas in the past it was basically show your driver's licence and you're in."
And now that the Canadian dollar is trading closer to par with its American counterpart, U.S. travellers aren't getting as much bang for their buck as they once did. "It wasn't five years ago that if you were an American coming up to Canada, fundamentally you could stay two nights and the third night was free when the dollar was trading at 66 cents," said Tony Pollard, president of the Hotel Association of Canada. "Now the dollar is 94 cents and it doesn't make any difference any more."
Of the10 states that supply the most overnight travellers to Canada, eight sent fewer than last year. Michigan travellers posted the largest decrease with 16.9 per cent fewer overnight trips in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2006.
Christine Melnyk is the general manager of Quality Suites Downtown hotel in Windsor, located just across the Detroit River from Michigan.
"Our numbers are down, particularly earlier this year when I think there was confusion about the passport issue," she said. "January and February were very soft for this market. There's still a fairly high level of confusion on the passport issue."
American spending in Canada was down 5 per cent compared with the first quarter of 2006, at an estimated $915-million.
Real Robichaud, executive director of the Tourism Industry Association of New Brunswick, said the Atlantic provinces have seen fewer Americans on their streets over the past three or four years.
"Certainly there's the exchange rate," he said. "Price of gas is another reason, but you also have the security aspect."
Part of the problem is that Americans typically travel less while they're at war, he said.
*****
By the numbers
3.6 million
Number of overnight trips by Canadians to the U.S. in the first quarter of 2007, up 4.8 per cent from the same period last year.
$3-billion
Amount of money Canadians spent in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2007, up 5 per cent from the same period last year.
$10-billion
Amount of money Canadians spent in the U.S. in 2006, up 7.3 per cent from the previous year.
1 million
Number of overnight trips by Canadians to Florida - the most popular state to visit - in the first quarter of 2007, up 14 per cent.
$1-billion
Amount of money Canadians spent in Florida in the first quarter of 2007, up 10 per cent from the previous year.
Ontario Election Polls
The Liberal ads I have seen on TV seem mainly negative directed against Tory (pun intended) policy on health care and funding of faith-based schools. The present polls seem to indicate a minority government. A minority government might be better than either of the major parties gaining a majority. The suggestions offered the parties all smack of the importance of selling over any concern about policies per se. But then this is what contemporary politics is all about branding your product. Perhaps as suggested here the NDP's relation to the Greens will mimic that of the Liberals to the NDP. A vote for Y the smaller party is a wasted vote so vote for X the bigger brother.
August 30, 2007
Ontario voters waiting for a leader to emerge
By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD, TORONTO SUN
An SES-Sun Media poll released on the eve of the provincial election campaign delivers bad news for all three provincial party leaders.
The poll reveals 40% support for the Liberals; 34% for the Tories; 19% for the NDP and 8% for the Greens.
And that, says SES pollster Nik Nanos, means there's no good news for anyone.
Sure, Premier Dalton McGuinty has a six-point lead going into the election, but that means a minority government for the Liberals.
Progressive Conservative leader John Tory isn't making any of the gains he needs. His support is stalled. And New Democratic leader Howard Hampton is fighting wars on two fronts -- against the Liberals on his right and the Greens on his left.
All elections are about leadership, but on Oct. 10 it's going to be even more vital, Nanos says.
"If one of the party leaders shines or does a good job, that could have a significant impact on the campaign, much more than usual, just because there is a significant block of voters who are unsure who would make the best premier," he says.
And Nanos offers some strategies for the parties as they await the drop of the writ Sept. 10.
For McGuinty: "As the incumbent his best strategy is to try to make the election about someone else -- i.e. John Tory -- and not about the Liberals, and also have an appeal to NDP supporters in order to block the Conservatives.
"In a way it's a variation of the federal Liberal strategy: Demonize the Conservatives and scare New Democrats into strategically voting for the Liberals," Nanos says.
For Tory: His problem is the religious school issue, says Nanos.
"He has to change the channel on that to ensure that the election is not about him and his policy on faith-based schools, but about the Liberals and their record related to tax promises, etc."
"He needs to re-cast all those Liberal goodies that have been announced as sheer political opportunism."
MAJOR GOOF
Nanos says Tory's best hope is for the Liberals to make a major goof during the campaign.
"This election is really about whether the Liberals make a mistake and lose the election," said Nanos.
For Hampton: Nanos says the NDP leader has the toughest job of all the leaders, since his political life is on the line.
"Now he has to fight a two-front war. On one front he has to make sure he doesn't bleed support to the Liberals. On the other front he has make sure the Green Party doesn't become the protest vote -- the 'none of the above,' for voters.
"His best strategy for the Green Party is to say he likes a lot of what they stand for, but it's a wasted vote. He has to move those Green votes into the NDP column without offending them," he said.
Interestingly, the so-called "Slushgate" scandal, where millions of dollars in unaccountable dollars went out the door in grants, doesn't seem to have hurt the Liberals. Nanos says people simply aren't paying attention to politics in the summer.
"Now it would be a much different environment."
Nanos attributes the Liberals' bump in the polls partly to the flurry of funding announcements they've made recently and says the opposition parties need to get proactive about branding them as election-motivated.
So, it seems, McGuinty's best plan is for the long hot summer to continue into October. Tory must show leadership -- and pray for a Liberal gaffe. And Hampton needs a shield and a sword -- to fight off the Greens on one side and protect against the Liberals on the other.
What an election this is shaping up to be!
August 30, 2007
Ontario voters waiting for a leader to emerge
By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD, TORONTO SUN
An SES-Sun Media poll released on the eve of the provincial election campaign delivers bad news for all three provincial party leaders.
The poll reveals 40% support for the Liberals; 34% for the Tories; 19% for the NDP and 8% for the Greens.
And that, says SES pollster Nik Nanos, means there's no good news for anyone.
Sure, Premier Dalton McGuinty has a six-point lead going into the election, but that means a minority government for the Liberals.
Progressive Conservative leader John Tory isn't making any of the gains he needs. His support is stalled. And New Democratic leader Howard Hampton is fighting wars on two fronts -- against the Liberals on his right and the Greens on his left.
All elections are about leadership, but on Oct. 10 it's going to be even more vital, Nanos says.
"If one of the party leaders shines or does a good job, that could have a significant impact on the campaign, much more than usual, just because there is a significant block of voters who are unsure who would make the best premier," he says.
And Nanos offers some strategies for the parties as they await the drop of the writ Sept. 10.
For McGuinty: "As the incumbent his best strategy is to try to make the election about someone else -- i.e. John Tory -- and not about the Liberals, and also have an appeal to NDP supporters in order to block the Conservatives.
"In a way it's a variation of the federal Liberal strategy: Demonize the Conservatives and scare New Democrats into strategically voting for the Liberals," Nanos says.
For Tory: His problem is the religious school issue, says Nanos.
"He has to change the channel on that to ensure that the election is not about him and his policy on faith-based schools, but about the Liberals and their record related to tax promises, etc."
"He needs to re-cast all those Liberal goodies that have been announced as sheer political opportunism."
MAJOR GOOF
Nanos says Tory's best hope is for the Liberals to make a major goof during the campaign.
"This election is really about whether the Liberals make a mistake and lose the election," said Nanos.
For Hampton: Nanos says the NDP leader has the toughest job of all the leaders, since his political life is on the line.
"Now he has to fight a two-front war. On one front he has to make sure he doesn't bleed support to the Liberals. On the other front he has make sure the Green Party doesn't become the protest vote -- the 'none of the above,' for voters.
"His best strategy for the Green Party is to say he likes a lot of what they stand for, but it's a wasted vote. He has to move those Green votes into the NDP column without offending them," he said.
Interestingly, the so-called "Slushgate" scandal, where millions of dollars in unaccountable dollars went out the door in grants, doesn't seem to have hurt the Liberals. Nanos says people simply aren't paying attention to politics in the summer.
"Now it would be a much different environment."
Nanos attributes the Liberals' bump in the polls partly to the flurry of funding announcements they've made recently and says the opposition parties need to get proactive about branding them as election-motivated.
So, it seems, McGuinty's best plan is for the long hot summer to continue into October. Tory must show leadership -- and pray for a Liberal gaffe. And Hampton needs a shield and a sword -- to fight off the Greens on one side and protect against the Liberals on the other.
What an election this is shaping up to be!
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Dave Coles on Montebello protests
The Harper Index often has interesting posts. Coles shows quite convincingly that the undercover cops were not doing as the official police story claims.
Democracy threat countered by Youtube and indie media - union leader Dave Coles
Agents provocateurs only the tip of Montebello story.
HALIFAX, NS, August 27, 2007: Yesterday, HarperIndex.ca interviewed Dave Coles, the union leader at the centre of the Montebello agents provocateurs story, by phone during his stop at the Halifax airport. Coles is President of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers of Canada. He has been active in union organizing since 1967, and got his start with the local representing pulp mill workers in Crofton, British Columbia. We present excerpts of the interview:
HarperIndex.ca: A week later, how do you feel about Montebello?
Dave Coles: I feel disappointed and disgusted. I've been around people being infiltrated all my life in the labour movement. It never stops. These people will resort to every dirty trick in the world.
It's not uncommon in the progressive movements for either the corporate cops or the state police to do this kind of thing. They have used these types of tactics for 100 years, from the Pinkertons to the RCMP.
HI: What's new here?
Dave Coles: What's new here is they tried to agitate or cause trouble with demonstrators who clearly were no threat to anyone. We were dressed in suits and jackets and dresses and sandals, no masks to be seen. We were holding a police line back and held it back for hours.
The police were trying to move on six young protesters who had stopped their line and were sitting in the road, but they didn't have masks on. We had backed away from main gates of Montebello when the police forces got pretty rough with us. A couple of times during the day, some of the direct action kids came to our line trying to get us to do something provocative, and I talked them down.
An hour or so earlier, we were being taunted by the police. They stole from one of my staff a flagpole with a CEP flag and ran through the graveyard taunting us with it.
Our union has a very critical story to tell. Harper and his crew don't want it out.
HI: Was this done by plainclothesmen?
Dave Coles: No, it was the cops, the Darth Vader crew. This is why I maintain that somewhere up the political ladder someone is giving instructions to not let us tell our story. Our union has a very critical story to tell. Harper and his crew don't want it out.
That's why we were in Montebello. It's all about Canada's energy security. The SPP has nine working groups on energy, all corporate executives and bureaucrats. There's nobody there from civil society or politicians. The Harper government is bowing to every American wish possible at the cost of energy security for Canada.
There is no pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to refineries in eastern Canada. All production, to get to eastern Canada, must go through the United States of America. Ninety nine percent of all Canadians, including most politicians, don't understand that.
The Harper government has been pushing through the FTA [Free Trade Agreement] to speed up pipeline expansion proposals to export bitumen [unprocessed oil sands]. There are pipeline applications to export 5 million barrels a day of this stuff by 2015. We have applications saying this ain't right. The stuff should be processed in Canada so we get the economic value from it, and the jobs, and society gets to determine the overall value we will get from it. Harper and his gang want it sold and shipped directly to the States. Canada, and especially Alberta, get the pollution, and the U.S. gets the jobs.
When Canadian raw crude oil has to go through the U.S. before it can get to any eastern refineries, including the big Irving refinery in St. John, New Brunswick, don't we have the right to ask "What about Canada's energy security?"
The same applies for electricity. There's no east-west grid, it's all north-south. Ontario is landlocked from Manitoba. All we want to do is make sure these questions get asked so Canadians see how these questions are dealt with. The SPP should be dealt with in the House of Commons. Politicians should be the ones dealing with it, not the corporate elite.
That's why I believe there's corporate interference in our movement. Provocateurs are sent in. The mainstream media won't cover us. What they want to cover is rocks and tear gas. Some mainstream media belittled me in the beginning. I think it's a disrespect to democracy and a threat to democracy.
HI: What was it like on the ground in Montebello?
Dave Coles: There really was hardly any trouble in relative terms to many actions I've been around and seen in the past. This was a church picnic. They had to stir it up. If the real reason the Council of Canadians and we were there were understood, the public would be up in arms about the SPP. It's treated as trivial, they call us the left wing loons, they keep giving us the back of the hand, only this time they got caught.
HI: Who took the video and posted it?
Dave Coles: A young chap from Nanaimo hired by the Council of Canadians, as well as a bunch of citizens taking still photos. I knew in my heart, after I looked these guys in the eye and they shoved me around, that they were cops. I'm a union leader. I've been on picket lines all my life. These guys looked like, acted like and smelled liked cops.
I find it really insulting they say they were carrying rocks to blend in. This guy assaulted me, he shoved me, he fingered [gave the finger to] me. They were marching on a line that didn't have a mask. There's no mistake what they were doing or what we were doing.
HI: What are your next steps? Do you intend to press charges
Dave Coles: We have legal counsel working all weekend on this. We are going to file complaints, when it's to our advantage to expose this assault on democracy.
There are a number of issues that concern us. The reporting of the media and how they refuse to take our issues seriously. There's the issue of the infiltration by the police of a democratic process. There's entrapment, personal assault against me and my staff, the whole issue of political direction. Which politician made that determination they should infiltrate us?
HI: What made the story take off? Technology is a marvelous thing. We had the Youtube and digital pictures, and more pictures coming. We had two or three pretty clear shots of their faces. The cops knew we were going to Facebook them. The media had been talking to me. Sooner or later, somebody in Quebec was going to say "That's my neighbour." There was no way. Facebook, all the blogs. They got caught. Without a democratic free press, there is no democracy. Right now indie media is what's saving our butt in the democracy. Very few Canadians understand the importance of it. The Web is going to be the foundation of democracy for a while.
HI: Do you feel you successfully undermined Stephen Harper's agenda as a result of last week's events?
Dave Coles: Harper, he's just a mouthpiece for corporate capital. Think of the power of the oil companies. Their role in Iraq, the SPP...
A number of media insiders have told me that if they really wanted to have a meeting that didn't have a confrontation, why wouldn't they fly into Camp David or some other armed fortress and leave? They set it up so they could send their goons in. Why would the police steal our flag and taunt us with it, running through the graveyard. We didn't get any pictures, but lots of witnesses saw it happen.
HI: What makes you think it's coming from the Prime Minister's office?
Dave Coles: Past practice, and also history. The guy doesn't like us to start with. I want to know if it's Stockwell Day or the Prime Minister himself who's behind it.
HI: We'll never know.
Dave Coles: We intend to find out.
Democracy threat countered by Youtube and indie media - union leader Dave Coles
Agents provocateurs only the tip of Montebello story.
HALIFAX, NS, August 27, 2007: Yesterday, HarperIndex.ca interviewed Dave Coles, the union leader at the centre of the Montebello agents provocateurs story, by phone during his stop at the Halifax airport. Coles is President of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers of Canada. He has been active in union organizing since 1967, and got his start with the local representing pulp mill workers in Crofton, British Columbia. We present excerpts of the interview:
HarperIndex.ca: A week later, how do you feel about Montebello?
Dave Coles: I feel disappointed and disgusted. I've been around people being infiltrated all my life in the labour movement. It never stops. These people will resort to every dirty trick in the world.
It's not uncommon in the progressive movements for either the corporate cops or the state police to do this kind of thing. They have used these types of tactics for 100 years, from the Pinkertons to the RCMP.
HI: What's new here?
Dave Coles: What's new here is they tried to agitate or cause trouble with demonstrators who clearly were no threat to anyone. We were dressed in suits and jackets and dresses and sandals, no masks to be seen. We were holding a police line back and held it back for hours.
The police were trying to move on six young protesters who had stopped their line and were sitting in the road, but they didn't have masks on. We had backed away from main gates of Montebello when the police forces got pretty rough with us. A couple of times during the day, some of the direct action kids came to our line trying to get us to do something provocative, and I talked them down.
An hour or so earlier, we were being taunted by the police. They stole from one of my staff a flagpole with a CEP flag and ran through the graveyard taunting us with it.
Our union has a very critical story to tell. Harper and his crew don't want it out.
HI: Was this done by plainclothesmen?
Dave Coles: No, it was the cops, the Darth Vader crew. This is why I maintain that somewhere up the political ladder someone is giving instructions to not let us tell our story. Our union has a very critical story to tell. Harper and his crew don't want it out.
That's why we were in Montebello. It's all about Canada's energy security. The SPP has nine working groups on energy, all corporate executives and bureaucrats. There's nobody there from civil society or politicians. The Harper government is bowing to every American wish possible at the cost of energy security for Canada.
There is no pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to refineries in eastern Canada. All production, to get to eastern Canada, must go through the United States of America. Ninety nine percent of all Canadians, including most politicians, don't understand that.
The Harper government has been pushing through the FTA [Free Trade Agreement] to speed up pipeline expansion proposals to export bitumen [unprocessed oil sands]. There are pipeline applications to export 5 million barrels a day of this stuff by 2015. We have applications saying this ain't right. The stuff should be processed in Canada so we get the economic value from it, and the jobs, and society gets to determine the overall value we will get from it. Harper and his gang want it sold and shipped directly to the States. Canada, and especially Alberta, get the pollution, and the U.S. gets the jobs.
When Canadian raw crude oil has to go through the U.S. before it can get to any eastern refineries, including the big Irving refinery in St. John, New Brunswick, don't we have the right to ask "What about Canada's energy security?"
The same applies for electricity. There's no east-west grid, it's all north-south. Ontario is landlocked from Manitoba. All we want to do is make sure these questions get asked so Canadians see how these questions are dealt with. The SPP should be dealt with in the House of Commons. Politicians should be the ones dealing with it, not the corporate elite.
That's why I believe there's corporate interference in our movement. Provocateurs are sent in. The mainstream media won't cover us. What they want to cover is rocks and tear gas. Some mainstream media belittled me in the beginning. I think it's a disrespect to democracy and a threat to democracy.
HI: What was it like on the ground in Montebello?
Dave Coles: There really was hardly any trouble in relative terms to many actions I've been around and seen in the past. This was a church picnic. They had to stir it up. If the real reason the Council of Canadians and we were there were understood, the public would be up in arms about the SPP. It's treated as trivial, they call us the left wing loons, they keep giving us the back of the hand, only this time they got caught.
HI: Who took the video and posted it?
Dave Coles: A young chap from Nanaimo hired by the Council of Canadians, as well as a bunch of citizens taking still photos. I knew in my heart, after I looked these guys in the eye and they shoved me around, that they were cops. I'm a union leader. I've been on picket lines all my life. These guys looked like, acted like and smelled liked cops.
I find it really insulting they say they were carrying rocks to blend in. This guy assaulted me, he shoved me, he fingered [gave the finger to] me. They were marching on a line that didn't have a mask. There's no mistake what they were doing or what we were doing.
HI: What are your next steps? Do you intend to press charges
Dave Coles: We have legal counsel working all weekend on this. We are going to file complaints, when it's to our advantage to expose this assault on democracy.
There are a number of issues that concern us. The reporting of the media and how they refuse to take our issues seriously. There's the issue of the infiltration by the police of a democratic process. There's entrapment, personal assault against me and my staff, the whole issue of political direction. Which politician made that determination they should infiltrate us?
HI: What made the story take off? Technology is a marvelous thing. We had the Youtube and digital pictures, and more pictures coming. We had two or three pretty clear shots of their faces. The cops knew we were going to Facebook them. The media had been talking to me. Sooner or later, somebody in Quebec was going to say "That's my neighbour." There was no way. Facebook, all the blogs. They got caught. Without a democratic free press, there is no democracy. Right now indie media is what's saving our butt in the democracy. Very few Canadians understand the importance of it. The Web is going to be the foundation of democracy for a while.
HI: Do you feel you successfully undermined Stephen Harper's agenda as a result of last week's events?
Dave Coles: Harper, he's just a mouthpiece for corporate capital. Think of the power of the oil companies. Their role in Iraq, the SPP...
A number of media insiders have told me that if they really wanted to have a meeting that didn't have a confrontation, why wouldn't they fly into Camp David or some other armed fortress and leave? They set it up so they could send their goons in. Why would the police steal our flag and taunt us with it, running through the graveyard. We didn't get any pictures, but lots of witnesses saw it happen.
HI: What makes you think it's coming from the Prime Minister's office?
Dave Coles: Past practice, and also history. The guy doesn't like us to start with. I want to know if it's Stockwell Day or the Prime Minister himself who's behind it.
HI: We'll never know.
Dave Coles: We intend to find out.
Judy Rebick on the Quebec Social Forum
Somehow I must have missed mainstream coverage of this event. It is good that we have sites such as rabble.ca that can fill us in. I find it a bit ironic that students should be berating unions for their elitism. If anything students are a more elite group than unions and the complaint will hardly foster co-operation.
Social Forum showcases strong Quebec Left
The largest gathering of the Left in the history of Quebec, the FSQ united all the social movements in the province in one place.
Photo > Judy Rebick
>by Judy Rebick
August 28, 2007
Vastly exceeding the predictions of organizers, more than 5,000 people participated in the first Quebec Social Forum (FSQ) in Montreal last weekend. It was the largest gathering of the Left in the history of Quebec.
Facing a rise of the Right in Quebec, consolidated in the last election where the right-wing ADQ (Action Democratique du Quebec) displaced the PQ (Parti Quebecois) as the official opposition, the FSQ showed that the Left is alive and well in Quebec during this difficult time.
Like in other places around the world, the Social Forum process permitted a gathering of all the social movements in Quebec in one place. More than 300 workshops over two days discussed a vast range of issues including a full day seminar on the impact of Canadian mining companies around the world; a series of workshops on various aspects of the feminist struggle; a strong participation of poor people and international guests, including World Social Forum founder Chico Whitaker; and a number of indigenous workshops.
There were also quite a few discussions on the political impasse in Quebec where the Parti Quebecois is widely seen as having moved to the right and the new party Quebec Solidaire, which emerged from the social movements, has yet to elect any members. The Forum concluded with a cross Quebec, cross sectoral call for action on January 26, 2008 as part of the World Social Forum global day of action.
At the end of the forum, the social movement assembly adopted a poetic appeal for solidarity entitled, “United for the future of Quebec and the world.” In the discussion during the social movement assembly a vice-president of the CSN (one of Quebec's main three labour federations) acknowledged that the labour movement had fallen down on its responsibilities in terms of social solidarity and that they were inspired by the participation at the forum and intended to improve.
At a workshop entitled, “Is an alliance between workers and students possible,” the leaders of three union federations listened while they were berated by students for their lack of solidarity and their elite position in society. The Quebec student movement succeeded in turning back a tuition hike through a student strike in 2005, keeping post-secondary fees the lowest in Canada.
The unions did help to finance the forum but with the exception of some CSN unions and the postal workers there was little evidence that they had mobilized their members to participate. Others like the women's, housing, anti-poverty, environmental and student movements were highly present.
The most visible absence, however, was from what the Quebecois call the cultural communities. The diversity of Montreal was not at all reflected with the exception of a strong participation from the Latin American community. On the other hand, almost one third of participants came from outside the Montreal area, showing that the Left is strong around the province.
One of the unique aspects of the Quebec Social Forum was the emphasis on the environment. Across from UQAM (University of Quebec at Montreal) in Place Émilie-Gamelin, an Ecofest was held and recovered free food was served for delegates and local homeless people. In fact, homeless people were quite integrated into the event especially in the downtown park, where I saw several of them dancing to some of the music. Homeless people slept in some of the display tents in exchange for providing security.
As one of the few participants from English Canada, it felt like Quebec was already a separate country. While there were workshops discussing solidarity with most other countries, there was no discussion on solidarity between English Canada and Quebec, except in the context of a plenary on Solidarity in the Americas in which Maude Barlow participated. There were also very few discussions of Quebec independence.
Judy Rebick holds the Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University in Toronto. She is a founder and former publisher of rabble.ca. Her most recent book is Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution.
Social Forum showcases strong Quebec Left
The largest gathering of the Left in the history of Quebec, the FSQ united all the social movements in the province in one place.
Photo > Judy Rebick
>by Judy Rebick
August 28, 2007
Vastly exceeding the predictions of organizers, more than 5,000 people participated in the first Quebec Social Forum (FSQ) in Montreal last weekend. It was the largest gathering of the Left in the history of Quebec.
Facing a rise of the Right in Quebec, consolidated in the last election where the right-wing ADQ (Action Democratique du Quebec) displaced the PQ (Parti Quebecois) as the official opposition, the FSQ showed that the Left is alive and well in Quebec during this difficult time.
Like in other places around the world, the Social Forum process permitted a gathering of all the social movements in Quebec in one place. More than 300 workshops over two days discussed a vast range of issues including a full day seminar on the impact of Canadian mining companies around the world; a series of workshops on various aspects of the feminist struggle; a strong participation of poor people and international guests, including World Social Forum founder Chico Whitaker; and a number of indigenous workshops.
There were also quite a few discussions on the political impasse in Quebec where the Parti Quebecois is widely seen as having moved to the right and the new party Quebec Solidaire, which emerged from the social movements, has yet to elect any members. The Forum concluded with a cross Quebec, cross sectoral call for action on January 26, 2008 as part of the World Social Forum global day of action.
At the end of the forum, the social movement assembly adopted a poetic appeal for solidarity entitled, “United for the future of Quebec and the world.” In the discussion during the social movement assembly a vice-president of the CSN (one of Quebec's main three labour federations) acknowledged that the labour movement had fallen down on its responsibilities in terms of social solidarity and that they were inspired by the participation at the forum and intended to improve.
At a workshop entitled, “Is an alliance between workers and students possible,” the leaders of three union federations listened while they were berated by students for their lack of solidarity and their elite position in society. The Quebec student movement succeeded in turning back a tuition hike through a student strike in 2005, keeping post-secondary fees the lowest in Canada.
The unions did help to finance the forum but with the exception of some CSN unions and the postal workers there was little evidence that they had mobilized their members to participate. Others like the women's, housing, anti-poverty, environmental and student movements were highly present.
The most visible absence, however, was from what the Quebecois call the cultural communities. The diversity of Montreal was not at all reflected with the exception of a strong participation from the Latin American community. On the other hand, almost one third of participants came from outside the Montreal area, showing that the Left is strong around the province.
One of the unique aspects of the Quebec Social Forum was the emphasis on the environment. Across from UQAM (University of Quebec at Montreal) in Place Émilie-Gamelin, an Ecofest was held and recovered free food was served for delegates and local homeless people. In fact, homeless people were quite integrated into the event especially in the downtown park, where I saw several of them dancing to some of the music. Homeless people slept in some of the display tents in exchange for providing security.
As one of the few participants from English Canada, it felt like Quebec was already a separate country. While there were workshops discussing solidarity with most other countries, there was no discussion on solidarity between English Canada and Quebec, except in the context of a plenary on Solidarity in the Americas in which Maude Barlow participated. There were also very few discussions of Quebec independence.
Judy Rebick holds the Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University in Toronto. She is a founder and former publisher of rabble.ca. Her most recent book is Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution.
James Laxer on the Stelco Sale
I thought that at one time Laxer was a socialist but in this article he seems to be a great defender of the Canadian nationalist bourgeoisie against the encroachments of global (particularly US) capital. There is no call for nationalisation of private companies or of worker control. Historically many Canadian owned companies have been far from progressive.
Probably most Canadian capitalist are themselves internationalist and don't care a whit about whether companies are owned in Canada or elsewhere. Anyway most large companies now will have shareholders from all over.
US foreign policy is to make Canada a reservoir for much needed energy, water, and mineral raw materials and that would probably occur whether or not companies involved were globally or Canadian owned. You have a government committed to serving as a handmaid to the US, that is the problem.
U.S. Steel Takes Over Stelco: Requiem for what was once a Canadian Owned Industry
US Steel, historically the mighty American rival of Stelco, the Steel Company of Canada, has reached a deal to take over its Canadian rival for $1.16 billion. With Stelco in foreign hands, the once domestically owned industry will be wholly under the control of companies based outside of Canada.
Last year, Dofasco was sold to foreign interests and earlier this year, Algoma Steel and Regina-based Ipsco were purchased by foreign companies.
The take over of Stelco marks the end of the century long saga of Canadian owned steel companies. The steel story was a remarkable one because unlike automobiles and petroleum, where foreign owners predominated from near the beginning, Canadian companies ran the industry.
And it didn’t happen by accident. What made the Steel Company of Canada especially noteworthy when it was established in 1910 was that the company reversed the usual pattern of Canadian economic relations with the outside world. Instead of exporting a raw product for manufacture elsewhere, Stelco imported American iron ore and coal to produce steel in Hamilton, Ontario. It was Canada’s rejoinder to Pittsburgh.
Stelco was created as a deliberate act of national policy, involving both British and Canadian entrepreneurship. The notion was that an industrialized country required its own steel industry, owned and controlled domestically.
Recently the C.D. Howe Institute---that ever faithful lobbyist on behalf of foreign ownership and deeper integration of Canada with the US---released a report arguing that this country needs far more foreign investment.
The C.D. Howe Institute and its scribes are wedded to the theory that all mergers and acquisitions are beneficial because they promote greater productivity and higher returns on invested capital. The only thing this theory ignores is the real world. Repeated studies have shown that in manufacturing industries, Research and Development facilities and parts, components, and capital equipment manufacturers grow up around a central producer such as Stelco. These networks are crucial sources of cutting edge innovation and of employment, much of it highly skilled. Shift the ownership of the key company outside Canada and the R and D and other network functions will also shift outside the country. The net result, as will be the case with Stelco, will be lost innovative activity and employment.
The timing of this boggles the mind. The middle to long term outlook for producers of steel and other commodities is extremely bright in today’s global economy. Only a dull and unimaginative business community was choose this as the moment to lose its control of the steel industry, and only a witless government would stand by and allow it to happen.
How much of Canada would the C.D. Howe Institute put up for sale? Based on their track record---all of it. Perhaps their final act, when everything else has been sold, will be to put themselves up for sale and turn out the lights.
Probably most Canadian capitalist are themselves internationalist and don't care a whit about whether companies are owned in Canada or elsewhere. Anyway most large companies now will have shareholders from all over.
US foreign policy is to make Canada a reservoir for much needed energy, water, and mineral raw materials and that would probably occur whether or not companies involved were globally or Canadian owned. You have a government committed to serving as a handmaid to the US, that is the problem.
U.S. Steel Takes Over Stelco: Requiem for what was once a Canadian Owned Industry
US Steel, historically the mighty American rival of Stelco, the Steel Company of Canada, has reached a deal to take over its Canadian rival for $1.16 billion. With Stelco in foreign hands, the once domestically owned industry will be wholly under the control of companies based outside of Canada.
Last year, Dofasco was sold to foreign interests and earlier this year, Algoma Steel and Regina-based Ipsco were purchased by foreign companies.
The take over of Stelco marks the end of the century long saga of Canadian owned steel companies. The steel story was a remarkable one because unlike automobiles and petroleum, where foreign owners predominated from near the beginning, Canadian companies ran the industry.
And it didn’t happen by accident. What made the Steel Company of Canada especially noteworthy when it was established in 1910 was that the company reversed the usual pattern of Canadian economic relations with the outside world. Instead of exporting a raw product for manufacture elsewhere, Stelco imported American iron ore and coal to produce steel in Hamilton, Ontario. It was Canada’s rejoinder to Pittsburgh.
Stelco was created as a deliberate act of national policy, involving both British and Canadian entrepreneurship. The notion was that an industrialized country required its own steel industry, owned and controlled domestically.
Recently the C.D. Howe Institute---that ever faithful lobbyist on behalf of foreign ownership and deeper integration of Canada with the US---released a report arguing that this country needs far more foreign investment.
The C.D. Howe Institute and its scribes are wedded to the theory that all mergers and acquisitions are beneficial because they promote greater productivity and higher returns on invested capital. The only thing this theory ignores is the real world. Repeated studies have shown that in manufacturing industries, Research and Development facilities and parts, components, and capital equipment manufacturers grow up around a central producer such as Stelco. These networks are crucial sources of cutting edge innovation and of employment, much of it highly skilled. Shift the ownership of the key company outside Canada and the R and D and other network functions will also shift outside the country. The net result, as will be the case with Stelco, will be lost innovative activity and employment.
The timing of this boggles the mind. The middle to long term outlook for producers of steel and other commodities is extremely bright in today’s global economy. Only a dull and unimaginative business community was choose this as the moment to lose its control of the steel industry, and only a witless government would stand by and allow it to happen.
How much of Canada would the C.D. Howe Institute put up for sale? Based on their track record---all of it. Perhaps their final act, when everything else has been sold, will be to put themselves up for sale and turn out the lights.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Costs of Canadian Afghan Mission
This is over a year old so the expenditure by now will be far greater. However, the amount is quite substantial. It would be good if some economist could list some of the opportunity costs of the mission listing some of the things that could have been achieved by spending that amount of money on other projects.
Cost of Afghan mission
$2B and rising: Tally includes only a fraction of new costs in Kandahar; Forces could be there for years
David Pugliese
The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, March 03, 2006
CREDIT: Chris Mikula, The Ottawa Citizen
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his son, Ben, were at the Canadian Forces Appreciation Night at the Ottawa Senators game last night, along with about 1,500 Canadian Forces staff and their families.
Canadian taxpayers have spent more than $2 billion on the country's ongoing military mission to Afghanistan, with the cost of the latest deployment to Kandahar largely still to come.
So far, the Canadian Forces commitment to Afghanistan, which started ramping up in late 2001, has cost $1.7 billion, according to figures provided by the Department of National Defence. But that overall figure, which represents what the department calls "incremental costs," does not include the wages of military personnel or wear and tear on aging equipment used overseas.
It also doesn't include the purchase of major new equipment for the mission. So far the Canadian Forces has spent or set aside another $330 million for emergency equipment purchases for Afghanistan, ranging from new armoured vehicles to surveillance drones.
In addition, Afghanistan has also become Canada's single largest recipient of bilateral aid. According to figures provided by the Canadian International Development Agency, Canada will have provided $616 million in aid to Afghanistan by 2009. In the years immediately preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., Canada had given about $10 million in annual aid to Afghanistan.
Over the last four years, Afghanistan has become the major focus of Canadian defence and foreign affairs policy. More than 7,000 military personnel have served in that country so far.
Details of the costs come as Canadian casualties mount in Afghanistan. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper reiterated his strong support for the mission yesterday, saying it is important to global security.
The $2-billion-plus pricetag, however, could only be the tip of the iceberg on the actual cost of the Afghanistan mission.
The full costs of the deployments won't be released by the Defence Department until this fall. Estimates of the cost of keeping 2,300 troops in Afghanistan over the next year are also not being released at this time.
The Foreign Affairs Department would not provide the amount it has spent on Afghanistan, but an official noted that a large number of resources and personnel are involved in the file.
Liberal Senator Colin Kenny said the Canadian public deserves to be fully informed as to what the Afghan mission is expected to ultimately cost, both financially and in the number of casualties to troops. He also questioned the effectiveness of the money being spent on aid to Afghanistan.
"You can't get figures from CIDA for the current year," said Mr. Kenny, the former chairman of the Senate defence committee.
"More than that, you can't get figures that break it out on what we're spending in terms of aid in Kandahar."
Mr. Kenny noted that most of the aid is being funnelled through United Nations organizations. "There's no way on God's green earth we'll be able to measure if those programs are worth a damn," he added.
CIDA said that its officials who deal with Afghanistan were tied up in meetings yesterday and could not immediately respond to the senator's concerns.
The $1.7 billion the Canadian Forces has spent so far includes estimates of the cost of the latest Afghan mission to Kandahar, Operation Archer, but only up until the end of the month, because the government's fiscal year ends March 31. So far that operation has cost $286 million.
Canadian troops will be operating in Kandahar until at least next February but military officials have suggested in the past that the commitment to Afghanistan will continue for years. On Tuesday, Canadian Brig.-Gen. David Fraser assumed command of the multinational brigade responsible for southern Afghanistan. The brigade includes 6,000 soldiers from Canada, Britain, the United States, the Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Romania and Estonia.
The new equipment purchased by the military for Afghanistan could be of use in other missions. Some of it had already been on the military's wish list but not planned for acquisition until after 2010. Because of the Afghan mission, the purchase of that gear was fast-tracked.
The figures provided by the Defence Department also do not account for the wear and tear on Forces equipment.
But in the U.S., congressional budget experts have determined that the war in Iraq is using military equipment at five to 10 times the peacetime training rate. Pentagon officials have asked for billions of dollars in emergency funds to replace wornout gear.
While Canada's military effort is nowhere near that of the U.S. in Iraq, it is considerable nonetheless. For example, by last March, Canadian Hercules transport planes had flown 5,000 hours in support of Operation Athena, an earlier mission to Afghanistan.
The office of the Auditor General, the watchdog of the government purse, has never done an audit of the Afghan mission. A spokeswoman for the Auditor General's office declined to say whether there were any plans to do so.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2006
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Cost of Afghan mission
$2B and rising: Tally includes only a fraction of new costs in Kandahar; Forces could be there for years
David Pugliese
The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, March 03, 2006
CREDIT: Chris Mikula, The Ottawa Citizen
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his son, Ben, were at the Canadian Forces Appreciation Night at the Ottawa Senators game last night, along with about 1,500 Canadian Forces staff and their families.
Canadian taxpayers have spent more than $2 billion on the country's ongoing military mission to Afghanistan, with the cost of the latest deployment to Kandahar largely still to come.
So far, the Canadian Forces commitment to Afghanistan, which started ramping up in late 2001, has cost $1.7 billion, according to figures provided by the Department of National Defence. But that overall figure, which represents what the department calls "incremental costs," does not include the wages of military personnel or wear and tear on aging equipment used overseas.
It also doesn't include the purchase of major new equipment for the mission. So far the Canadian Forces has spent or set aside another $330 million for emergency equipment purchases for Afghanistan, ranging from new armoured vehicles to surveillance drones.
In addition, Afghanistan has also become Canada's single largest recipient of bilateral aid. According to figures provided by the Canadian International Development Agency, Canada will have provided $616 million in aid to Afghanistan by 2009. In the years immediately preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., Canada had given about $10 million in annual aid to Afghanistan.
Over the last four years, Afghanistan has become the major focus of Canadian defence and foreign affairs policy. More than 7,000 military personnel have served in that country so far.
Details of the costs come as Canadian casualties mount in Afghanistan. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper reiterated his strong support for the mission yesterday, saying it is important to global security.
The $2-billion-plus pricetag, however, could only be the tip of the iceberg on the actual cost of the Afghanistan mission.
The full costs of the deployments won't be released by the Defence Department until this fall. Estimates of the cost of keeping 2,300 troops in Afghanistan over the next year are also not being released at this time.
The Foreign Affairs Department would not provide the amount it has spent on Afghanistan, but an official noted that a large number of resources and personnel are involved in the file.
Liberal Senator Colin Kenny said the Canadian public deserves to be fully informed as to what the Afghan mission is expected to ultimately cost, both financially and in the number of casualties to troops. He also questioned the effectiveness of the money being spent on aid to Afghanistan.
"You can't get figures from CIDA for the current year," said Mr. Kenny, the former chairman of the Senate defence committee.
"More than that, you can't get figures that break it out on what we're spending in terms of aid in Kandahar."
Mr. Kenny noted that most of the aid is being funnelled through United Nations organizations. "There's no way on God's green earth we'll be able to measure if those programs are worth a damn," he added.
CIDA said that its officials who deal with Afghanistan were tied up in meetings yesterday and could not immediately respond to the senator's concerns.
The $1.7 billion the Canadian Forces has spent so far includes estimates of the cost of the latest Afghan mission to Kandahar, Operation Archer, but only up until the end of the month, because the government's fiscal year ends March 31. So far that operation has cost $286 million.
Canadian troops will be operating in Kandahar until at least next February but military officials have suggested in the past that the commitment to Afghanistan will continue for years. On Tuesday, Canadian Brig.-Gen. David Fraser assumed command of the multinational brigade responsible for southern Afghanistan. The brigade includes 6,000 soldiers from Canada, Britain, the United States, the Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Romania and Estonia.
The new equipment purchased by the military for Afghanistan could be of use in other missions. Some of it had already been on the military's wish list but not planned for acquisition until after 2010. Because of the Afghan mission, the purchase of that gear was fast-tracked.
The figures provided by the Defence Department also do not account for the wear and tear on Forces equipment.
But in the U.S., congressional budget experts have determined that the war in Iraq is using military equipment at five to 10 times the peacetime training rate. Pentagon officials have asked for billions of dollars in emergency funds to replace wornout gear.
While Canada's military effort is nowhere near that of the U.S. in Iraq, it is considerable nonetheless. For example, by last March, Canadian Hercules transport planes had flown 5,000 hours in support of Operation Athena, an earlier mission to Afghanistan.
The office of the Auditor General, the watchdog of the government purse, has never done an audit of the Afghan mission. A spokeswoman for the Auditor General's office declined to say whether there were any plans to do so.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2006
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Polls on Support for Afghan Mission
This is from a military oriented blog. The article illustrates well that percentages vary directly with the particular phrasing of the question. What the article calls making the people better informed is in effect casting the mission in a more favorable light and not surprisingly it increases the number in favor of the mission. So the obvious solution often used by polling that is meant to support a certain position is to ask the question in a form that will generate the desired response.
Polls, damned polls and questions
A lot depends on what you ask:
As the Canadian death toll climbs in Afghanistan, conventional wisdom would suggest that public support for the bloody mission will plummet in direct response.
Polling data accumulated over the past year and a half, however, tells a more complex tale, indicating that opinion on the divisive issue has held relatively stable -- sometimes even after troop deaths -- and that Canadians may be more likely to approve of the historic military mission when they are told more about it.
"It's been incredibly consistent," said John Wright of pollster Ipsos Reid. "We've polled during some of the worst times for the Canadian military, we've been in the field when there have been six soldiers killed ... We've been sure we can [conduct polls] whenever sentiment would be worst, and it seems to have held."
In fact, what pollsters ask people would appear to have almost as much impact on opinion as what is happening in Afghanistan itself [emphasis added], some analysts say.
When questions in a Defence Department poll emphasized protecting civilians and rebuilding the country, support for the mission shot up.
When asked by Decima Research if they thought the number of Canadian casualties was acceptable, on the other hand, two-thirds of respondents answered in the negative.
The deaths of soldiers from the Quebec-based Van Doos regiment could alter the whole equation. In the one province already firmly opposed to sending troops to Afghanistan, a CROP survey partly conducted after the death of Private Simon Longtin on Sunday recorded an 11 percentage point increase, to 68%, of Quebecers opposed to their compatriots being involved in the conflict. That was before the two most recent deaths.
But until the past few days, at least, opinion levels were surprisingly predictable.
A series of polls conducted by Ipsos Reid for CanWest News Service and Global Television since January, 2006, all asking the same question, has seen support for the mission roller-coaster from 44% to 52% [an eight percent variation is a "roller'coaster"?], then back down below 50%, then up again to a peak of 57% last fall. There has been a slow slide to 50% support since then, but the results over 18 months plot a relatively flat line that has hovered around 50% backing...
Strategic Counsel has recorded similar fluctuations and a similar range of variation in its polls since early 2006, after a fast drop from 55% support in March of that year.
The difference is that its surveys have backing for the mission hovering around the 40% mark, 10 points below those of Ipsos Reid.
A spokesman for the company refused to comment on its results, citing its contract with another media outlet. Rob Huebert of the University of Calgary's Centre for Military and Strategic Studies suggested the difference in the two pollsters' results can be traced to the questions they pose.
Ipsos Reid asks respondents about their support for "the use of Canada's troops for security and combat efforts against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan."
Strategic Counsel asks simply about "the decision to send Canadian troops to Afghanistan."
"They set up the issue differently," Prof. Huebert said. "It is not a coincidence that the one that clearly defines the threat gets the higher response ... People won't think immediately of why we are there. If you mention Taliban and al-Qaeda, people will clue in."
In a string of polls for the National Defence Department in late 2006 and early 2007, Ipsos Reid tweaked the questions even further, and found dramatic differences in response.
When the question referred to military operations that help to secure "the environment for the civilian population" through activities "that include combat," backing shot up to the low 60s.
After a lengthy preamble that said Canada is trying to improve human rights for women and build a more free and democratic society in Afghanistan, another question drew support from 81%.
It suggests that explaining the purpose of the mission is all-important if the government wants to boost the tepid support among Canadians for the operation, said Alex Morrison of the Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies.
"The polling has indicated to the government that it is not doing a good job of communicating why we are in Afghanistan. The government recognizes that but consistently refuses to do anything about it," he said.
"Unless the government starts telling Canadians often, frequently, why we are there, I don't think the numbers will change very much."
Latest:
Canadian support for the mission holding steady: poll
Albertans at 72% are most likely to back deployment, while nearly two out of three Quebecers are opposed
Polls, damned polls and questions
A lot depends on what you ask:
As the Canadian death toll climbs in Afghanistan, conventional wisdom would suggest that public support for the bloody mission will plummet in direct response.
Polling data accumulated over the past year and a half, however, tells a more complex tale, indicating that opinion on the divisive issue has held relatively stable -- sometimes even after troop deaths -- and that Canadians may be more likely to approve of the historic military mission when they are told more about it.
"It's been incredibly consistent," said John Wright of pollster Ipsos Reid. "We've polled during some of the worst times for the Canadian military, we've been in the field when there have been six soldiers killed ... We've been sure we can [conduct polls] whenever sentiment would be worst, and it seems to have held."
In fact, what pollsters ask people would appear to have almost as much impact on opinion as what is happening in Afghanistan itself [emphasis added], some analysts say.
When questions in a Defence Department poll emphasized protecting civilians and rebuilding the country, support for the mission shot up.
When asked by Decima Research if they thought the number of Canadian casualties was acceptable, on the other hand, two-thirds of respondents answered in the negative.
The deaths of soldiers from the Quebec-based Van Doos regiment could alter the whole equation. In the one province already firmly opposed to sending troops to Afghanistan, a CROP survey partly conducted after the death of Private Simon Longtin on Sunday recorded an 11 percentage point increase, to 68%, of Quebecers opposed to their compatriots being involved in the conflict. That was before the two most recent deaths.
But until the past few days, at least, opinion levels were surprisingly predictable.
A series of polls conducted by Ipsos Reid for CanWest News Service and Global Television since January, 2006, all asking the same question, has seen support for the mission roller-coaster from 44% to 52% [an eight percent variation is a "roller'coaster"?], then back down below 50%, then up again to a peak of 57% last fall. There has been a slow slide to 50% support since then, but the results over 18 months plot a relatively flat line that has hovered around 50% backing...
Strategic Counsel has recorded similar fluctuations and a similar range of variation in its polls since early 2006, after a fast drop from 55% support in March of that year.
The difference is that its surveys have backing for the mission hovering around the 40% mark, 10 points below those of Ipsos Reid.
A spokesman for the company refused to comment on its results, citing its contract with another media outlet. Rob Huebert of the University of Calgary's Centre for Military and Strategic Studies suggested the difference in the two pollsters' results can be traced to the questions they pose.
Ipsos Reid asks respondents about their support for "the use of Canada's troops for security and combat efforts against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan."
Strategic Counsel asks simply about "the decision to send Canadian troops to Afghanistan."
"They set up the issue differently," Prof. Huebert said. "It is not a coincidence that the one that clearly defines the threat gets the higher response ... People won't think immediately of why we are there. If you mention Taliban and al-Qaeda, people will clue in."
In a string of polls for the National Defence Department in late 2006 and early 2007, Ipsos Reid tweaked the questions even further, and found dramatic differences in response.
When the question referred to military operations that help to secure "the environment for the civilian population" through activities "that include combat," backing shot up to the low 60s.
After a lengthy preamble that said Canada is trying to improve human rights for women and build a more free and democratic society in Afghanistan, another question drew support from 81%.
It suggests that explaining the purpose of the mission is all-important if the government wants to boost the tepid support among Canadians for the operation, said Alex Morrison of the Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies.
"The polling has indicated to the government that it is not doing a good job of communicating why we are in Afghanistan. The government recognizes that but consistently refuses to do anything about it," he said.
"Unless the government starts telling Canadians often, frequently, why we are there, I don't think the numbers will change very much."
Latest:
Canadian support for the mission holding steady: poll
Albertans at 72% are most likely to back deployment, while nearly two out of three Quebecers are opposed
SQ spooks face up to flip-flop
This is from Rabble although the author seems to be an American. I didn't realize that demonstrators typically fire on police in Florida! The author is probably correct though that there the purpose of the infiltration has nothing to do with public order but with discrediting the protest. It also provides a good opportunity to give police practice in charging, dispersing, and arresting protesters. Many in the public already associate protests with property damage, trashing, and violence against police. Make sure that this perception does not fade.
SQ spooks face up to flip flop
Rogue cops hidden among anti-SPP protesters suggest a dystopic future for North American law enforcement.
>by Keith Gottschalk
August 28, 2007
So the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) inserted three agents provocateurs in the recent protests at the Montebello Masters of the Universe Threesome in order to incite a riot.
Of course, this is nothing new for either the SQ or for the Masters of the Universe in general.
I have an Aislin cartoon from the Montreal Gazette drawn during the standoff at Oka in 1990 showing a similarly storm trooper clad SQ cop confronting a woman with groceries pushing a baby stroller. Her reply: “you guys don't embarrass very easily do you?”
Indeed, if the tap dancing both the SQ and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day are doing over this incident is any indication, embarrassment or shame is in short supply nowadays.
It seems incredible that a public official can claim with a straight face that masked men, holding rocks in menacing manner, doing their best to incite other protesters according to union leader David Coles in the Globe and Mail, were not inciting violence.
Thanks to Coles' quick action, the three stooges were unmasked before something unfortunate happened. Something unfortunate the media now tut-tutting this incident, would have blamed on the protesters.
In light of the eyewitness testimony and the fact that the whole keystone cops episode was caught on film and broadcast on YouTube all over the world, one might ask a la Groucho Marx 'who you gonna believe, the government or your own eyes?'
But it's really all for the protection of the public, right?
The Globe and Mail even quoted an 'unnamed former senior police officer' as saying “if somebody takes a gun out and shoots a police officer or the head of state, how do you identify who did it if you don't have people in the crowd? You can't afford to make that mistake.”
The only problem with that twisted logic is: (1) the protests were kept so far from the conference its doubtful if even a well designed trebuchet would have been able to reach the heads of state and, (2) in all seriousness how often do protesters at public events in Canada whip out pistols and shoot police? This is Quebec after all, not Florida.
At least in Canada there is some light and heat being shed on these tactics and of course, having video evidence helps enormously.
In the U.S., it has long been alleged, to put it mildly, that local, state and federal police agencies employed the same tactics, especially at the anti-WTO protests in Seattle in 1999 and the Miami Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) protests in 2003 which the mayor of Miami called a “model for Homeland Security.”
Space does not permit a detailed list of the police misconduct and provocations at both protests but Indymedia sites exhaustively covered the details and other Internet-based alternative websites did as well. Of course, the mainstream U.S. media parroted the official line about 'anarchists' and such, and middle America went to bed smug with the knowledge that the people clubbed, gassed and jailed were nothing but un-American troublemakers.
The intent there and at Montabello is for police to provoke any response by protesters in order to wade in with overwhelming force and violence and therefore paint any protest against the Masters of the Universe as coming from violent anarchists and communists.
I am also convinced that instructions to the various police agencies to launch these provocations come right from the top—the powerful who are, as Naomi Klein wrote, seeking to combine Canada, the United States and Mexico into one national security superstate for the benefit of the global financial elite.
After all who needs borders when everyone and their personal transactions are under surveillance?
Not that there wouldn't be the pretense of 'democracy.' After all, according to Klein's column, the protesters could be 'seen and heard' on closed circuit TV at Montabello. Perhaps the Big Three Guys watched the fun while sipping Dom Perignon and trading witty bon mots (or in President Bush's case, dirty jokes). Somewhere George Orwell has a knowing, yet rueful smile.
Provocation and reprisal used to be done in far cruder fashion such as the Haymarket Riot in Chicago. Now, protest movements are infiltrated far in advance by often clumsy cops who haven't done their homework on the movements they're trying to 'join.'
Noting all of the preparation that goes into these operations, one has to believe that there's less of a concern for public safety in these events and more of a definite plan to discredit and disrupt otherwise peaceful protests against the global elite.
So the next time you're at a protest and you see three nervous guys who look like defensemen for the Maple Leafs in ill fitting 'anarchist' garb, clutching rocks and looking for a little action, just say to yourself they're not rogue cops.
They're the future of North American law enforcement.
Keith Gottschalk has written for daily publications in the Midwest U.S. and was formerly a radio talk show host in Illinois. He frequents babble as the Américain Égalitaire.
SQ spooks face up to flip flop
Rogue cops hidden among anti-SPP protesters suggest a dystopic future for North American law enforcement.
>by Keith Gottschalk
August 28, 2007
So the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) inserted three agents provocateurs in the recent protests at the Montebello Masters of the Universe Threesome in order to incite a riot.
Of course, this is nothing new for either the SQ or for the Masters of the Universe in general.
I have an Aislin cartoon from the Montreal Gazette drawn during the standoff at Oka in 1990 showing a similarly storm trooper clad SQ cop confronting a woman with groceries pushing a baby stroller. Her reply: “you guys don't embarrass very easily do you?”
Indeed, if the tap dancing both the SQ and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day are doing over this incident is any indication, embarrassment or shame is in short supply nowadays.
It seems incredible that a public official can claim with a straight face that masked men, holding rocks in menacing manner, doing their best to incite other protesters according to union leader David Coles in the Globe and Mail, were not inciting violence.
Thanks to Coles' quick action, the three stooges were unmasked before something unfortunate happened. Something unfortunate the media now tut-tutting this incident, would have blamed on the protesters.
In light of the eyewitness testimony and the fact that the whole keystone cops episode was caught on film and broadcast on YouTube all over the world, one might ask a la Groucho Marx 'who you gonna believe, the government or your own eyes?'
But it's really all for the protection of the public, right?
The Globe and Mail even quoted an 'unnamed former senior police officer' as saying “if somebody takes a gun out and shoots a police officer or the head of state, how do you identify who did it if you don't have people in the crowd? You can't afford to make that mistake.”
The only problem with that twisted logic is: (1) the protests were kept so far from the conference its doubtful if even a well designed trebuchet would have been able to reach the heads of state and, (2) in all seriousness how often do protesters at public events in Canada whip out pistols and shoot police? This is Quebec after all, not Florida.
At least in Canada there is some light and heat being shed on these tactics and of course, having video evidence helps enormously.
In the U.S., it has long been alleged, to put it mildly, that local, state and federal police agencies employed the same tactics, especially at the anti-WTO protests in Seattle in 1999 and the Miami Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) protests in 2003 which the mayor of Miami called a “model for Homeland Security.”
Space does not permit a detailed list of the police misconduct and provocations at both protests but Indymedia sites exhaustively covered the details and other Internet-based alternative websites did as well. Of course, the mainstream U.S. media parroted the official line about 'anarchists' and such, and middle America went to bed smug with the knowledge that the people clubbed, gassed and jailed were nothing but un-American troublemakers.
The intent there and at Montabello is for police to provoke any response by protesters in order to wade in with overwhelming force and violence and therefore paint any protest against the Masters of the Universe as coming from violent anarchists and communists.
I am also convinced that instructions to the various police agencies to launch these provocations come right from the top—the powerful who are, as Naomi Klein wrote, seeking to combine Canada, the United States and Mexico into one national security superstate for the benefit of the global financial elite.
After all who needs borders when everyone and their personal transactions are under surveillance?
Not that there wouldn't be the pretense of 'democracy.' After all, according to Klein's column, the protesters could be 'seen and heard' on closed circuit TV at Montabello. Perhaps the Big Three Guys watched the fun while sipping Dom Perignon and trading witty bon mots (or in President Bush's case, dirty jokes). Somewhere George Orwell has a knowing, yet rueful smile.
Provocation and reprisal used to be done in far cruder fashion such as the Haymarket Riot in Chicago. Now, protest movements are infiltrated far in advance by often clumsy cops who haven't done their homework on the movements they're trying to 'join.'
Noting all of the preparation that goes into these operations, one has to believe that there's less of a concern for public safety in these events and more of a definite plan to discredit and disrupt otherwise peaceful protests against the global elite.
So the next time you're at a protest and you see three nervous guys who look like defensemen for the Maple Leafs in ill fitting 'anarchist' garb, clutching rocks and looking for a little action, just say to yourself they're not rogue cops.
They're the future of North American law enforcement.
Keith Gottschalk has written for daily publications in the Midwest U.S. and was formerly a radio talk show host in Illinois. He frequents babble as the Américain Égalitaire.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Nova Scotia activists demand inquiry in Montebello incident.
I wonder why it is just Nova Scotia activists. I expect there will be more such demands. The police explanation doesn't fit in with what can be seen on TV or with the reports of anyone else who was there. I doubt that Stockwell Day will do anything unless there is a lot more political pressure. Day's most positive accomplishment was not to cave in and agree with the US when he was shown some of their secret material on Arar. He was surprisingly steadfast in repeating his view that Arar was innocent. It just goes to show even the bad guys are not always bad. Of course nothing further has been done to challenge the US on Arar or Khadr or Benatta.
Nova Scotia activists demand inquiry into Montebello protest
Last Updated: Monday, August 27, 2007 | 7:10 PM AT
CBC News
Nova Scotia activists are calling for an inquiry into the tactics used by undercover police at the leaders summit protest one week ago in Montebello, Que.
About 15 human rights and labour groups gathered at a news conference in Halifax Monday to demand an investigation into why three Quebec provincial police officers dressed up like masked protesters and took part in the demonstration on Aug. 20, one of them carrying a rock in his hand.
"They've been exposed in this situation, exposed by a labour organization, but have there been others?" Rick Clarke, president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, asked.
"We don't want to be suspicious of people that come out when we're having peaceful demonstrations."
Police came under fire Tuesday when a video surfaced on YouTube that shows the three disguised officers in the midst of protesters. At one point, the three are confronted by union leader Dave Coles, who demands they put down the rock and take off their masks.
Coles, who is president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, repeatedly accuses them of being police "provocateurs."
Continue Article
On Thursday, Quebec police admitted their officers were undercover at the protest, but denied they were there to provoke protesters and instigate violence, as activists have been alleging.
Police insisted they were there to identify aggressive demonstrators, and said that one officer was holding a rock only because a protester gave it to him.
But activists at the Halifax press conference disagreed with this position.
"If that's true, it raises the question, 'Why were they still holding the rocks? And why were they holding them when one of the labour organizers was asking him to drop the rocks?'" asked Vince Calderhead, a legal aid lawyer who specializes in human rights.
"When I see the video and the photographs and so on, what I see are masked demonstrators, or masked men holding weapons in a threatening way, and that in and of itself is very problematic."
A 'chilling effect' on free assembly
Calderhead said Quebec police created a "shroud of criminality" over a legitimate protest when they went undercover at the event. He added that the police tactics had a "chilling effect" on people's right to assemble freely.
Other organizations, including the federal New Democrats and the Council of Canadians, have already called for an inquiry into the incident, but Public Security Minister Stockwell Day has so far refused. He has encouraged people to take their concerns to a formal police complaints board.
The protest at Montebello occurred outside the Fairmont Le Château Montebello hotel, near Ottawa, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. The summit about border security, free trade and other issues began Aug. 20 and ended the next day.
Protesters said they gathered to voice their concern about Canada losing control of its energy and water resources and borders. Others decried what they called a high level of secrecy at the summit.
With files from the Canadian Press
Nova Scotia activists demand inquiry into Montebello protest
Last Updated: Monday, August 27, 2007 | 7:10 PM AT
CBC News
Nova Scotia activists are calling for an inquiry into the tactics used by undercover police at the leaders summit protest one week ago in Montebello, Que.
About 15 human rights and labour groups gathered at a news conference in Halifax Monday to demand an investigation into why three Quebec provincial police officers dressed up like masked protesters and took part in the demonstration on Aug. 20, one of them carrying a rock in his hand.
"They've been exposed in this situation, exposed by a labour organization, but have there been others?" Rick Clarke, president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, asked.
"We don't want to be suspicious of people that come out when we're having peaceful demonstrations."
Police came under fire Tuesday when a video surfaced on YouTube that shows the three disguised officers in the midst of protesters. At one point, the three are confronted by union leader Dave Coles, who demands they put down the rock and take off their masks.
Coles, who is president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, repeatedly accuses them of being police "provocateurs."
Continue Article
On Thursday, Quebec police admitted their officers were undercover at the protest, but denied they were there to provoke protesters and instigate violence, as activists have been alleging.
Police insisted they were there to identify aggressive demonstrators, and said that one officer was holding a rock only because a protester gave it to him.
But activists at the Halifax press conference disagreed with this position.
"If that's true, it raises the question, 'Why were they still holding the rocks? And why were they holding them when one of the labour organizers was asking him to drop the rocks?'" asked Vince Calderhead, a legal aid lawyer who specializes in human rights.
"When I see the video and the photographs and so on, what I see are masked demonstrators, or masked men holding weapons in a threatening way, and that in and of itself is very problematic."
A 'chilling effect' on free assembly
Calderhead said Quebec police created a "shroud of criminality" over a legitimate protest when they went undercover at the event. He added that the police tactics had a "chilling effect" on people's right to assemble freely.
Other organizations, including the federal New Democrats and the Council of Canadians, have already called for an inquiry into the incident, but Public Security Minister Stockwell Day has so far refused. He has encouraged people to take their concerns to a formal police complaints board.
The protest at Montebello occurred outside the Fairmont Le Château Montebello hotel, near Ottawa, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. The summit about border security, free trade and other issues began Aug. 20 and ended the next day.
Protesters said they gathered to voice their concern about Canada losing control of its energy and water resources and borders. Others decried what they called a high level of secrecy at the summit.
With files from the Canadian Press
UN horrified by expansion of opium production in Afghanistan.
The article leaves out some important facts. Although production may be most in the south certainly the drug trade is also in the north. No doubt many who profit from the trade are also in the government or "former" warlords. While Taliban no doubt are involved there are countless others including many supporters of the Karzai government. Another fact that is left out is that during the Taliban era they were paid to stop production and did so. Colin Powell presented them a check for their good work not all that long before everything turned sour and after 9/11 of course there was no more dealing with the Taliban. The Taliban never did completely stop drug dealing.
Anyway the mission in Afghanistan can at least record one outstanding economic success.
UN horrified by surge in opium trade in Helmand
Despite 7,000 UK troops, Taliban-backed production up 48%
Declan Walsh
Tuesday August 28, 2007
The Guardian
Britain's drug policy in Afghanistan's Helmand province lay in tatters yesterday as the UN declared a "frightening" explosion in opium production across the country, led by Taliban-backed farmers in the volatile south. Opium production soared by 34% to 8,200 tonnes, accounting for 93% of world supply and most of the heroin sold in Britain and Europe, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported.
The record crop was fuelled by Helmand, where, despite the deployment of 7,000 British soldiers and millions of pounds in development spending, opium cultivation surged by 48%.
------------------------------------------
The sprawling and violent province is now the world's single largest source of illegal drugs - greater than coca from Colombia, cannabis from Morocco or heroin from Burma, countries with populations up to 20 times greater.
A despondent UNODC noted that no other country has produced illegal narcotics on such a scale since China in the 19th century. "The situation is dramatic and getting worse by the day," said its director general, Antonio Maria Costa.
The sole bright spot was a sharp fall in poppy cultivation in the north, where the number of drug-free provinces doubled from six to 13. Balkh province, which produced 7,200 tonnes last year, eliminated poppy cultivation entirely. The disparity highlights a widening gap between relatively stable northern Afghanistan, where the Kabul government enjoys some authority, and the insurgency-racked south, where it has virtually none.
Favourable weather, Taliban insurgents and corrupt government officials all contributed to this year's record poppy haul, which has edged Afghanistan perilously close to becoming a full narco-state. The opium trade involves 3.3 million of Afghanistan's 23 million population, according to the UNODC, and accounts for more than half of its estimated $7.5bn (£3.7bn) gross domestic product.
Western countries, led by the US, have spent several billion pounds trying to eradicate the trade since 2001. But it has only grown stronger, and this year's dismal results are likely to revive a controversial debate on aerial crop spraying that pits America against the UK.
The US ambassador, William Wood, who was previously posted to Colombia, advocates dispatching squadrons of pesticide-filled crop duster planes to spray the poppy fields. Ground-based eradication destroyed 19,000 hectares this year, or one tenth of the total crop. But British and Afghan officials are trenchantly opposed to aerial spraying, arguing that it would only anger Afghan farmers and drive their families into the arms of the Taliban.
The Taliban have firmly entrenched themselves in the trade. Having vehemently opposed opium as "un-Islamic" in 2000, when the crop was virtually eliminated, the insurgents are now among its greatest champions. In Helmand, Taliban fighters protect poppy-growing farmers in exchange for a slice of their profits, and some commanders help to smuggle drugs. Their profits pay for arms, logistics and militia wages, the UN said.
Embarrassingly for the British, the Taliban have also linked poppy growing with military strategy. The town of Musa Qala, which the British military ceded to Taliban control last February, has become a major drugs hub. Opium is traded openly in the town bazaar and heroin processing labs have moved to the area.
The drug barons run little risk of being caught. No major smuggler has been arrested in Afghanistan since 2001. Yesterday Mr Costa urged President Hamid Karzai to submit a dozen major traffickers - whom he did not name - to the UN Security Council for inclusion on a Taliban sanctions list.
Frustrated western anti-narcotics specialists are also searching for fresh ideas that work. A senior British official said the UK will spend £10m on development projects in Helmand and contribute to a £13m "good performance" fund that rewards drug-free provinces.
Nato may also take a more aggressive role. Although western soldiers will not slash through fields of poppy - something British soldiers have always avoided - their commanders may start to target insurgents who double as drug smugglers. "There will be an overlap between counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency targets. We want people who are big in the insurgency and drugs to realise they don't enjoy impunity," said the British official.
But, he admitted, there was no silver bullet to kill the trade: "I expect it will be a long time before this problem is solved."
Anyway the mission in Afghanistan can at least record one outstanding economic success.
UN horrified by surge in opium trade in Helmand
Despite 7,000 UK troops, Taliban-backed production up 48%
Declan Walsh
Tuesday August 28, 2007
The Guardian
Britain's drug policy in Afghanistan's Helmand province lay in tatters yesterday as the UN declared a "frightening" explosion in opium production across the country, led by Taliban-backed farmers in the volatile south. Opium production soared by 34% to 8,200 tonnes, accounting for 93% of world supply and most of the heroin sold in Britain and Europe, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported.
The record crop was fuelled by Helmand, where, despite the deployment of 7,000 British soldiers and millions of pounds in development spending, opium cultivation surged by 48%.
------------------------------------------
The sprawling and violent province is now the world's single largest source of illegal drugs - greater than coca from Colombia, cannabis from Morocco or heroin from Burma, countries with populations up to 20 times greater.
A despondent UNODC noted that no other country has produced illegal narcotics on such a scale since China in the 19th century. "The situation is dramatic and getting worse by the day," said its director general, Antonio Maria Costa.
The sole bright spot was a sharp fall in poppy cultivation in the north, where the number of drug-free provinces doubled from six to 13. Balkh province, which produced 7,200 tonnes last year, eliminated poppy cultivation entirely. The disparity highlights a widening gap between relatively stable northern Afghanistan, where the Kabul government enjoys some authority, and the insurgency-racked south, where it has virtually none.
Favourable weather, Taliban insurgents and corrupt government officials all contributed to this year's record poppy haul, which has edged Afghanistan perilously close to becoming a full narco-state. The opium trade involves 3.3 million of Afghanistan's 23 million population, according to the UNODC, and accounts for more than half of its estimated $7.5bn (£3.7bn) gross domestic product.
Western countries, led by the US, have spent several billion pounds trying to eradicate the trade since 2001. But it has only grown stronger, and this year's dismal results are likely to revive a controversial debate on aerial crop spraying that pits America against the UK.
The US ambassador, William Wood, who was previously posted to Colombia, advocates dispatching squadrons of pesticide-filled crop duster planes to spray the poppy fields. Ground-based eradication destroyed 19,000 hectares this year, or one tenth of the total crop. But British and Afghan officials are trenchantly opposed to aerial spraying, arguing that it would only anger Afghan farmers and drive their families into the arms of the Taliban.
The Taliban have firmly entrenched themselves in the trade. Having vehemently opposed opium as "un-Islamic" in 2000, when the crop was virtually eliminated, the insurgents are now among its greatest champions. In Helmand, Taliban fighters protect poppy-growing farmers in exchange for a slice of their profits, and some commanders help to smuggle drugs. Their profits pay for arms, logistics and militia wages, the UN said.
Embarrassingly for the British, the Taliban have also linked poppy growing with military strategy. The town of Musa Qala, which the British military ceded to Taliban control last February, has become a major drugs hub. Opium is traded openly in the town bazaar and heroin processing labs have moved to the area.
The drug barons run little risk of being caught. No major smuggler has been arrested in Afghanistan since 2001. Yesterday Mr Costa urged President Hamid Karzai to submit a dozen major traffickers - whom he did not name - to the UN Security Council for inclusion on a Taliban sanctions list.
Frustrated western anti-narcotics specialists are also searching for fresh ideas that work. A senior British official said the UK will spend £10m on development projects in Helmand and contribute to a £13m "good performance" fund that rewards drug-free provinces.
Nato may also take a more aggressive role. Although western soldiers will not slash through fields of poppy - something British soldiers have always avoided - their commanders may start to target insurgents who double as drug smugglers. "There will be an overlap between counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency targets. We want people who are big in the insurgency and drugs to realise they don't enjoy impunity," said the British official.
But, he admitted, there was no silver bullet to kill the trade: "I expect it will be a long time before this problem is solved."
What's New at the Iacobucci Inquiry?
Here is the latest entry in the What's New category at the Iacobucci Inquiry website. This is indicative of the extent to which the Inquiry is keeping the public informed what is going on. The Inquiry is to give its report in January.
What's New
The hearing on April 12, 2007 is expected to be webcast on the Cable Public Affairs Channel at www.cpac.ca.
What's New
The hearing on April 12, 2007 is expected to be webcast on the Cable Public Affairs Channel at www.cpac.ca.
Casualties begin to unravel Afghan force
Casualties are much more real to the public consciousness it seems than the lofty ideals that are always trotted out as reasons for the mission. The same tired phraseology is used after each casualty: the person believed in the mission, it would be wrong to pull out and: a) betray the people of Afghanistan (Iraq or wherever) b) leave Afghanistan (Iraq or wherever) to become a prey to i) chaos ii) terrorists iii) become a failed state. We are building a secure and democratic Afghanistan with the rule of law(Iraq or wherever) I am sure you could develop a simple computer program to spout out this stuff and dispense with commentators except to read the scripts.
Casualties begin to unravel Afghan force August 27, 2007
WASHINGTON: The US is worried about weakening Italian and German military commitments in Afghanistan as casualties mount in the International Security and Assistance Force, including the "friendly fire" incident on Friday that killed three British soldiers.
Debate is raging in Italy and Germany, and to a lesser extent in The Netherlands and Denmark, on whether they should remain in the ISAF, which is already grappling with a shortage of troops in the face of one of the most intense military engagements in decades.
"There is a good prospect that we are going to lose some" contributions from certain countries, a US administration official said, as European nations face votes at home on their reconstruction, military and training commitments in Afghanistan.
The NATO-led 37-nation ISAF and a separate US-led coalition, in total about 50,000 foreign soldiers, are together with Afghan security forces fighting to block the return to power of the Taliban after the hardline Islamic militia was ousted in late 2001.
But with the fighting at its toughest since then, Washington is deeply worried about eroding support for the effort.
"Italy and Germany are the ones that are of serious concern," the official added, citing Italy as "one that we are really concerned about".
With 2500 troops, Italy heads NATO's Herat-based regional command in western Afghanistan. Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema recently blamed a lack of co-ordination between US and ISAF forces for hundreds of Afghan civilian deaths, which he called "morally unacceptable".
In Germany, where polls show a strong 64 per cent majority calling for withdrawal, parliament would have to vote on whether to continue with commitments for reconstruction, military deployment and training of Afghan forces.
Germany has lost 25 soldiers, three police officers and four civilians in Afghanistan since 2002. The past month has been grim with the abduction by the Taliban of two German engineers, one of whom was shot dead. The other is reportedly ill and begging for his life.
Germany has contributed some 3000 troops to the NATO mission and has six Tornado reconnaissance planes helping to spot Taliban hideouts.
In The Netherlands, there is some unease about how long the Afghanistan effort will continue, but US officials believe cuts in the military deployment will be spared.
On Friday, three British soldiers were killed while fighting Taliban forces near Kajaki Dam in Helmand Province after being hit by a bomb dropped by a US fighter jet.
AFP
Casualties begin to unravel Afghan force August 27, 2007
WASHINGTON: The US is worried about weakening Italian and German military commitments in Afghanistan as casualties mount in the International Security and Assistance Force, including the "friendly fire" incident on Friday that killed three British soldiers.
Debate is raging in Italy and Germany, and to a lesser extent in The Netherlands and Denmark, on whether they should remain in the ISAF, which is already grappling with a shortage of troops in the face of one of the most intense military engagements in decades.
"There is a good prospect that we are going to lose some" contributions from certain countries, a US administration official said, as European nations face votes at home on their reconstruction, military and training commitments in Afghanistan.
The NATO-led 37-nation ISAF and a separate US-led coalition, in total about 50,000 foreign soldiers, are together with Afghan security forces fighting to block the return to power of the Taliban after the hardline Islamic militia was ousted in late 2001.
But with the fighting at its toughest since then, Washington is deeply worried about eroding support for the effort.
"Italy and Germany are the ones that are of serious concern," the official added, citing Italy as "one that we are really concerned about".
With 2500 troops, Italy heads NATO's Herat-based regional command in western Afghanistan. Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema recently blamed a lack of co-ordination between US and ISAF forces for hundreds of Afghan civilian deaths, which he called "morally unacceptable".
In Germany, where polls show a strong 64 per cent majority calling for withdrawal, parliament would have to vote on whether to continue with commitments for reconstruction, military deployment and training of Afghan forces.
Germany has lost 25 soldiers, three police officers and four civilians in Afghanistan since 2002. The past month has been grim with the abduction by the Taliban of two German engineers, one of whom was shot dead. The other is reportedly ill and begging for his life.
Germany has contributed some 3000 troops to the NATO mission and has six Tornado reconnaissance planes helping to spot Taliban hideouts.
In The Netherlands, there is some unease about how long the Afghanistan effort will continue, but US officials believe cuts in the military deployment will be spared.
On Friday, three British soldiers were killed while fighting Taliban forces near Kajaki Dam in Helmand Province after being hit by a bomb dropped by a US fighter jet.
AFP
Naomi Klein on Montebello and the world of total surveillance
Sometimes Klein tends to exaggerate and engage in rhetorical extravagance but she is usually perceptive. I like this:
In the Bush era, security doesn't trump big business; it may be the biggest business of all.
The provision of cameras for protestors to send their messages inside is really priceless. No doubt it enables the intelligence services to add to their already bulging database about protesters. It is passing strange while this equipment was provided that the meeting refused to accept the huge petition that the Council of Canadians tried to present. Wouldn't it be helpful for security to add those names to their database of protesters. Shame on them. Missed opportunity.
Democracy's new dawn is on CCTV: the security state as infotainment
So keen are America's leaders to hear dissent they're videotaping the dissenters. Welcome to a world of total surveillance
Naomi Klein
Friday August 24, 2007
The Guardian
As protesters gathered recently outside the Security and Prosperity Partnership summit in Montebello, Quebec, to confront George Bush, Felipe Calderón, the Mexican president, and Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, Associated Press reported this surreal detail: "Leaders were not able to see the protesters in person, but they could watch the protesters on TV monitors inside the hotel ... Cameramen hired to ensure that demonstrators would be able to pass along their messages to the three leaders sat idly in a tent full of audio and video equipment ... A sign on the outside of the tent said, 'Our cameras are here today providing your right to be seen and heard. Please let us help you get your message out. Thank You.'"
Yes, it's true: like contestants on a reality TV show, protesters at the SPP meeting were invited to vent into video cameras, their rants to be beamed to "protest-trons" inside the summit enclave. It was security state as infotainment - Big Brother meets, well, Big Brother. The spokesperson for Prime Minister Harper explained that although protesters were herded into empty fields, the video link meant that their right to political speech was protected. "Under the law, they need to be seen and heard, and they will be."
It is an argument with sweeping implications. If videotaping activists meets the legal requirement that dissenting citizens have the right to be seen and heard, what else might fit the bill? How about all the other security cameras that patrolled the summit - the ones filming demonstrators as they got on and off buses and peacefully walked down the street? What about the mobile phone calls that were intercepted, the meetings that were infiltrated, the emails that were read? According to the new rules set out in Montebello, all these actions may soon be recast not as infringements on civil liberties but the opposite: proof of our leaders' commitment to direct, unmediated consultation. Elections are a crude tool for taking the public temperature - these methods allow constant, exact monitoring of our beliefs. Think of surveillance as the new participatory democracy; of wiretapping as the political equivalent of MTV's Total Request Live.
Protesters in Montebello complained that while they were locked out, chief executives from about 30 of the largest corporations in North America - from Wal-Mart to Chevron - were part of the official summit. But perhaps they had it backwards: the CEOs had only an hour and 15 minutes of face time with the leaders. The activists were being "seen and heard" around the clock. So instead of shouting about police-state tactics, maybe they should have said: "Thank you for listening." (And reading, and watching, and photographing, and data-mining.)
The Montebello "seen and heard" rule also casts the target of the protests in a new light. The SPP is described in the leaders' final statement as an "ambitious" plan to "keep our borders closed to terrorism yet open to trade". In other words, a merger of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the homeland security complex - Nafta with spy planes. The model dates back to September 11, when Paul Cellucci, the US ambassador to Canada, pronounced that in the new era, "security will trump trade". But there was an out clause: the trade on which the economies of Canada and Mexico depend could continue uninterrupted, as long as the governments of those countries were willing to welcome the tentacles of the US war on terror. Canadian and Mexican business leaders leaped to surrender, aggressively pushing their governments to give in to US demands for "integrated" security in order to keep the goods and the tourists flowing.
Almost six years later, the business leaders at Montebello - under the banner of the North American Competitiveness Council, an official wing of the SPP - were still holding up "thickening borders" as the bogeyman. The fix? According to the SPP website, "technological solutions, improved information-sharing, and, potentially, the use of biometric identifiers". From experience we know what this means: continent-wide no-fly lists, integrated databases, as well as the $2.5bn contract to Boeing to build a "virtual fence" on the northern and southern borders of the United States, equipped with unmanned drones.
In short, under the SPP vision of the continent, "thick" borders will soon be replaced with a nearly invisible web of continental surveillance - almost all of it run for profit. Two members of the SPP advisory group - Lockheed Martin and General Electric - have already received multibillion-dollar contracts from the US government to build this web. In the Bush era, security doesn't trump big business; it may be the biggest business of all.
In the run-up to the SPP summit, a spate of surveillance scandals helped paint a fuller picture. First, Congress not only failed to curtail the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping but opened the door to snooping into bank records, phone call patterns and even physical searches - all without any onus to prove the subject is a threat.
Next, the Boston Globe reported on plans to link thousands of CCTV cameras on streets, subways, apartment buildings and businesses into networks capable of tracking suspects in real time. And on August 15 confirmation came that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency - the arm of the American military that runs spy planes and satellites over enemy territory - would be fully integrated into the infrastructure of domestic intelligence gathering and local policing, becoming the "eyes" to the National Security Agency's "ears".
Add a few more hi-tech tools - biometric IDs, facial-recognition software, networked databases of "suspects", GPS bundled into ever more electronic devices - and you have something like the world of total surveillance most recently portrayed in The Bourne Ultimatum.
Which brings us back to the Security and Prosperity Partnership. Who needs clumsy old border checks when the authorities are making sure we are seen and heard at all times - in high definition, online and off, on land and from the sky? Security is the new prosperity. Surveillance is the new democracy.
· Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, is published next month; a version of this article appears in the Nation www.thenation.com
www.naomiklein.org
In the Bush era, security doesn't trump big business; it may be the biggest business of all.
The provision of cameras for protestors to send their messages inside is really priceless. No doubt it enables the intelligence services to add to their already bulging database about protesters. It is passing strange while this equipment was provided that the meeting refused to accept the huge petition that the Council of Canadians tried to present. Wouldn't it be helpful for security to add those names to their database of protesters. Shame on them. Missed opportunity.
Democracy's new dawn is on CCTV: the security state as infotainment
So keen are America's leaders to hear dissent they're videotaping the dissenters. Welcome to a world of total surveillance
Naomi Klein
Friday August 24, 2007
The Guardian
As protesters gathered recently outside the Security and Prosperity Partnership summit in Montebello, Quebec, to confront George Bush, Felipe Calderón, the Mexican president, and Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, Associated Press reported this surreal detail: "Leaders were not able to see the protesters in person, but they could watch the protesters on TV monitors inside the hotel ... Cameramen hired to ensure that demonstrators would be able to pass along their messages to the three leaders sat idly in a tent full of audio and video equipment ... A sign on the outside of the tent said, 'Our cameras are here today providing your right to be seen and heard. Please let us help you get your message out. Thank You.'"
Yes, it's true: like contestants on a reality TV show, protesters at the SPP meeting were invited to vent into video cameras, their rants to be beamed to "protest-trons" inside the summit enclave. It was security state as infotainment - Big Brother meets, well, Big Brother. The spokesperson for Prime Minister Harper explained that although protesters were herded into empty fields, the video link meant that their right to political speech was protected. "Under the law, they need to be seen and heard, and they will be."
It is an argument with sweeping implications. If videotaping activists meets the legal requirement that dissenting citizens have the right to be seen and heard, what else might fit the bill? How about all the other security cameras that patrolled the summit - the ones filming demonstrators as they got on and off buses and peacefully walked down the street? What about the mobile phone calls that were intercepted, the meetings that were infiltrated, the emails that were read? According to the new rules set out in Montebello, all these actions may soon be recast not as infringements on civil liberties but the opposite: proof of our leaders' commitment to direct, unmediated consultation. Elections are a crude tool for taking the public temperature - these methods allow constant, exact monitoring of our beliefs. Think of surveillance as the new participatory democracy; of wiretapping as the political equivalent of MTV's Total Request Live.
Protesters in Montebello complained that while they were locked out, chief executives from about 30 of the largest corporations in North America - from Wal-Mart to Chevron - were part of the official summit. But perhaps they had it backwards: the CEOs had only an hour and 15 minutes of face time with the leaders. The activists were being "seen and heard" around the clock. So instead of shouting about police-state tactics, maybe they should have said: "Thank you for listening." (And reading, and watching, and photographing, and data-mining.)
The Montebello "seen and heard" rule also casts the target of the protests in a new light. The SPP is described in the leaders' final statement as an "ambitious" plan to "keep our borders closed to terrorism yet open to trade". In other words, a merger of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the homeland security complex - Nafta with spy planes. The model dates back to September 11, when Paul Cellucci, the US ambassador to Canada, pronounced that in the new era, "security will trump trade". But there was an out clause: the trade on which the economies of Canada and Mexico depend could continue uninterrupted, as long as the governments of those countries were willing to welcome the tentacles of the US war on terror. Canadian and Mexican business leaders leaped to surrender, aggressively pushing their governments to give in to US demands for "integrated" security in order to keep the goods and the tourists flowing.
Almost six years later, the business leaders at Montebello - under the banner of the North American Competitiveness Council, an official wing of the SPP - were still holding up "thickening borders" as the bogeyman. The fix? According to the SPP website, "technological solutions, improved information-sharing, and, potentially, the use of biometric identifiers". From experience we know what this means: continent-wide no-fly lists, integrated databases, as well as the $2.5bn contract to Boeing to build a "virtual fence" on the northern and southern borders of the United States, equipped with unmanned drones.
In short, under the SPP vision of the continent, "thick" borders will soon be replaced with a nearly invisible web of continental surveillance - almost all of it run for profit. Two members of the SPP advisory group - Lockheed Martin and General Electric - have already received multibillion-dollar contracts from the US government to build this web. In the Bush era, security doesn't trump big business; it may be the biggest business of all.
In the run-up to the SPP summit, a spate of surveillance scandals helped paint a fuller picture. First, Congress not only failed to curtail the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping but opened the door to snooping into bank records, phone call patterns and even physical searches - all without any onus to prove the subject is a threat.
Next, the Boston Globe reported on plans to link thousands of CCTV cameras on streets, subways, apartment buildings and businesses into networks capable of tracking suspects in real time. And on August 15 confirmation came that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency - the arm of the American military that runs spy planes and satellites over enemy territory - would be fully integrated into the infrastructure of domestic intelligence gathering and local policing, becoming the "eyes" to the National Security Agency's "ears".
Add a few more hi-tech tools - biometric IDs, facial-recognition software, networked databases of "suspects", GPS bundled into ever more electronic devices - and you have something like the world of total surveillance most recently portrayed in The Bourne Ultimatum.
Which brings us back to the Security and Prosperity Partnership. Who needs clumsy old border checks when the authorities are making sure we are seen and heard at all times - in high definition, online and off, on land and from the sky? Security is the new prosperity. Surveillance is the new democracy.
· Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, is published next month; a version of this article appears in the Nation www.thenation.com
www.naomiklein.org
The Politics of Corporate Party Crashing
This is interesting as presenting one of the protest participant's point of view. It also shows some of the inner conflicts within the protest organisation process. Harder in surely premature in thinking that SPP's grave is dug. The protest did nothing to stop the process. There may be some move towards making the process more transparent but it may also just mean that the process will become even less perceptible and the yearly meetings may become just a more open show while everything important goes on behind the scenes as it has been already for the most part.
The politics of corporate party crashing
As activists assess their next steps, many wonder: can we still work together, dig the SPP's grave still deeper, and then push it in? And where do we go from there?
>by Joel Davison Harden
August 27, 2007
The North American global justice movement just exposed the “Security and Prosperity Partnership” (SPP), the latest corporate assault on our democracy, environment and human rights.
Big business was forced to admit their elite-led project must emerge from lobbyist backrooms, and face debate in elected legislatures.
Meanwhile, other business voices (like former Liberal Deputy Leader John Manley, and the Canadian American Business Council) criticized the “lack of transparency” in the SPP process itself.
The Editorial Board of the Hill Times (a newspaper read by all federal MPs) ran a lead column demanding the SPP be brought before parliament.
This split was caused by our movement's activism, and is a partial victory in itself.
We rejected their propaganda, and refused their protest zones. We crashed the corporate Bush party in Montebello, and put big business back on the defensive where it belongs.
Even worse for Stephen Harper, that inveterate control-freak, his arrogance may finally come back to bite him.
Did Harper's apparent lack of concern for protests mask a more ominous, underhanded strategy?
Did he (or someone in his office) authorize attempts to discredit protesters through agents provocateurs?
A recent Supreme Court decision explained the Prime Minister's Office is regularly briefed on security measures for meetings when other Heads of State are involved. What might a public inquiry into this week's events dredge up?
Between this, Harper's embrace of oil barons, and his loyalty to the Bush-Cheney “War on Terror,” the conditions are ripe for activists to deliver a knockout blow this fall. The wind is back in the sails of North America's global justice movement, and not a moment too soon.
The SPP: a sign of weakness
As activists took on the SPP, we learned an important lesson, one that hints at our power.
We learned big business and government officials felt compelled to conduct the SPP process in secret, away from the prying eyes of public scrutiny.
While progressive researchers (like Teresa Healy of the Canadian Labour Congress) toiled mightily to get SPP documents, government officials largely refused access to key speeches and files.
This secrecy is a sign of weakness. A brief review of recent history demonstrates this is true.
Anyone remember the 1988 federal election that focused on a Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the U.S.? A majority of Canadians voted for parties that opposed the deal. Given the circus mirror produced by Canada's election rules, however, Brian Mulroney's Tories implemented it anyway a year later.
What about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), introduced by Jean Chretien's Liberals in 1993? When standing for election, Chretien claimed he opposed NAFTA. That, of course, didn't stop him from implementing it once his government got elected.
After these two public debacles, “free trade” advocates felt put upon. They quickly shifted to negotiating new trade deals in secret.
This led to the next fiasco in 1997, otherwise known as the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI).
After Maude Barlow got a leaked version of the text, she exposed the MAI for what it was: a charter of investment rights for multinational corporations, where governments could be sued for lost profits and “sheltered markets.” Mass teach-ins were held to expose the MAI and its serious implications.
Public health care, post-secondary education, and other public services were all described as “sheltered markets,” receiving “unfair subsidies” from government. The MAI proposed an international legal process to pry open these “markets” for corporate gain.
Not surprisingly, when people got wind of this, they pressured their governments to torpedo the MAI. France did so publicly in 1997, and that drove a nail into the MAI's coffin.
The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) that came later would suffer a similar fate. After large protests in Quebec City (2001) and Miami (2003), South American governments took turns snubbing it. By 2005, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pronounced the FTAA “dead,” and invited the world to debate strategies for “fair trade.”
As the FTAA imploded, North American big business set to work on the SPP. This time, through the mouthpiece of George W. Bush, they had a new spin: “security trumps trade.”
After the events of September 11, 2001, the SPP was pitched as a means to deliver “security” and “prosperity” for Mexico, Canada, and the U.S.
But as progressive researchers soon discovered, these warm, Orwellian words disguised backroom deals between top officials, where domestic regulations in Mexico, Canada and the U.S. would be shoe-horned to the lowest common denominator.
To quell any fears, SPP pundits insist the process is about “fine tuning” and “adjusting national regulations” given commitments made in “free trade” agreements.
Critical analysis shows the SPP is more like a corporate-led overhaul. The process itself, directed by 30 of the planet's top CEOs, is currently reviewing over 300 areas of government regulations, tasking working groups to propose “harmonized rules” in (among other things) health care, labour standards, border security, military procurement policy, bulk water exports, and corporate licensing.
With this information at our fingertips, activists have exposed the SPP for what is truly is: a sign of weakness. After being burned before, big business and their government allies were skulking about in the dark, and we just turned the lights on.
But where do we go from here?
With the SPP protests, the elite were reminded that secrecy strengthens the dissenter's cause.
But as activists began mobilizing in May 2007, we faced our own key lesson. We learned that two broad tendencies needed to work together.
On the one hand, some wanted events to focus on the SPP summit in Montebello. Those of this view ranged between some encouraging “family friendly” demonstrations, and others keen on trying to shut the SPP proceedings down through “direct action.”
On the other hand were activists who wanted “family friendly” events in both Ottawa and Montebello. Those of this view felt it was important to plan large-scale events on the weekend that people safely attend. These efforts, it was argued, could usefully compliment other “direct action” events in Montebello, and continue the outreach needed to expose the SPP.
Initially, it appeared everyone would be happy, until a mass teach-in being organized by national groups (scheduled in Papineauville, down the road from Montebello) got canned by police. Teach-in organizers felt they couldn't risk another police intervention, so they moved their event to Ottawa.
Once this happened, protesters intent on getting to Montebello were irked. Until then, events had been scheduled in both Ottawa and Montebello, but the presence of national groups in Montebello reassured some that emphasis would be put on the SPP summit itself.
When that plan changed, the aforementioned two tendencies spent weeks fighting each other.
Then, about four weeks before the SPP summit, a breakthrough happened. At the end of a painful three-hour meeting, local and national organizers agreed to plan a family friendly protest event in Montebello for Monday, August 20, the day after large-scale events in Ottawa.
Those inclined to “direct action” in Montebello agreed to respect the family friendly event. National groups felt more comfortable financing transportation costs for Montebello plans. This hardly ended disagreements, but it gave folks a common project to work towards.
Still, on the day activists were bound for Montebello, many wondered how events would turn out. Would “family friendly” activists publicly criticize “direct action” protesters? Would “direct action” protesters respect “family friendly” zones? Would agents provocateurs insert themselves to muck up the best laid plans?
In the end, with good fortune and good intentions, things worked out rather well. The police were clearly under orders not to storm the crowd, despite the fact that we didn't stay in designated protest zones.
The Council of Canadians joined with 1,500 “family friendly” protesters to present 10,000 anti-SPP petitions to the gates of the Montebello summit. After a tense fifteen minutes, some fell back 300 feet to a family friendly “green zone,” though many stayed to join “direct action” protesters who were cheered as they marched, music blaring, to the gates.
There is a lesson in these events, and it bears repeating as global justice activism moves forward.
Communication between “family friendly” and “direct action” protesters is crucial, and must be built into future organizing in the appropriate way. As we organize separately, we must continue to find ways to support each other.
We need creative “direct action” to confront the warmongers, climate change deniers, and corporate profiteers imperiling our planet. Such confrontation, in my opinion, is most effective when assault or property damage isn't part of the plan.
We also need large, inclusive, “family friendly” events to build the largest movement possible. These events, in my opinion, are most effective when organized beyond the self-defined “Left,” and when principled, plain language is used to shift public opinion.
Both strategies came together in Ottawa and Montebello. Both are required for success in the politics of corporate party crashing. Both can mobilize bottom-up dissent to the SPP, and give voice to the thousand alternatives coursing through our movement.
Believe it: a better world is still possible. Let's get on with the task of getting there.
Joel Davison Harden is a peace activist and a former leader of the Canadian Federation of Students (Ontario, 1998-2000). He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (York University), and looks forward to keeping big business on the run.
The politics of corporate party crashing
As activists assess their next steps, many wonder: can we still work together, dig the SPP's grave still deeper, and then push it in? And where do we go from there?
>by Joel Davison Harden
August 27, 2007
The North American global justice movement just exposed the “Security and Prosperity Partnership” (SPP), the latest corporate assault on our democracy, environment and human rights.
Big business was forced to admit their elite-led project must emerge from lobbyist backrooms, and face debate in elected legislatures.
Meanwhile, other business voices (like former Liberal Deputy Leader John Manley, and the Canadian American Business Council) criticized the “lack of transparency” in the SPP process itself.
The Editorial Board of the Hill Times (a newspaper read by all federal MPs) ran a lead column demanding the SPP be brought before parliament.
This split was caused by our movement's activism, and is a partial victory in itself.
We rejected their propaganda, and refused their protest zones. We crashed the corporate Bush party in Montebello, and put big business back on the defensive where it belongs.
Even worse for Stephen Harper, that inveterate control-freak, his arrogance may finally come back to bite him.
Did Harper's apparent lack of concern for protests mask a more ominous, underhanded strategy?
Did he (or someone in his office) authorize attempts to discredit protesters through agents provocateurs?
A recent Supreme Court decision explained the Prime Minister's Office is regularly briefed on security measures for meetings when other Heads of State are involved. What might a public inquiry into this week's events dredge up?
Between this, Harper's embrace of oil barons, and his loyalty to the Bush-Cheney “War on Terror,” the conditions are ripe for activists to deliver a knockout blow this fall. The wind is back in the sails of North America's global justice movement, and not a moment too soon.
The SPP: a sign of weakness
As activists took on the SPP, we learned an important lesson, one that hints at our power.
We learned big business and government officials felt compelled to conduct the SPP process in secret, away from the prying eyes of public scrutiny.
While progressive researchers (like Teresa Healy of the Canadian Labour Congress) toiled mightily to get SPP documents, government officials largely refused access to key speeches and files.
This secrecy is a sign of weakness. A brief review of recent history demonstrates this is true.
Anyone remember the 1988 federal election that focused on a Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the U.S.? A majority of Canadians voted for parties that opposed the deal. Given the circus mirror produced by Canada's election rules, however, Brian Mulroney's Tories implemented it anyway a year later.
What about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), introduced by Jean Chretien's Liberals in 1993? When standing for election, Chretien claimed he opposed NAFTA. That, of course, didn't stop him from implementing it once his government got elected.
After these two public debacles, “free trade” advocates felt put upon. They quickly shifted to negotiating new trade deals in secret.
This led to the next fiasco in 1997, otherwise known as the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI).
After Maude Barlow got a leaked version of the text, she exposed the MAI for what it was: a charter of investment rights for multinational corporations, where governments could be sued for lost profits and “sheltered markets.” Mass teach-ins were held to expose the MAI and its serious implications.
Public health care, post-secondary education, and other public services were all described as “sheltered markets,” receiving “unfair subsidies” from government. The MAI proposed an international legal process to pry open these “markets” for corporate gain.
Not surprisingly, when people got wind of this, they pressured their governments to torpedo the MAI. France did so publicly in 1997, and that drove a nail into the MAI's coffin.
The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) that came later would suffer a similar fate. After large protests in Quebec City (2001) and Miami (2003), South American governments took turns snubbing it. By 2005, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pronounced the FTAA “dead,” and invited the world to debate strategies for “fair trade.”
As the FTAA imploded, North American big business set to work on the SPP. This time, through the mouthpiece of George W. Bush, they had a new spin: “security trumps trade.”
After the events of September 11, 2001, the SPP was pitched as a means to deliver “security” and “prosperity” for Mexico, Canada, and the U.S.
But as progressive researchers soon discovered, these warm, Orwellian words disguised backroom deals between top officials, where domestic regulations in Mexico, Canada and the U.S. would be shoe-horned to the lowest common denominator.
To quell any fears, SPP pundits insist the process is about “fine tuning” and “adjusting national regulations” given commitments made in “free trade” agreements.
Critical analysis shows the SPP is more like a corporate-led overhaul. The process itself, directed by 30 of the planet's top CEOs, is currently reviewing over 300 areas of government regulations, tasking working groups to propose “harmonized rules” in (among other things) health care, labour standards, border security, military procurement policy, bulk water exports, and corporate licensing.
With this information at our fingertips, activists have exposed the SPP for what is truly is: a sign of weakness. After being burned before, big business and their government allies were skulking about in the dark, and we just turned the lights on.
But where do we go from here?
With the SPP protests, the elite were reminded that secrecy strengthens the dissenter's cause.
But as activists began mobilizing in May 2007, we faced our own key lesson. We learned that two broad tendencies needed to work together.
On the one hand, some wanted events to focus on the SPP summit in Montebello. Those of this view ranged between some encouraging “family friendly” demonstrations, and others keen on trying to shut the SPP proceedings down through “direct action.”
On the other hand were activists who wanted “family friendly” events in both Ottawa and Montebello. Those of this view felt it was important to plan large-scale events on the weekend that people safely attend. These efforts, it was argued, could usefully compliment other “direct action” events in Montebello, and continue the outreach needed to expose the SPP.
Initially, it appeared everyone would be happy, until a mass teach-in being organized by national groups (scheduled in Papineauville, down the road from Montebello) got canned by police. Teach-in organizers felt they couldn't risk another police intervention, so they moved their event to Ottawa.
Once this happened, protesters intent on getting to Montebello were irked. Until then, events had been scheduled in both Ottawa and Montebello, but the presence of national groups in Montebello reassured some that emphasis would be put on the SPP summit itself.
When that plan changed, the aforementioned two tendencies spent weeks fighting each other.
Then, about four weeks before the SPP summit, a breakthrough happened. At the end of a painful three-hour meeting, local and national organizers agreed to plan a family friendly protest event in Montebello for Monday, August 20, the day after large-scale events in Ottawa.
Those inclined to “direct action” in Montebello agreed to respect the family friendly event. National groups felt more comfortable financing transportation costs for Montebello plans. This hardly ended disagreements, but it gave folks a common project to work towards.
Still, on the day activists were bound for Montebello, many wondered how events would turn out. Would “family friendly” activists publicly criticize “direct action” protesters? Would “direct action” protesters respect “family friendly” zones? Would agents provocateurs insert themselves to muck up the best laid plans?
In the end, with good fortune and good intentions, things worked out rather well. The police were clearly under orders not to storm the crowd, despite the fact that we didn't stay in designated protest zones.
The Council of Canadians joined with 1,500 “family friendly” protesters to present 10,000 anti-SPP petitions to the gates of the Montebello summit. After a tense fifteen minutes, some fell back 300 feet to a family friendly “green zone,” though many stayed to join “direct action” protesters who were cheered as they marched, music blaring, to the gates.
There is a lesson in these events, and it bears repeating as global justice activism moves forward.
Communication between “family friendly” and “direct action” protesters is crucial, and must be built into future organizing in the appropriate way. As we organize separately, we must continue to find ways to support each other.
We need creative “direct action” to confront the warmongers, climate change deniers, and corporate profiteers imperiling our planet. Such confrontation, in my opinion, is most effective when assault or property damage isn't part of the plan.
We also need large, inclusive, “family friendly” events to build the largest movement possible. These events, in my opinion, are most effective when organized beyond the self-defined “Left,” and when principled, plain language is used to shift public opinion.
Both strategies came together in Ottawa and Montebello. Both are required for success in the politics of corporate party crashing. Both can mobilize bottom-up dissent to the SPP, and give voice to the thousand alternatives coursing through our movement.
Believe it: a better world is still possible. Let's get on with the task of getting there.
Joel Davison Harden is a peace activist and a former leader of the Canadian Federation of Students (Ontario, 1998-2000). He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (York University), and looks forward to keeping big business on the run.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
April poll of Sask. Party lead in Sask.
I am sure there must be more recent polls but I imagine that the Sask Party still has a substantial lead. I hear that Calvert has new teeth in preparation for the campaign. I hope they are good and sharp!
Sask. Party enjoys big lead
Angela Hall, The Leader-Post
Published: Saturday, April 28, 2007
Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party would sweep to power if a provincial election was held immediately, according to a poll conducted for the Leader-Post.
Nearly 55 per cent of decided respondents said they would cast a ballot for the Saskatchewan Party -- an almost 25-point lead over Premier Lorne Calvert's New Democrats at 29 per cent, the Sigma Analytics poll found.
"That's a deep hole to dig out of," said Ken Rasmussen, director of the University of Regina's graduate school public policy.
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Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall is gaining popularity in the polls.
(Handout photo)
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Font: ****"Once the numbers get entrenched like this and once people have made up their mind, that could be it for the NDP."
The Liberals, led by David Karwacki, followed with the support of about 10 per cent of decided respondents, and the Green Party and its new leader Sandra Finley was last at about six per cent.
Approximately 30 per cent of respondents to the poll, conducted April 18 to 24, said they were undecided about which party to vote for if an election was held tomorrow.
The results show the Sask. Party has broken into seat-winning territory in every region, suggesting it has overcome the "fear and loathing" factor, said Cam Cooper, senior associate with Sigma Analytics.
"The concern people used to have about the Sask. Party in the last election appears to have transferred," Cooper said.
"The numbers show (the NDP) is basically under siege on all fronts."
Cooper noted the NDP showing came despite generally favourable reviews in the poll to the senior's drug plan and graduate tax exemption programs introduced in the New Democrat spring budget.
The exception to the Sask. Party lead is Regina, where the New Democrats hold a "statistically indistinct" lead, according to the poll.
Sask. Party enjoys big lead
Angela Hall, The Leader-Post
Published: Saturday, April 28, 2007
Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party would sweep to power if a provincial election was held immediately, according to a poll conducted for the Leader-Post.
Nearly 55 per cent of decided respondents said they would cast a ballot for the Saskatchewan Party -- an almost 25-point lead over Premier Lorne Calvert's New Democrats at 29 per cent, the Sigma Analytics poll found.
"That's a deep hole to dig out of," said Ken Rasmussen, director of the University of Regina's graduate school public policy.
View Larger Image
Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall is gaining popularity in the polls.
(Handout photo)
Email to a friend
Printer friendly
Font: ****"Once the numbers get entrenched like this and once people have made up their mind, that could be it for the NDP."
The Liberals, led by David Karwacki, followed with the support of about 10 per cent of decided respondents, and the Green Party and its new leader Sandra Finley was last at about six per cent.
Approximately 30 per cent of respondents to the poll, conducted April 18 to 24, said they were undecided about which party to vote for if an election was held tomorrow.
The results show the Sask. Party has broken into seat-winning territory in every region, suggesting it has overcome the "fear and loathing" factor, said Cam Cooper, senior associate with Sigma Analytics.
"The concern people used to have about the Sask. Party in the last election appears to have transferred," Cooper said.
"The numbers show (the NDP) is basically under siege on all fronts."
Cooper noted the NDP showing came despite generally favourable reviews in the poll to the senior's drug plan and graduate tax exemption programs introduced in the New Democrat spring budget.
The exception to the Sask. Party lead is Regina, where the New Democrats hold a "statistically indistinct" lead, according to the poll.
Here is a very detailed analysis of Brad Wall's flip-flop on TILMA. A lot of effort must have gone into this article by Joe Kuchta. I will post his blog address later.
TILMA: Pre-election flip-flop destroys Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall’s credibility
“Saskatchewan Party Calls On NDP To Join In Western Trade Pact”
– Saskatchewan Party News Release Headline, May 1, 2006
“The province of Saskatchewan should be there as a part of this accord.”
– Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall, Saskatchewan Legislature, May 18, 2006
“I have no idea what’s scary about what B.C. and Alberta are doing...there is opportunity for us in our view and nothing to be worried about.”
–Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall, Regina Leader-Post, June 7, 2006
“[Saskatchewan Party Economic Development Critic Lyle] Stewart said a Saskatchewan Party government would seek a similar agreement with other western provinces.”
– Saskatchewan Party News Release, August 4, 2006
“[T]here’s no way that [The NDP] will sign on to the TILMA agreement before the next election. It’s going to take a new government…to do bold things like sign on to the TILMA agreement and get this province rolling.”
– Saskatchewan Party MLA Elwin Hermanson, Saskatchewan Legislature, March 26, 2007
After a year of repeatedly saying that it supported the BC-Alberta Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA), and would sign it if elected, the Saskatchewan Party has now officially come out against the trade deal – sort of.
In a pre-election damage control move to extricate itself from the growing criticism and controversy surrounding TILMA, Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall, under the cover of a long-weekend news release and a recent report by an all-party legislative committee examining the trade deal, flip-flopped his party’s position by saying it would not sign the agreement “in its present form.”
The careful wording would seem to allow Wall the leeway to consider signing TILMA in a different form should one emerge at a later date.
In the June 28, 2007, news release Wall blamed the Saskatchewan NDP government for his party’s about face saying it was because the province “did not take part in the original TILMA negotiations with BC and Alberta” and “had no part in negotiating its terms.”
This ignores the fact that it was British Columbia that first approached Alberta with a proposal to negotiate a comprehensive bi-lateral agreement on trade, investment and labour mobility. On October 8, 2003, the Governments of British Columbia and Alberta signed a joint Protocol of Co-operation, identifying the goal of expanding trade, investment and labour mobility between the two provinces. On May 26, 2004, the two governments signed an Internal Trade Framework Agreement confirmed as the basis for consultations and negotiation of a comprehensive bilateral agreement to enhance trade, investment and labour mobility between the two provinces. None of these documents appears to suggest that other provinces or territories would or should be involved.
It also ignores the fact that the negotiations between BC and Alberta were conducted behind closed-doors and that no consultation with municipalities, the public or legislative debate took place prior to the agreement’s signing on April 28, 2006.
Forgotten is the Saskatchewan Party’s May 1, 2006, news release calling on the NDP government to join the agreement and Wall’s condemnation of Premier Lorne Calvert in the legislature on May 1 & 2 for not being at the table with BC and Alberta during their closed-door meetings and for not immediately signing the trade deal – without proper consultation or study.
In the legislature on May 18, 2006, Wall again berated Premier Calvert and said the province of Saskatchewan should be part of the accord.
On August 4, 2006, then-Saskatchewan Party Economic Development Critic Lyle Stewart said a Saskatchewan Party government would seek a similar agreement with other western provinces.
During his many tirades Wall raised no concerns with TILMA “in its present form”.
The news release and Wall’s comments appear to be politically motivated and nothing more than a pathetic attempt to divert attention away from his party’s support for a reckless, destructive and increasingly divisive trade agreement.
If the Saskatchewan Party is capable of this kind of deception and hypocrisy as the official opposition what do the people of Saskatchewan have to look forward to should it be asked to form the next government?
“The Saskatchewan Party strongly supports the reduction of inter-provincial trade barriers as a means to grow Saskatchewan’s economy and create new jobs,” Wall said in the news release.
Unfortunately, the news release does not provide a list of genuine trade barriers between provinces that Wall thinks should be removed.
Furthermore, on April 3, 2007, an Edmonton Journal editorial said there is “little in the way of genuine trade barriers remaining between the two westernmost provinces” and Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall said in a news release that Saskatchewan is “the lowest cost jurisdiction…with fewer trade barriers and restrictions than either B.C. or Alberta.” Wall seems to have forgotten that he made these comments.
In the June 28 news release Wall said the Opposition’s own research and the TILMA hearings raised specific concerns about three areas which are not clearly addressed in the current TILMA agreement:
1. The protection of Crown Corporations;
2. The exemption of provincial new growth tax incentives; and
3. The potential loss of new growth tax incentives at the municipal level.
Curiously, despite his party’s own research, Wall never brought these concerns forward last year when he was hysterically calling on Premier Calvert to sign the agreement. And yet in the legislature on May 2, 2006, Wall had the gall to suggest that NDP Government Relations Minister Harry Van Mulligen had not done his homework on the TILMA file.
This seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. During a speech at the 2006 Saskatoon Leader’s Dinner on March 2, 2006, at TCU Place, Wall proudly proclaimed that when it comes to his party “We are doing our homework.”
Then there is Wall’s March 19, 2007, letter to the City of Saskatoon outlining the three criteria that would have to be met in order for his party to sign TILMA:
1. That it not negatively impact on the public ownership of the major Crowns
2. That it not negatively impact environmental standards
3. That it not negatively impact the well-being of workers.
The exemption of provincial new growth tax incentives and the potential loss of new growth tax incentives at the municipal level mentioned in the June 28 news release are absent from the list – and yet the Saskatchewan Party claims it does its homework.
Not only would TILMA adversely affect municipalities it puts at risk important policies and programs that are in the public interest to maintain.
TILMA’s list of exceptions include measures relating to Aboriginal peoples; water; regulated rates established for the public good or the public interest; social policy, including labour standards and codes, minimum wages, employment insurance, social assistance benefits and worker’s compensation; compensation to persons for losses resulting from calamities such as diseases or disasters; assistance for book and magazine publishers, sound recordings, and film development, production and distribution; assistance for recreation, academic research or to non-profit organizations; the management and disposal of hazardous and waste materials; and the management or conservation of forests, fish and wildlife.
A measure includes any legislation, regulation, standard, directive, requirement, guideline, program, policy, administrative practice or other procedure.
Article 17 of the agreement requires a ministerial committee to “review annually the exceptions listed...with a view to reducing their scope.”
The exceptions in TILMA will shrink over time and are by no means safe. The Conference Board of Canada’s impact assessment for the BC Government confirms this stating “TILMA is considered to be an improvement… since future negotiations can focus on the removal of the exceptions from the explicit exclusion list.”
Furthermore, an October 2006 TILMA fact sheet states that “if a measure is not clearly identified as an exception, it is subject to the rules of the agreement.”
Since health and education measures are not clearly identified as exceptions, it would seem they, too, could be at significant risk.
Wall has refused to say whether a Saskatchewan Party government would ensure that these important measures are permanently exempt from any trade agreement it might consider signing. His silence on the issue and the fact that they aren’t included in the June 28 news release or Wall’s March 19 letter to the City of Saskatoon seems to indicate that his party has little or no intention of protecting these areas.
Wall stated in the June 28 news release that he was also concerned about the lack of formal input from Saskatchewan cities.
“Our Enterprise Saskatchewan plan for the economy involves direct input from stakeholders including the municipal sector,” Wall said. “How could we enter into a major trade and investment agreement without their formal input and assessment?
Where was Wall a year ago when similar concerns, along with many others which he refuses to recognize, began coming forward from various organizations and individuals? Why is it only now in the eleventh hour that he is willing to acknowledge their validity?
Enterprise Saskatchewan was announced on September 21, 2004, as part of Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall’s “new economic vision” for the province outlined in the document The Promise of Saskatchewan: A New Vision for Saskatchewan’s Economy. While it predates TILMA by nineteen months it offers some insight into what Wall believes are barriers plaguing Saskatchewan.
In an address that day to more than 200 students at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Commerce Wall said Saskatchewan must shed its dependence on public sector intervention and begin to build a larger private sector as the primary economic driver.
“The goal of our Enterprise Saskatchewan plan is to create an aggressive, agile and entrepreneurial economy within a stable and positive business environment that removes the politics from economic development and can survive Saskatchewan’s volatile election cycle.”
Wall said Enterprise Saskatchewan will focus on Saskatchewan’s key economic sectors and implement a broad plan consisting of, but not limited to fifteen elements, one of which “will develop a systematic and ongoing process to identify and remove barriers to growth in each of our key economic sectors.”
Apparently the number of barriers in Saskatchewan is substantial. According to Wall, “Saskatchewan Party MLAs have spent a great deal of time meeting with various industry groups and economic development organizations to identify barriers to growth in key economic sectors. We understand the many and varied barriers that exist.”
The word barrier occurs 40 times in the plan. While no attempt is made to provide a separate, comprehensive list, Wall does refer to the following as barriers:
– Direct competition to business from various government agencies
– Crowns attempting to diversify from core functions; policies of the Crowns themselves
– Inadequate access to bandwidth
– Lack of high-speed internet access in parts of the province
– Corporate income taxes
– The resource surcharge
– Shortage of skilled labour
– Poor infrastructure (i.e. high quality roads)
– Red tape
– Government permitting
– The PST
– Financial institutions taxed at a higher rate than manufacturing firms
– High fuel taxes
One barrier that Wall mentions a few times is the corporate capital tax which he calls “insidious” and “penalizes private sector investment” yet in the next breath says that it is an area “the government of Saskatchewan may not be in a position to offer meaningful reductions” and “will be too costly to be eliminated or significantly reduced immediately.” So it would appear that even though Enterprise Saskatchewan promises to identify and remove barriers it might not apply in this case. It makes one wonder how many others would meet a similar fate should the Saskatchewan Party form government.
It is unclear whether an agreement like TILMA is the appropriate vehicle for addressing Wall’s barriers. He does not appear to be citing them when commenting on the trade agreement. To date Wall has not produced a list of genuine trade barriers between provinces and has described Saskatchewan as being “the lowest cost jurisdiction…with fewer trade barriers and restrictions than either B.C. or Alberta.” Yet, it seems through constant rhetoric that he and his party continue to create an atmosphere of crisis suggesting barriers exist in such great numbers that it is threatening the province’s very existence.
It is interesting to note that the word investment appears 80 times in Wall’s economic vision while social occurs just 3 times. Page 26 appears to provide a glimpse of where social issues are situated on Wall’s list of priorities:
“In 1996, a KPMG study on location cost analysis highlighted the need for Saskatchewan to become competitive on taxes and stability. Investors were worried about the stability of the business environment and the potential for radical changes in operating conditions. Indeed, the study recommended more partnerships between stakeholders through a provincial economic development authority. The study also pointed out that investment decisions are driven by financial factors, not quality-of-life considerations. It recommends Saskatchewan emphasize its attraction in business terms, not social ones, when marketing itself to outside investors.
“Let us not lose sight of the basics. Saskatchewan must be competitive in terms of taxes, regulation, the availability of venture capital, and innovation.
“An enterprising, entrepreneurial Saskatchewan economy will be impatient, relentless, aggressive, self-promoting and even brash. Profit within that economy will be lauded instead of envied.”
In Wall’s world it would seem that investor rights and interests trump social and quality-of-life considerations.
In his party’s June 28 news release leader Brad Wall said “We know that Alberta and BC officials have indicated that having Saskatchewan sign on without any revisiting of the agreement would not make sense for those two provinces either.”
This is not new information. The BC Government – who initiated TILMA – publicly stated its position on the matter last year.
In a speech to the BC Business Council and Canada West Foundation on December 13, 2006, BC Premier Gordon Campbell had this to say about TILMA:
“So we’ve said to Saskatchewan we’d like to tell you how the agreement’s working; we want to show you how the dispute resolution works; we want to show you the penalties; we want to show you what we’re doing. We’d love you to join us, but these are the rules.
“I talked with Premier McGuinty in Ontario about Ontario joining British Columbia and Alberta. I said to Premier McGuinty: “You’re the biggest province in the country, Dalton. You guys are important to all of us. By the way, we’re not changing the agreement, but you’re welcome to join.””
In Provinces unite to tackle skill shortages (Vancouver Sun, Dec. 14, 2006) Premier Campbell said Saskatchewan and Ontario are welcome to join TILMA “provided they don’t try to tinker with the deal.”
Given Brad Wall’s apparent fondness for BC and Alberta style governance and the claim that his party does its homework it seems reasonable to think that he knew about this long ago. So why is he only bringing it up now and using it as an excuse for not signing the agreement?
Wall’s affinity for Alberta and its conservative government is well known.
During a speech to the North Saskatoon Business Association on December 8, 2005, at the Delta Bessborough Hotel, Wall said:
“I have spoken to many of those seeking to replace Mr. Klein in Alberta, and to Mr. Klein himself and they welcome the day when Saskatchewan will join Alberta and B.C. at the table to earnestly work together in areas of public policy including energy policy and the reduction of inter-provincial trade barriers.
“They are waiting. I have already told them that a Brad Wall government will be at that table.”
In his March 2, 2006, Saskatoon Leader’s Dinner Speech, Wall said that then-Alberta Premier Ralph Klein invited him to attend his annual Global Business Forum in Banff in September 2005.
“The Premier of Alberta informed me of high level meetings between his province and BC to look at ways of reducing inter-provincial barriers to growth and trade,” Wall said.
Wall went on to say “I am announcing tonight that I have tasked Sask. Party Cutknife-Turtleford MLA Michael Chisholm to focus exclusively on the opportunities of western economic cooperation so that we may send a clear but unpretentious message to other western capitals that a new government in Saskatchewan means a leading partner for them in the emerging New West and a strong new voice for Saskatchewan at the Council of the Federation of this country.”
In a March 3, 2006, Saskatchewan Party news release Wall followed up on the Chisholm announcement stating:
“We want to send a clear message to other western capitals that a new government in Saskatchewan will mean a leading partner for them in this emerging new west,” Wall said.
“Inter-provincial trade barriers, regulations and barriers to growth will be the focus of this Saskatchewan Party initiative.”
In Deal interests Sask. premier (Regina Leader-Post, June 7, 2006), it was reported that Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall met with then-Alberta Premier Ralph Klein in Calgary on June 5, 2006, “where the main topic of discussion” was TILMA.
“I have no idea what’s scary about what B.C. and Alberta are doing…there is opportunity for us in our view and nothing to be worried about,” Wall was quoted as saying.
In the Saskatchewan Legislature on April 2, 2007, on the subject of TILMA, Wall said:
“We met with officials in Alberta and BC — both elected and the senior civil servants — who were part of negotiating that agreement. We asked questions about how would this impact our Crowns, which is very important to the province. How would it impact the autonomy of municipalities? We were doing our homework.”
It seems the Saskatchewan Party might have been privy to some of TILMA’s details prior to its signing and also that the governments of BC and Alberta were not interested in changing the agreement for other provinces, but the party chose to say little about it until its June 28, 2007, news release. Why?
Lastly, Wall said in the June 28 news release that he prefers other modes of western economic cooperation including Saskatchewan’s involvement in the Pacific North West Economic Region (PNWER) and he has already indicated that a Saskatchewan Party government would hold joint cabinet meetings with other western provinces to explore opportunities to cooperate in areas such as health care equipment and pharmaceutical purchases.
Wall neglected to mention that it was through closed-door joint cabinet meetings that led to TILMA in the first place. It seems Wall is eager to drag Saskatchewan down that road as well.
As for its support of PNWER the Saskatchewan Party appears to be in lock step with Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s trade agenda.
In a speech delivered at the 2007 Saskatoon Saskatchewan Party Leader’s Dinner on March 8, 2007, at TCU Place, Wall said, “Then there is PNWER (the Pacific Northwest Economic Region). Another regional dynamic group of northwestern states together with Alberta and BC who are cooperating to build the Asia Pacific Gateway…I have asked our critic for Western Economic Cooperation Mike Chisholm to focus on this opportunity.”
A few weeks later Prime Minister Harper had this to say at a May 4, 2007, press conference in Vancouver: “It’s hard to overstate the importance of Asia-Pacific trade to Canada’s economic future. The Gateway Initiative is obviously critical to realizing our potential as a country.”
“Our Government has now committed over $1 billion to this Initiative…And in the longer term, we intend to develop an Atlantic Gateway on the East Coast.”
The press conference also gave Harper the opportunity to showcase his support for TILMA: “This is a bold step that has been undertaken by two forward-looking provinces committed to successfully competing in global markets, and I believe their success will set an example other provinces will find hard to resist.”
Wall’s agenda appears to go well beyond TILMA and could include joining PNWER who are studying the BC-Alberta trade agreement as well.
On July 18, 2006, PNWER’s Trade & Economic Development Work Group resolved to “embrace the opportunity to educate and explore the possibility of expanding the B.C.-Alberta Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) concept throughout the PNWER region.”
The 17th PNWER Annual Summit is scheduled for July 22-26, 2007, in Anchorage, Alaska. The Trade & Economic Development portion of the agenda is set for the morning of July 24, 2007, where an update on the 2006 Working Group Action Items regarding TILMA will be discussed. Mr. Shawn Robbins, Director of Internal Trade for Alberta International and Intergovernmental Relations is confirmed to attend.
The controversy and debate surrounding TILMA may be far from over.
The Saskatchewan Party and its leader Brad Wall’s support for the agreement last year was unequivocal. One might wish to keep in mind the old adage that “a leopard cannot change its spots.”
posted by Joe Kuchta @ 4:45 AM 0 comments
TILMA: Pre-election flip-flop destroys Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall’s credibility
“Saskatchewan Party Calls On NDP To Join In Western Trade Pact”
– Saskatchewan Party News Release Headline, May 1, 2006
“The province of Saskatchewan should be there as a part of this accord.”
– Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall, Saskatchewan Legislature, May 18, 2006
“I have no idea what’s scary about what B.C. and Alberta are doing...there is opportunity for us in our view and nothing to be worried about.”
–Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall, Regina Leader-Post, June 7, 2006
“[Saskatchewan Party Economic Development Critic Lyle] Stewart said a Saskatchewan Party government would seek a similar agreement with other western provinces.”
– Saskatchewan Party News Release, August 4, 2006
“[T]here’s no way that [The NDP] will sign on to the TILMA agreement before the next election. It’s going to take a new government…to do bold things like sign on to the TILMA agreement and get this province rolling.”
– Saskatchewan Party MLA Elwin Hermanson, Saskatchewan Legislature, March 26, 2007
After a year of repeatedly saying that it supported the BC-Alberta Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA), and would sign it if elected, the Saskatchewan Party has now officially come out against the trade deal – sort of.
In a pre-election damage control move to extricate itself from the growing criticism and controversy surrounding TILMA, Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall, under the cover of a long-weekend news release and a recent report by an all-party legislative committee examining the trade deal, flip-flopped his party’s position by saying it would not sign the agreement “in its present form.”
The careful wording would seem to allow Wall the leeway to consider signing TILMA in a different form should one emerge at a later date.
In the June 28, 2007, news release Wall blamed the Saskatchewan NDP government for his party’s about face saying it was because the province “did not take part in the original TILMA negotiations with BC and Alberta” and “had no part in negotiating its terms.”
This ignores the fact that it was British Columbia that first approached Alberta with a proposal to negotiate a comprehensive bi-lateral agreement on trade, investment and labour mobility. On October 8, 2003, the Governments of British Columbia and Alberta signed a joint Protocol of Co-operation, identifying the goal of expanding trade, investment and labour mobility between the two provinces. On May 26, 2004, the two governments signed an Internal Trade Framework Agreement confirmed as the basis for consultations and negotiation of a comprehensive bilateral agreement to enhance trade, investment and labour mobility between the two provinces. None of these documents appears to suggest that other provinces or territories would or should be involved.
It also ignores the fact that the negotiations between BC and Alberta were conducted behind closed-doors and that no consultation with municipalities, the public or legislative debate took place prior to the agreement’s signing on April 28, 2006.
Forgotten is the Saskatchewan Party’s May 1, 2006, news release calling on the NDP government to join the agreement and Wall’s condemnation of Premier Lorne Calvert in the legislature on May 1 & 2 for not being at the table with BC and Alberta during their closed-door meetings and for not immediately signing the trade deal – without proper consultation or study.
In the legislature on May 18, 2006, Wall again berated Premier Calvert and said the province of Saskatchewan should be part of the accord.
On August 4, 2006, then-Saskatchewan Party Economic Development Critic Lyle Stewart said a Saskatchewan Party government would seek a similar agreement with other western provinces.
During his many tirades Wall raised no concerns with TILMA “in its present form”.
The news release and Wall’s comments appear to be politically motivated and nothing more than a pathetic attempt to divert attention away from his party’s support for a reckless, destructive and increasingly divisive trade agreement.
If the Saskatchewan Party is capable of this kind of deception and hypocrisy as the official opposition what do the people of Saskatchewan have to look forward to should it be asked to form the next government?
“The Saskatchewan Party strongly supports the reduction of inter-provincial trade barriers as a means to grow Saskatchewan’s economy and create new jobs,” Wall said in the news release.
Unfortunately, the news release does not provide a list of genuine trade barriers between provinces that Wall thinks should be removed.
Furthermore, on April 3, 2007, an Edmonton Journal editorial said there is “little in the way of genuine trade barriers remaining between the two westernmost provinces” and Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall said in a news release that Saskatchewan is “the lowest cost jurisdiction…with fewer trade barriers and restrictions than either B.C. or Alberta.” Wall seems to have forgotten that he made these comments.
In the June 28 news release Wall said the Opposition’s own research and the TILMA hearings raised specific concerns about three areas which are not clearly addressed in the current TILMA agreement:
1. The protection of Crown Corporations;
2. The exemption of provincial new growth tax incentives; and
3. The potential loss of new growth tax incentives at the municipal level.
Curiously, despite his party’s own research, Wall never brought these concerns forward last year when he was hysterically calling on Premier Calvert to sign the agreement. And yet in the legislature on May 2, 2006, Wall had the gall to suggest that NDP Government Relations Minister Harry Van Mulligen had not done his homework on the TILMA file.
This seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. During a speech at the 2006 Saskatoon Leader’s Dinner on March 2, 2006, at TCU Place, Wall proudly proclaimed that when it comes to his party “We are doing our homework.”
Then there is Wall’s March 19, 2007, letter to the City of Saskatoon outlining the three criteria that would have to be met in order for his party to sign TILMA:
1. That it not negatively impact on the public ownership of the major Crowns
2. That it not negatively impact environmental standards
3. That it not negatively impact the well-being of workers.
The exemption of provincial new growth tax incentives and the potential loss of new growth tax incentives at the municipal level mentioned in the June 28 news release are absent from the list – and yet the Saskatchewan Party claims it does its homework.
Not only would TILMA adversely affect municipalities it puts at risk important policies and programs that are in the public interest to maintain.
TILMA’s list of exceptions include measures relating to Aboriginal peoples; water; regulated rates established for the public good or the public interest; social policy, including labour standards and codes, minimum wages, employment insurance, social assistance benefits and worker’s compensation; compensation to persons for losses resulting from calamities such as diseases or disasters; assistance for book and magazine publishers, sound recordings, and film development, production and distribution; assistance for recreation, academic research or to non-profit organizations; the management and disposal of hazardous and waste materials; and the management or conservation of forests, fish and wildlife.
A measure includes any legislation, regulation, standard, directive, requirement, guideline, program, policy, administrative practice or other procedure.
Article 17 of the agreement requires a ministerial committee to “review annually the exceptions listed...with a view to reducing their scope.”
The exceptions in TILMA will shrink over time and are by no means safe. The Conference Board of Canada’s impact assessment for the BC Government confirms this stating “TILMA is considered to be an improvement… since future negotiations can focus on the removal of the exceptions from the explicit exclusion list.”
Furthermore, an October 2006 TILMA fact sheet states that “if a measure is not clearly identified as an exception, it is subject to the rules of the agreement.”
Since health and education measures are not clearly identified as exceptions, it would seem they, too, could be at significant risk.
Wall has refused to say whether a Saskatchewan Party government would ensure that these important measures are permanently exempt from any trade agreement it might consider signing. His silence on the issue and the fact that they aren’t included in the June 28 news release or Wall’s March 19 letter to the City of Saskatoon seems to indicate that his party has little or no intention of protecting these areas.
Wall stated in the June 28 news release that he was also concerned about the lack of formal input from Saskatchewan cities.
“Our Enterprise Saskatchewan plan for the economy involves direct input from stakeholders including the municipal sector,” Wall said. “How could we enter into a major trade and investment agreement without their formal input and assessment?
Where was Wall a year ago when similar concerns, along with many others which he refuses to recognize, began coming forward from various organizations and individuals? Why is it only now in the eleventh hour that he is willing to acknowledge their validity?
Enterprise Saskatchewan was announced on September 21, 2004, as part of Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall’s “new economic vision” for the province outlined in the document The Promise of Saskatchewan: A New Vision for Saskatchewan’s Economy. While it predates TILMA by nineteen months it offers some insight into what Wall believes are barriers plaguing Saskatchewan.
In an address that day to more than 200 students at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Commerce Wall said Saskatchewan must shed its dependence on public sector intervention and begin to build a larger private sector as the primary economic driver.
“The goal of our Enterprise Saskatchewan plan is to create an aggressive, agile and entrepreneurial economy within a stable and positive business environment that removes the politics from economic development and can survive Saskatchewan’s volatile election cycle.”
Wall said Enterprise Saskatchewan will focus on Saskatchewan’s key economic sectors and implement a broad plan consisting of, but not limited to fifteen elements, one of which “will develop a systematic and ongoing process to identify and remove barriers to growth in each of our key economic sectors.”
Apparently the number of barriers in Saskatchewan is substantial. According to Wall, “Saskatchewan Party MLAs have spent a great deal of time meeting with various industry groups and economic development organizations to identify barriers to growth in key economic sectors. We understand the many and varied barriers that exist.”
The word barrier occurs 40 times in the plan. While no attempt is made to provide a separate, comprehensive list, Wall does refer to the following as barriers:
– Direct competition to business from various government agencies
– Crowns attempting to diversify from core functions; policies of the Crowns themselves
– Inadequate access to bandwidth
– Lack of high-speed internet access in parts of the province
– Corporate income taxes
– The resource surcharge
– Shortage of skilled labour
– Poor infrastructure (i.e. high quality roads)
– Red tape
– Government permitting
– The PST
– Financial institutions taxed at a higher rate than manufacturing firms
– High fuel taxes
One barrier that Wall mentions a few times is the corporate capital tax which he calls “insidious” and “penalizes private sector investment” yet in the next breath says that it is an area “the government of Saskatchewan may not be in a position to offer meaningful reductions” and “will be too costly to be eliminated or significantly reduced immediately.” So it would appear that even though Enterprise Saskatchewan promises to identify and remove barriers it might not apply in this case. It makes one wonder how many others would meet a similar fate should the Saskatchewan Party form government.
It is unclear whether an agreement like TILMA is the appropriate vehicle for addressing Wall’s barriers. He does not appear to be citing them when commenting on the trade agreement. To date Wall has not produced a list of genuine trade barriers between provinces and has described Saskatchewan as being “the lowest cost jurisdiction…with fewer trade barriers and restrictions than either B.C. or Alberta.” Yet, it seems through constant rhetoric that he and his party continue to create an atmosphere of crisis suggesting barriers exist in such great numbers that it is threatening the province’s very existence.
It is interesting to note that the word investment appears 80 times in Wall’s economic vision while social occurs just 3 times. Page 26 appears to provide a glimpse of where social issues are situated on Wall’s list of priorities:
“In 1996, a KPMG study on location cost analysis highlighted the need for Saskatchewan to become competitive on taxes and stability. Investors were worried about the stability of the business environment and the potential for radical changes in operating conditions. Indeed, the study recommended more partnerships between stakeholders through a provincial economic development authority. The study also pointed out that investment decisions are driven by financial factors, not quality-of-life considerations. It recommends Saskatchewan emphasize its attraction in business terms, not social ones, when marketing itself to outside investors.
“Let us not lose sight of the basics. Saskatchewan must be competitive in terms of taxes, regulation, the availability of venture capital, and innovation.
“An enterprising, entrepreneurial Saskatchewan economy will be impatient, relentless, aggressive, self-promoting and even brash. Profit within that economy will be lauded instead of envied.”
In Wall’s world it would seem that investor rights and interests trump social and quality-of-life considerations.
In his party’s June 28 news release leader Brad Wall said “We know that Alberta and BC officials have indicated that having Saskatchewan sign on without any revisiting of the agreement would not make sense for those two provinces either.”
This is not new information. The BC Government – who initiated TILMA – publicly stated its position on the matter last year.
In a speech to the BC Business Council and Canada West Foundation on December 13, 2006, BC Premier Gordon Campbell had this to say about TILMA:
“So we’ve said to Saskatchewan we’d like to tell you how the agreement’s working; we want to show you how the dispute resolution works; we want to show you the penalties; we want to show you what we’re doing. We’d love you to join us, but these are the rules.
“I talked with Premier McGuinty in Ontario about Ontario joining British Columbia and Alberta. I said to Premier McGuinty: “You’re the biggest province in the country, Dalton. You guys are important to all of us. By the way, we’re not changing the agreement, but you’re welcome to join.””
In Provinces unite to tackle skill shortages (Vancouver Sun, Dec. 14, 2006) Premier Campbell said Saskatchewan and Ontario are welcome to join TILMA “provided they don’t try to tinker with the deal.”
Given Brad Wall’s apparent fondness for BC and Alberta style governance and the claim that his party does its homework it seems reasonable to think that he knew about this long ago. So why is he only bringing it up now and using it as an excuse for not signing the agreement?
Wall’s affinity for Alberta and its conservative government is well known.
During a speech to the North Saskatoon Business Association on December 8, 2005, at the Delta Bessborough Hotel, Wall said:
“I have spoken to many of those seeking to replace Mr. Klein in Alberta, and to Mr. Klein himself and they welcome the day when Saskatchewan will join Alberta and B.C. at the table to earnestly work together in areas of public policy including energy policy and the reduction of inter-provincial trade barriers.
“They are waiting. I have already told them that a Brad Wall government will be at that table.”
In his March 2, 2006, Saskatoon Leader’s Dinner Speech, Wall said that then-Alberta Premier Ralph Klein invited him to attend his annual Global Business Forum in Banff in September 2005.
“The Premier of Alberta informed me of high level meetings between his province and BC to look at ways of reducing inter-provincial barriers to growth and trade,” Wall said.
Wall went on to say “I am announcing tonight that I have tasked Sask. Party Cutknife-Turtleford MLA Michael Chisholm to focus exclusively on the opportunities of western economic cooperation so that we may send a clear but unpretentious message to other western capitals that a new government in Saskatchewan means a leading partner for them in the emerging New West and a strong new voice for Saskatchewan at the Council of the Federation of this country.”
In a March 3, 2006, Saskatchewan Party news release Wall followed up on the Chisholm announcement stating:
“We want to send a clear message to other western capitals that a new government in Saskatchewan will mean a leading partner for them in this emerging new west,” Wall said.
“Inter-provincial trade barriers, regulations and barriers to growth will be the focus of this Saskatchewan Party initiative.”
In Deal interests Sask. premier (Regina Leader-Post, June 7, 2006), it was reported that Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall met with then-Alberta Premier Ralph Klein in Calgary on June 5, 2006, “where the main topic of discussion” was TILMA.
“I have no idea what’s scary about what B.C. and Alberta are doing…there is opportunity for us in our view and nothing to be worried about,” Wall was quoted as saying.
In the Saskatchewan Legislature on April 2, 2007, on the subject of TILMA, Wall said:
“We met with officials in Alberta and BC — both elected and the senior civil servants — who were part of negotiating that agreement. We asked questions about how would this impact our Crowns, which is very important to the province. How would it impact the autonomy of municipalities? We were doing our homework.”
It seems the Saskatchewan Party might have been privy to some of TILMA’s details prior to its signing and also that the governments of BC and Alberta were not interested in changing the agreement for other provinces, but the party chose to say little about it until its June 28, 2007, news release. Why?
Lastly, Wall said in the June 28 news release that he prefers other modes of western economic cooperation including Saskatchewan’s involvement in the Pacific North West Economic Region (PNWER) and he has already indicated that a Saskatchewan Party government would hold joint cabinet meetings with other western provinces to explore opportunities to cooperate in areas such as health care equipment and pharmaceutical purchases.
Wall neglected to mention that it was through closed-door joint cabinet meetings that led to TILMA in the first place. It seems Wall is eager to drag Saskatchewan down that road as well.
As for its support of PNWER the Saskatchewan Party appears to be in lock step with Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s trade agenda.
In a speech delivered at the 2007 Saskatoon Saskatchewan Party Leader’s Dinner on March 8, 2007, at TCU Place, Wall said, “Then there is PNWER (the Pacific Northwest Economic Region). Another regional dynamic group of northwestern states together with Alberta and BC who are cooperating to build the Asia Pacific Gateway…I have asked our critic for Western Economic Cooperation Mike Chisholm to focus on this opportunity.”
A few weeks later Prime Minister Harper had this to say at a May 4, 2007, press conference in Vancouver: “It’s hard to overstate the importance of Asia-Pacific trade to Canada’s economic future. The Gateway Initiative is obviously critical to realizing our potential as a country.”
“Our Government has now committed over $1 billion to this Initiative…And in the longer term, we intend to develop an Atlantic Gateway on the East Coast.”
The press conference also gave Harper the opportunity to showcase his support for TILMA: “This is a bold step that has been undertaken by two forward-looking provinces committed to successfully competing in global markets, and I believe their success will set an example other provinces will find hard to resist.”
Wall’s agenda appears to go well beyond TILMA and could include joining PNWER who are studying the BC-Alberta trade agreement as well.
On July 18, 2006, PNWER’s Trade & Economic Development Work Group resolved to “embrace the opportunity to educate and explore the possibility of expanding the B.C.-Alberta Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) concept throughout the PNWER region.”
The 17th PNWER Annual Summit is scheduled for July 22-26, 2007, in Anchorage, Alaska. The Trade & Economic Development portion of the agenda is set for the morning of July 24, 2007, where an update on the 2006 Working Group Action Items regarding TILMA will be discussed. Mr. Shawn Robbins, Director of Internal Trade for Alberta International and Intergovernmental Relations is confirmed to attend.
The controversy and debate surrounding TILMA may be far from over.
The Saskatchewan Party and its leader Brad Wall’s support for the agreement last year was unequivocal. One might wish to keep in mind the old adage that “a leopard cannot change its spots.”
posted by Joe Kuchta @ 4:45 AM 0 comments
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Undercover officers at Montebello defended.
The three did provoke demonstrators, the ones trying to calm them down and not to cause violence. The officers seem to have the situation reversed. If they had been given a rock by the demonstrator why didn't they just put it down and move away from the police lines when organisers and protestors tried to get them to do so instead of struggling with them. It is surprising that the Quebec police even admitted the men were theirs but the explanation sounds totally unconvincing given the video and statements from some of the protesters involved.
Quebec police defend undercover officers
Public safety minister rejects call for public inquiry
Last Updated: Friday, August 24, 2007 | 9:55 PM ET
CBC News
Quebec provincial police are standing behind three officers who went undercover during protests at the recent Montebello summit, saying the men weren't there to provoke demonstrators.
"At no time did the officers in question engage in provocation or incite anyone to commit violent acts," Insp. Marcel Savard told a news conference in Montreal on Friday.
The police admitted Thursday afternoon that three masked men caught on video Monday afternoon pushing toward a line of riot police, despite protesters' efforts to stop them, were the force's officers.
The protesters were demonstrating against an agreement called the Security and Prosperity Partnership that was being discussed by U.S. President George Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Montebello Monday and Tuesday.
Savard acknowledged that one of the officers was given a rock by protesters but did not use it.
"One of the extremists gave the rock to one of our police officers and he had a choice to make," Savard said. "He was asked by extremists to throw the rock at the police, but never had any intention of using it."
Continue Article
Protester Dave Coles on Friday refuted Savard's allegations.
"I would testify in a court of law that these guys were lying. They were pushing me around. They had rocks," said Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union.
"They were trying to incite violence. They were trying to get others to throw rocks at the store. It’s just a fabrication."
Day brushes off calls for inquiry
The police admission came after several days of accusations from the protesters and denials from police that the three men were agents trying to provoke a confrontation between protesters and police.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day continued to dismiss calls for a public inquiry on Friday, saying the RCMP has a formal complaints process.
"The thing that was interesting in this particular incident, three people in question were spotted by protesters because were not engaging in violence," Day said.
"They were being encouraged to throw rocks and they were not throwing rocks, it was the protesters who were throwing the rocks. That's the irony of this."
On Friday, politicians and protesters alike were still demanding answers about the incident.
Quebec Opposition public security critic Sylvie Roy, ADQ MNA for Lotbinière, said in an interview that the province's Public Security Minister Jacques Dupuis has to answer for the police actions.
Protester considers pressing charges
Coles, who tried to hold the masked men back, said he is considering pressing charges against the undercover officer who pushed him.
"Criminal acts were committed. They were shoving me and others," he said Friday. "We want an arm's-length independent inquiry of what's going on here."
A video posted on YouTube Tuesday showed three burly men dressed in black with bandanas over their faces pushing past Coles and other protesters in a designated protest area. One man was carrying a rock.
In the video, the protesters told the men to leave and put down the rock, and accused them of being agents provocateurs. The men broke through the police line and were handcuffed by police.
The video has been viewed 190,000 times since it was posted online on Tuesday.
The police later admitted the men were its officers, but said they were there to maintain order and were not trying to incite violence.
With files from the Associated Press
Quebec police defend undercover officers
Public safety minister rejects call for public inquiry
Last Updated: Friday, August 24, 2007 | 9:55 PM ET
CBC News
Quebec provincial police are standing behind three officers who went undercover during protests at the recent Montebello summit, saying the men weren't there to provoke demonstrators.
"At no time did the officers in question engage in provocation or incite anyone to commit violent acts," Insp. Marcel Savard told a news conference in Montreal on Friday.
The police admitted Thursday afternoon that three masked men caught on video Monday afternoon pushing toward a line of riot police, despite protesters' efforts to stop them, were the force's officers.
The protesters were demonstrating against an agreement called the Security and Prosperity Partnership that was being discussed by U.S. President George Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Montebello Monday and Tuesday.
Savard acknowledged that one of the officers was given a rock by protesters but did not use it.
"One of the extremists gave the rock to one of our police officers and he had a choice to make," Savard said. "He was asked by extremists to throw the rock at the police, but never had any intention of using it."
Continue Article
Protester Dave Coles on Friday refuted Savard's allegations.
"I would testify in a court of law that these guys were lying. They were pushing me around. They had rocks," said Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union.
"They were trying to incite violence. They were trying to get others to throw rocks at the store. It’s just a fabrication."
Day brushes off calls for inquiry
The police admission came after several days of accusations from the protesters and denials from police that the three men were agents trying to provoke a confrontation between protesters and police.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day continued to dismiss calls for a public inquiry on Friday, saying the RCMP has a formal complaints process.
"The thing that was interesting in this particular incident, three people in question were spotted by protesters because were not engaging in violence," Day said.
"They were being encouraged to throw rocks and they were not throwing rocks, it was the protesters who were throwing the rocks. That's the irony of this."
On Friday, politicians and protesters alike were still demanding answers about the incident.
Quebec Opposition public security critic Sylvie Roy, ADQ MNA for Lotbinière, said in an interview that the province's Public Security Minister Jacques Dupuis has to answer for the police actions.
Protester considers pressing charges
Coles, who tried to hold the masked men back, said he is considering pressing charges against the undercover officer who pushed him.
"Criminal acts were committed. They were shoving me and others," he said Friday. "We want an arm's-length independent inquiry of what's going on here."
A video posted on YouTube Tuesday showed three burly men dressed in black with bandanas over their faces pushing past Coles and other protesters in a designated protest area. One man was carrying a rock.
In the video, the protesters told the men to leave and put down the rock, and accused them of being agents provocateurs. The men broke through the police line and were handcuffed by police.
The video has been viewed 190,000 times since it was posted online on Tuesday.
The police later admitted the men were its officers, but said they were there to maintain order and were not trying to incite violence.
With files from the Associated Press
Sask. Party to privatize some health care services if elected?
It seems that the Ssskatchewan Party will probably win the next election in Sask. At least they are ahead in the polls by a good amount. I will see if I can find the data. Reports often claim that privatization is more efficient. Sometimes it might be but often due to lower wages, cutting corners, and also lowering quality of service. At least the Sask. Party Representative recognises the BC experience with privatisation is primarily negatvie. However, it is easy to say this now but the story could change after a report recommending some privatization.
Saskatchewan Party denies privatization plans
Last Updated: Friday, August 24, 2007 | 9:42 AM CT
CBC News
The NDP is accusing the Saskatchewan Party of planning to privatize the provincial health-care system, despite party claims to the contrary.
The NDP claims the Saskatchewan Party, led by Brad Wall, pictured, wants to privatize the provincial health-care system. Saskatchewan Party members deny the accusation.
(Jennifer Graham/Canadian Press)
NDP Finance Minister Pat Atkinson said on Wednesday that Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall was advocating an efficiency review of the system, something done by British Columbia's Liberal government before it privatized a number of health-care support services.
"What does an efficiency review mean?" asked Atkinson. "Because I believe it's code for something other than what Mr. Wall is saying to the public."
Atkinson claimed Wall has secret intentions to outsource many of the services around health care to private corporations. Those services include home care, laundry, cleaning and hospital food.
Continue Article
"Can he assure us that those support services for seniors and disabled people will not be privatized?" she asked.
Dan D'Autremont, the Saskatchewan Party's MLA for Cannington, said the NDP is just doing some pre-election fearmongering.
Last week, the NDP launched a campaign attacking the Saskatchewan Party as a wolf-in-sheep's clothing. D'Autremont said these allegations are simply part of that strategy.
"This is all about the big scare the NDP run in health care every election," he said. "We fully support publicly funded and publicly administered health care."
D'Autremont said his party believes the health-care system could be more efficient, but has no intention of taking the province in the same direction as British Columbia.
"The B.C. experience has shown that it doesn't work. It doesn't save any money. It doesn't provide efficiencies."
D'Autremont said people should be more concerned about the long health-care waiting lists Saskatchewan people have endured under the NDP.
Saskatchewan Party denies privatization plans
Last Updated: Friday, August 24, 2007 | 9:42 AM CT
CBC News
The NDP is accusing the Saskatchewan Party of planning to privatize the provincial health-care system, despite party claims to the contrary.
The NDP claims the Saskatchewan Party, led by Brad Wall, pictured, wants to privatize the provincial health-care system. Saskatchewan Party members deny the accusation.
(Jennifer Graham/Canadian Press)
NDP Finance Minister Pat Atkinson said on Wednesday that Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall was advocating an efficiency review of the system, something done by British Columbia's Liberal government before it privatized a number of health-care support services.
"What does an efficiency review mean?" asked Atkinson. "Because I believe it's code for something other than what Mr. Wall is saying to the public."
Atkinson claimed Wall has secret intentions to outsource many of the services around health care to private corporations. Those services include home care, laundry, cleaning and hospital food.
Continue Article
"Can he assure us that those support services for seniors and disabled people will not be privatized?" she asked.
Dan D'Autremont, the Saskatchewan Party's MLA for Cannington, said the NDP is just doing some pre-election fearmongering.
Last week, the NDP launched a campaign attacking the Saskatchewan Party as a wolf-in-sheep's clothing. D'Autremont said these allegations are simply part of that strategy.
"This is all about the big scare the NDP run in health care every election," he said. "We fully support publicly funded and publicly administered health care."
D'Autremont said his party believes the health-care system could be more efficient, but has no intention of taking the province in the same direction as British Columbia.
"The B.C. experience has shown that it doesn't work. It doesn't save any money. It doesn't provide efficiencies."
D'Autremont said people should be more concerned about the long health-care waiting lists Saskatchewan people have endured under the NDP.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Bloc Quebecois votes on Afghanistan mission
Here is an NDP account of Bloc votes and positions on Afghanistan. It seems to have changed from being against the mission with the NDP to for the mission sort of, to voting with the Liberals, and now Duceppe is threatening to bring down the government. We will see..Somehow I doubt it.
Bloc Quebecois wrong in supporting Afghanistan mission beyond 2009
Tue 29 May 2007 | Printer friendly
OTTAWA – The Bloc Quebecois is prepared to support extending the mission in Afghanistan beyond 2009, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposed during a trip to Afghanistan last week. The Bloc’s defence critic, Claude Bachand, announced this new position last week on the eve of a meeting of parliamentarians in Europe.
This position is incompatible with the wishes of the majority of Quebeckers, says the NDP’s Quebec spokesperson, Thomas Mulcair. “The Bloc’s position is incomprehensible. It is out of touch with Quebeckers. This mission in Afghanistan remains unbalanced and unclear. It isn’t working. It’s the wrong mission for Canada.”
In Portugal, Bachand offered to lobby European parliamentarians to promote the extension of the mission. “Conservative MPs couldn’t have done a better job themselves,” added Mulcair. Bachand will be back tomorrow and will likely report to his colleagues on his success in doing Harper’s lobbying work.
This is not the first time Bachand has pushed the Bloc Quebecois towards supporting Stephen Harper’s military misadventures. In April 2006, during the debate on the mission in Afghanistan, Bachand declared that “once people are informed about the Canadian Forces’ mission, they will agree with it, which will give us stronger support. So let’s keep going.” Bachand’s support was warmly applauded by the Conservatives. However, it is interesting to note that the Bloc later voted against the mission in Afghanistan during Bachand’s absence.
17 May 2006 - Every Bloc MP voted with the NDP against extending the mission to February 2009. Bachand was the only Bloc MP absent. He was not “paired” unlike the votes immediately before and after it.
24 April 2007 - Every Bloc MP present (including Bachand) voted in favour of a Liberal motion to keep the mission going until 2009.
30 April 2007 - Every Bloc MP present (including Bachand) voted with the Conservatives to defeat an NDP motion to immediately notify NATO of our intention to begin withdrawing from the mission in Afghanistan.
“The truth of the matter is that the only party for peace in Quebec, with a clear position, is the NDP,” concluded Mulcair
Bloc Quebecois wrong in supporting Afghanistan mission beyond 2009
Tue 29 May 2007 | Printer friendly
OTTAWA – The Bloc Quebecois is prepared to support extending the mission in Afghanistan beyond 2009, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposed during a trip to Afghanistan last week. The Bloc’s defence critic, Claude Bachand, announced this new position last week on the eve of a meeting of parliamentarians in Europe.
This position is incompatible with the wishes of the majority of Quebeckers, says the NDP’s Quebec spokesperson, Thomas Mulcair. “The Bloc’s position is incomprehensible. It is out of touch with Quebeckers. This mission in Afghanistan remains unbalanced and unclear. It isn’t working. It’s the wrong mission for Canada.”
In Portugal, Bachand offered to lobby European parliamentarians to promote the extension of the mission. “Conservative MPs couldn’t have done a better job themselves,” added Mulcair. Bachand will be back tomorrow and will likely report to his colleagues on his success in doing Harper’s lobbying work.
This is not the first time Bachand has pushed the Bloc Quebecois towards supporting Stephen Harper’s military misadventures. In April 2006, during the debate on the mission in Afghanistan, Bachand declared that “once people are informed about the Canadian Forces’ mission, they will agree with it, which will give us stronger support. So let’s keep going.” Bachand’s support was warmly applauded by the Conservatives. However, it is interesting to note that the Bloc later voted against the mission in Afghanistan during Bachand’s absence.
17 May 2006 - Every Bloc MP voted with the NDP against extending the mission to February 2009. Bachand was the only Bloc MP absent. He was not “paired” unlike the votes immediately before and after it.
24 April 2007 - Every Bloc MP present (including Bachand) voted in favour of a Liberal motion to keep the mission going until 2009.
30 April 2007 - Every Bloc MP present (including Bachand) voted with the Conservatives to defeat an NDP motion to immediately notify NATO of our intention to begin withdrawing from the mission in Afghanistan.
“The truth of the matter is that the only party for peace in Quebec, with a clear position, is the NDP,” concluded Mulcair
Duceppe threatens Harper on Afghanistan
The polls show that casualties have caused a fairly significant shift against the mission since the first casualty. Duceppe is just following the polls and his constitutents. Many comments on the article find him hypocritical but after all he represents Quebec interests primarily not Canadian, so until his own constituents turned more against the war he went along with the Conservatives since he did not want an election at the moment. The Afghan card could help him in Quebec in an election. The BQ does not run after all in other provinces. The BQ position is riddled with inconsistencies (or opportunism) as my next post shows.
Duceppe threatens to topple gov't over Afghanistan
Updated Thu. Aug. 23 2007 4:57 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe has threatened to take down Stephen Harper's Conservative government in the fall, if the prime minister doesn't make a firm commitment to pull Canadian troops from Afghanistan by February 2009.
Harper has already implied he will not extend the mission beyond 2009 unless he has a consensus from the other parties.
But Duceppe said Thursday he wants an emergency debate on Canada's role in the Afghanistan once parliament resumes on Sept. 17.
His comments came one day after two soldiers from a Quebec regiment were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. The body of fallen soldier Pte. Simon Longtin also returned to Canada on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Liberal Opposition Leader Stephane Dion agreed that Harper should give NATO a firm statement on pulling troops from Afghanistan by February, but said he would not make "threats" like Duceppe.
"Everybody knows there's a possibility of a ... confidence vote where the government can be defeated," he told reporters at a news conference Thursday. "I'm not saying today that's what I want."
Dion added that he would like to wait and see what the government proposes in its throne speech, expected in the fall.
The Afghan mission has been under intense scrutiny this week -- especially in Quebec where support is typically low -- as the number of Canadian casualties in the military continued to increase.
"These latest victims in the Afghan conflict remind us of the dangers and the difficult conditions under which soldiers working in the theatre of war are exposed," said Duceppe.
More than 600 Quebec residents were polled for their views on the Afghan mission just before Longtin was killed and then again right after.
The survey showed the approval rating for the war dropped from 35 per cent before Longtin's death to 28 per cent.
In the first survey, 57 per cent said they disagreed with sending the Van Doos to Afghanistan. After the news of Longtin's death, that number jumped to 68 per cent.
Canada currently has more than 2,300 soldiers in Afghanistan with more than 1,100 from Quebec's Royal 22nd regiment.
Duceppe threatens to topple gov't over Afghanistan
Updated Thu. Aug. 23 2007 4:57 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe has threatened to take down Stephen Harper's Conservative government in the fall, if the prime minister doesn't make a firm commitment to pull Canadian troops from Afghanistan by February 2009.
Harper has already implied he will not extend the mission beyond 2009 unless he has a consensus from the other parties.
But Duceppe said Thursday he wants an emergency debate on Canada's role in the Afghanistan once parliament resumes on Sept. 17.
His comments came one day after two soldiers from a Quebec regiment were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. The body of fallen soldier Pte. Simon Longtin also returned to Canada on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Liberal Opposition Leader Stephane Dion agreed that Harper should give NATO a firm statement on pulling troops from Afghanistan by February, but said he would not make "threats" like Duceppe.
"Everybody knows there's a possibility of a ... confidence vote where the government can be defeated," he told reporters at a news conference Thursday. "I'm not saying today that's what I want."
Dion added that he would like to wait and see what the government proposes in its throne speech, expected in the fall.
The Afghan mission has been under intense scrutiny this week -- especially in Quebec where support is typically low -- as the number of Canadian casualties in the military continued to increase.
"These latest victims in the Afghan conflict remind us of the dangers and the difficult conditions under which soldiers working in the theatre of war are exposed," said Duceppe.
More than 600 Quebec residents were polled for their views on the Afghan mission just before Longtin was killed and then again right after.
The survey showed the approval rating for the war dropped from 35 per cent before Longtin's death to 28 per cent.
In the first survey, 57 per cent said they disagreed with sending the Van Doos to Afghanistan. After the news of Longtin's death, that number jumped to 68 per cent.
Canada currently has more than 2,300 soldiers in Afghanistan with more than 1,100 from Quebec's Royal 22nd regiment.
So much for sovereignty in the Northwest Passage
This is from a speech by Michael Byers. The entire speech is in an earlier posting to this blog. The NORAD agreement includes now the sharing of Maritime surveillance. We provide the US with intelligence about the passage even though the US does not even recognise it as in Canada's jurisdiction. The US has not changed its tune. However Bush mentioned that the US supports Canada's arctic claims--against Russia no doubt and perhaps even Denmark!
The report was very very clear that its preferred option was full integration, the option that had been floated internally in 2002, the assignment of Canadian Forces to what looked like an expanded NORAD, to an umbrella command where operational control would ultimately rest with the US military.
Some steps have been taken in that direction, including, last year, the NORAD agreement to expand the sharing of maritime surveillance including within the Northwest Passage. It wasn't much noticed at the time. Only one party opposed it in Parliament, the New Democratic Party of Canada.
When the report actually came out and was put up on the website of the Bi-National Planning Group, some smart people, including possibly the Prime Minister of Canada, decided that you were not yet ready for this. That somehow it wasn't the time to make the public case for the full integration of Canadian and US forces because Mr. Harper didn't get that majority he so desperately desired. And so it was shuffled away once again, it disappeared off the website, and the Bi-National Planning Group was shut down, and who knows what they're talking about in Montebello.
The report was very very clear that its preferred option was full integration, the option that had been floated internally in 2002, the assignment of Canadian Forces to what looked like an expanded NORAD, to an umbrella command where operational control would ultimately rest with the US military.
Some steps have been taken in that direction, including, last year, the NORAD agreement to expand the sharing of maritime surveillance including within the Northwest Passage. It wasn't much noticed at the time. Only one party opposed it in Parliament, the New Democratic Party of Canada.
When the report actually came out and was put up on the website of the Bi-National Planning Group, some smart people, including possibly the Prime Minister of Canada, decided that you were not yet ready for this. That somehow it wasn't the time to make the public case for the full integration of Canadian and US forces because Mr. Harper didn't get that majority he so desperately desired. And so it was shuffled away once again, it disappeared off the website, and the Bi-National Planning Group was shut down, and who knows what they're talking about in Montebello.
James Laxer on Montebello
Laxer points out some of the features of NAFTA that ought to be challenged by Canada. The Northwest Passage issue was brought up by Harper to no avail. Bush re-iterated his view that the Passage is international waters. I thought that there might be some change or agreement that would allow US ships special privileges.
Harper, Bush, and Calderon: The Men Behind the Barbed-Wire Fence
The men who met behind the barbed-wire fence at the Chateau Montebello on the Ottawa River have been promising to enhance the prosperity and security of their fellow citizens.
They are not the sort of men who gladden the hearts of democrats. At their summit at the Chateau, they met with the CEO’s of some of the world’s most powerful corporations. Others---labour leaders, environmentalists, writers, students, aboriginals, humanity in general---were only allowed to stand on the other side of the fences and to be sprayed with tear gas and pelted with rubber bullets.
One thing the three men share in common is that they are not trusted by millions of their compatriots. In recent polls, 31 per cent of voters say they would back Stephen Harper in an election. In the U.S., the approval ratings of George W. Bush are stuck at around 29 or 30 per cent and many Americans are counting down the days to January 20, 2009, the day W. leaves the White House. Anyone who thinks this man will strengthen their security only has to think of the two failing wars he launched and the freedoms he took away from his fellow citizens with the powers Washington seized under the Patriot Act. And amigos visiting from Canada or Mexico should keep in mind that the US government has assumed the right to lock up any foreigner deemed a security risk for an indefinite period. Watch out, you could be the next Maher Arar. Arar was a victim of a previous border security deal between Canada and the US. If W. has done little for security, he has not raised the tone of democracy either. His friends in Florida and the US Supreme Court stole the 2000 election for him, and historians have not yet made up their minds whether the funny business in Ohio in 2004 amounted to another theft. Felipe Calderon, Mexico’s president, holds his office following elections in 2006 that were riddled with irregularities.
As for prosperity, the three men share views that inclined them to believe they would be most likely to enjoy their meals at the Chateau in the company of multi-millionaires. All three are devoted to the cause of tax cuts for the rich. Bush’s tax cuts, along with his wars, have driven the US into record indebtedness. Calderon, who opposes contraception, abortion and gay marriage, is a proponent of flat taxes, free trade and lower taxes for his corporate friends. Harper is an opponent of public childcare, a fair deal for first nations, and he dreams of the day when he has a majority government that can deliver steep tax cuts to Big Oil and the rest of his pals. No wonder that under the rule of the three partners, Mexicans, Americans and Canadians are watching the income and wealth gaps widen between the rich and the rest.
From a Canadian perspective, here are some issues that ought to be on the table in any meeting with a US president:
· Ottawa ought to insist the NAFTA be amended to end the deal that commits Canada to providing oil and natural gas to the US even in the event of shortages for Canadians. That deal, along with a ban on Canada’s right to sell petroleum to the US for a higher price than the Canadian domestic price, infringes on our security and our prosperity.
· No discussion with the US is complete without bringing the unwillingness of Washington to recognize Canadian sovereignty in the North-West Passage to the attention of the public in both countries.
· Ottawa ought to make it clear that it has no intention of sharing security information with a government that has yet to publicly apologize for the treatment of Maher Arar.
· No summit should be held with a US president that does not feature the grave concerns of Canadians about the prevalent use of guns smuggled in from south of the border in the commission of violent crimes in Canada. The risk of someone being killed in a Canadian city by a gun of American origin is far greater than that of dying in an assault by Al Qaeda. The American gun culture and its consequences belongs on our security agenda.
Harper, Bush, and Calderon: The Men Behind the Barbed-Wire Fence
The men who met behind the barbed-wire fence at the Chateau Montebello on the Ottawa River have been promising to enhance the prosperity and security of their fellow citizens.
They are not the sort of men who gladden the hearts of democrats. At their summit at the Chateau, they met with the CEO’s of some of the world’s most powerful corporations. Others---labour leaders, environmentalists, writers, students, aboriginals, humanity in general---were only allowed to stand on the other side of the fences and to be sprayed with tear gas and pelted with rubber bullets.
One thing the three men share in common is that they are not trusted by millions of their compatriots. In recent polls, 31 per cent of voters say they would back Stephen Harper in an election. In the U.S., the approval ratings of George W. Bush are stuck at around 29 or 30 per cent and many Americans are counting down the days to January 20, 2009, the day W. leaves the White House. Anyone who thinks this man will strengthen their security only has to think of the two failing wars he launched and the freedoms he took away from his fellow citizens with the powers Washington seized under the Patriot Act. And amigos visiting from Canada or Mexico should keep in mind that the US government has assumed the right to lock up any foreigner deemed a security risk for an indefinite period. Watch out, you could be the next Maher Arar. Arar was a victim of a previous border security deal between Canada and the US. If W. has done little for security, he has not raised the tone of democracy either. His friends in Florida and the US Supreme Court stole the 2000 election for him, and historians have not yet made up their minds whether the funny business in Ohio in 2004 amounted to another theft. Felipe Calderon, Mexico’s president, holds his office following elections in 2006 that were riddled with irregularities.
As for prosperity, the three men share views that inclined them to believe they would be most likely to enjoy their meals at the Chateau in the company of multi-millionaires. All three are devoted to the cause of tax cuts for the rich. Bush’s tax cuts, along with his wars, have driven the US into record indebtedness. Calderon, who opposes contraception, abortion and gay marriage, is a proponent of flat taxes, free trade and lower taxes for his corporate friends. Harper is an opponent of public childcare, a fair deal for first nations, and he dreams of the day when he has a majority government that can deliver steep tax cuts to Big Oil and the rest of his pals. No wonder that under the rule of the three partners, Mexicans, Americans and Canadians are watching the income and wealth gaps widen between the rich and the rest.
From a Canadian perspective, here are some issues that ought to be on the table in any meeting with a US president:
· Ottawa ought to insist the NAFTA be amended to end the deal that commits Canada to providing oil and natural gas to the US even in the event of shortages for Canadians. That deal, along with a ban on Canada’s right to sell petroleum to the US for a higher price than the Canadian domestic price, infringes on our security and our prosperity.
· No discussion with the US is complete without bringing the unwillingness of Washington to recognize Canadian sovereignty in the North-West Passage to the attention of the public in both countries.
· Ottawa ought to make it clear that it has no intention of sharing security information with a government that has yet to publicly apologize for the treatment of Maher Arar.
· No summit should be held with a US president that does not feature the grave concerns of Canadians about the prevalent use of guns smuggled in from south of the border in the commission of violent crimes in Canada. The risk of someone being killed in a Canadian city by a gun of American origin is far greater than that of dying in an assault by Al Qaeda. The American gun culture and its consequences belongs on our security agenda.
SPP: NAFTA on Steroids.
The refusal to receive the petitions of the Council of Canadians does not seem to have received much press. This just shows how the SPP thumbs its nose at any opposition. Harper's comments about demonstrators were similarly dismissive. At least a number of trade unions joined in these protests but they get very little publicity usually. The apparent use of cops to provoke violence actually presented the protesters with their best coverage! New North American trade proposal draws fire at Montebello
Proposed Security and Prosperity Partnership is described as NAFTA on drugs
Montebello (21 August 2007) - Police and protestors clashed in this small Quebec resort town as Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomed George Bush and Felipe Calderon to a North American leaders' summit to discuss Canada-U.S.-Mexico issues behind closed doors, especially the secrecy-shrouded Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).
Described by critics as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on drugs, the SPP is the latest trade initiative that the corporate world is attempting to push into law with the co-operation of the three leaders.
Everything possible is being done during the summit to minimize opposition to the SPP. For example, Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians, was prevented Monday – despite prior arrangements – from delivering a 10,000-signature petition at the gates of the Montebello resort.
Police in riot gear, armed with batons, shields and gas masks, fired tear gas and jostled with protesters after 20 busloads of demonstrators arrived in Montebello, approximately 70 kilometres east of Ottawa. The protesters marched toward the historic log resort, ringed in advance of the summit by a four-metre-high steel security fence.
Demonstrators shouted slogans and carried banners, one reading, "Say no To AmeriCanada." The marchers included numerous labour representatives, headed by the Canadian Labour Congress.
"According to the corporate elites behind the scheme, the SPP is just a shot of what business needs to perform better and make corporate profits higher, faster and stronger. The only problem is they won’t tell us what this involves," the congress says.
"Ask any of the hundreds of thousands of workers in Canada who no longer have a good job in manufacturing or forestry and they’ll tell you that life is hard enough under NAFTA. Ask the millions of people who can see how fast our standards for everything from protecting the environment, to retirement security, to transportation infrastructure like trains and bridges have fallen in recent times. They’ll tell you the SPP is just the latest corporate party drug."
Harper greeted Bush warmly when he arrived at the resort early Monday afternoon. Asked for his reaction to the demonstrations, Harper was dismissive. “I’ve heard it’s nothing. It’s sad,” he told reporters.
NUPGE
The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring that our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE
Proposed Security and Prosperity Partnership is described as NAFTA on drugs
Montebello (21 August 2007) - Police and protestors clashed in this small Quebec resort town as Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomed George Bush and Felipe Calderon to a North American leaders' summit to discuss Canada-U.S.-Mexico issues behind closed doors, especially the secrecy-shrouded Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).
Described by critics as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on drugs, the SPP is the latest trade initiative that the corporate world is attempting to push into law with the co-operation of the three leaders.
Everything possible is being done during the summit to minimize opposition to the SPP. For example, Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians, was prevented Monday – despite prior arrangements – from delivering a 10,000-signature petition at the gates of the Montebello resort.
Police in riot gear, armed with batons, shields and gas masks, fired tear gas and jostled with protesters after 20 busloads of demonstrators arrived in Montebello, approximately 70 kilometres east of Ottawa. The protesters marched toward the historic log resort, ringed in advance of the summit by a four-metre-high steel security fence.
Demonstrators shouted slogans and carried banners, one reading, "Say no To AmeriCanada." The marchers included numerous labour representatives, headed by the Canadian Labour Congress.
"According to the corporate elites behind the scheme, the SPP is just a shot of what business needs to perform better and make corporate profits higher, faster and stronger. The only problem is they won’t tell us what this involves," the congress says.
"Ask any of the hundreds of thousands of workers in Canada who no longer have a good job in manufacturing or forestry and they’ll tell you that life is hard enough under NAFTA. Ask the millions of people who can see how fast our standards for everything from protecting the environment, to retirement security, to transportation infrastructure like trains and bridges have fallen in recent times. They’ll tell you the SPP is just the latest corporate party drug."
Harper greeted Bush warmly when he arrived at the resort early Monday afternoon. Asked for his reaction to the demonstrations, Harper was dismissive. “I’ve heard it’s nothing. It’s sad,” he told reporters.
NUPGE
The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring that our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE
SPP built around secrecy and US military command.
Imagine after 9/11 there were plans to put the entire Canadian Forces under the umbrella of a US command. I had never heard of that before. There is lots of ammunition for the anti-integration forces in this article!
Personally I think that the military integration is simply ancillary to the main project which is making things easier and more profitable for North American capital. That is why the 30 executives of the NACC are the ones participating with the leaders. There are no military leaders, NGOs, labor, or anyone else apparently. For some reason the US commands 13 members of the NACCC so it may be that there are 33 executives at the meeting. I have never seen that figure though.
SPP is built around secrecy and US military command - law expert
Sovereignty rhetoric contradicted by turnover of controls on military and immigration
OTTAWA, August 20, 2007: The agreement's title is classic framing: "Security and Prosperity Partnership" (SPP) conjures up comfortable images. Michael Byers says the agreement under discussion this week by Canadian, US and Mexican leaders Harper, Bush and Calderon should more properly be framed as a secret agreement to hand sweeping military, immigration and border control of all three countries over to the US. On Sunday, Byers, the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia told a standing-room-only forum in Ottawa about the politics and persuasion connected with the agreement under discussion behind the barricades this week at Montebello, Quebec.
I want to begin by welcoming the civil servants who have been sent to keep track of what's going on here. Like you, we love our country; unlike the people who are gathering in Montebello this week, we have nothing to hide.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership did not begin as a phenomenon after September 11, 2001. It was part of a trend that predates that time. But the proponents of North American integration seized upon 9/11 as an opportunity to advance their cause. And some of those proponents in Canada were very overt about their aspirations in the weeks and months after the terrorist atrocities in New York City and Washington, DC.
David O'Brien, the CEO of Canadian Pacific and now Chairman of the Board of Royal Bank of Canada, argued Canada would have to adopt US-style immigration policies to keep the border open. He said that we have to make North Americans secure from the outside. 'We're going to lose increasingly our sovereignty but it's necessarily so.' Mr. O'Brien is an influential man. Within months, the Canadian government had signed the Safe Third Country agreement with the United States whereby Canadian refugee policy was essentially assimilated into the refugee policy of the United States. The rights of human beings to asylum when they're being persecuted for their religious or political opinions or ethnic identities is one of the most fundamental rights of all.
Then there was Nancy Hughes Anthony, the President of the Canadian Chambers of Commerce who said that we're not going to get anywhere with our American friends unless we can show we have good strong anti-terrorist legislation and we intend to enforce it. The result was the 2001 Anti- terrorism Act, which, of course was modelled on the [US] Patriot Act.
And then there was Patrick E. Daniels, the President of Enbridge, the big energy company based in Calgary, who complained that Canada pushed its sovereignty 'a little too far.' He said it would be realistic for Canada to either get onside with US foreign policy or 'accept some change in our relationship.'
I was asked to speak about one aspect of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, namely security, or more specifically, the military. In the immediate aftermath of September 2001, plans were devised within the American and Canadian governments to put the entire Canadian Forces under the umbrella of the US Northern Command. To put all our soldiers, sailors and pilots and all their equipment under the operational control of the United States, in a much- expanded version of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD). Fortunately some sunshine was let in upon that thinking before it could be taken too far. Some serious credit needs to be given here to a former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, who took advantage of being out of Cabinet to let the rest of us know what his former colleagues were up to.
So those who wanted to pursue the efforts of further integration of the Canadian and US military decided to take their efforts underground in arrangements that bear striking similarity to the SPP. And the SPP is part of a larger process. The Bi-National Planning Group was the military sister or brother of the SPP. Essentially it was a transborder committee of unelected bureaucrats, military officers and consultants who were given task of studying and then reporting on the options for improving the efficacy of the North American defensive system. The goal was simply to allow us to respond faster and better to the various kinds of threats that might arise.
The military officers worked away quietly in Colorado Springs, Colorado, headquarters of NORAD, as well as the US space command.... Canadian military leaders quite liked playing with the big boys and using the best military equipment in the world...
The proponents of closer military integration could not believe their luck when Stephen Harper was elected. And very shortly after Mr. Harper came to power, they released their final report... which sets out four different options for the closer integration of the Canadian and US military. Most of the report is concerned with public relations, noting that Canadians are particularly attached to sovereignty.
Imagine how you might actually explain that closer military cooperation enhances sovereignty because giving up sovereignty is an exercise in sovereignty! You actually affirm your sovereignty by giving some of it away..
The report was very very clear that its preferred option was full integration, the option that had been floated internally in 2002, the assignment of Canadian Forces to what looked like an expanded NORAD, to an umbrella command where operational control would ultimately rest with the US military.
Some steps have been taken in that direction, including, last year, the NORAD agreement to expand the sharing of maritime surveillance including within the Northwest Passage. It wasn't much noticed at the time. Only one party opposed it in Parliament, the New Democratic Party of Canada.
When the report actually came out and was put up on the website of the Bi-National Planning Group, some smart people, including possibly the Prime Minister of Canada, decided that you were not yet ready for this. That somehow it wasn't the time to make the public case for the full integration of Canadian and US forces because Mr. Harper didn't get that majority he so desperately desired. And so it was shuffled away once again, it disappeared off the website, and the Bi-National Planning Group was shut down, and who knows what they're talking about in Montebello.
But something did happen, and I'm talking about Afghanistan.... We are seeing the implementation in theatre of precisely the kind of planning that was going into the Bi-National Planning Group. We are seeing the Canadian Forces being given more and more equipment. We're even buying new tanks. We're seeing the integration of attitudes and rules of engagement with respect to issues like the treatment of detainees. Why did we not adopt the Western European approach to detainee transfer rights, following models that were provided to us by the British, the Dutch and the Danish? Because Washington wanted to do it another way. And why should we volunteer for the most dangerous mission in Afghanistan, a forward-leaning, war- fighting search and kill mission supported by US airstrikes and working in tandem with a US-led and -commanded mission that is not part of the NATO command?
Why have 67 Canadian soldiers died in Afghanistan? Why did Private Simon Longtin die today? The simple explanation, and it's only a partial explanation, is that there are people who want to transform the Canadian Forces into a miniature version of the US Marine Corps and want Canada to only choose missions that involve fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States; that want us to acquire equipment that integrates seamlessly with the US military, including in the relatively near future new F35 fighters. The same people who will tell you that peace-keeping is dead, that we really don't need new search-and-rescue aircraft in the second largest country on Earth, and who will tell you that those who stand up for the rights of detainees are expressing disrespect and a lack of support for the brave young Canadian men and women who serve this country in whatever mission they're given because they love this country just as much as you and I.
The integration of the Canadian and US military is not officially part of the SPP, but the SPP and the integration of the Canadian and US military are part of a larger project, and we need to address that larger project, and understand that what we're up against here does not involve the existence of an independent Canada. But as we saw with the Bi-National Planning Group, a little bit of sunshine can chase these plans away. When I look at this room I see a whole lot of sunshine
Personally I think that the military integration is simply ancillary to the main project which is making things easier and more profitable for North American capital. That is why the 30 executives of the NACC are the ones participating with the leaders. There are no military leaders, NGOs, labor, or anyone else apparently. For some reason the US commands 13 members of the NACCC so it may be that there are 33 executives at the meeting. I have never seen that figure though.
SPP is built around secrecy and US military command - law expert
Sovereignty rhetoric contradicted by turnover of controls on military and immigration
OTTAWA, August 20, 2007: The agreement's title is classic framing: "Security and Prosperity Partnership" (SPP) conjures up comfortable images. Michael Byers says the agreement under discussion this week by Canadian, US and Mexican leaders Harper, Bush and Calderon should more properly be framed as a secret agreement to hand sweeping military, immigration and border control of all three countries over to the US. On Sunday, Byers, the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia told a standing-room-only forum in Ottawa about the politics and persuasion connected with the agreement under discussion behind the barricades this week at Montebello, Quebec.
I want to begin by welcoming the civil servants who have been sent to keep track of what's going on here. Like you, we love our country; unlike the people who are gathering in Montebello this week, we have nothing to hide.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership did not begin as a phenomenon after September 11, 2001. It was part of a trend that predates that time. But the proponents of North American integration seized upon 9/11 as an opportunity to advance their cause. And some of those proponents in Canada were very overt about their aspirations in the weeks and months after the terrorist atrocities in New York City and Washington, DC.
David O'Brien, the CEO of Canadian Pacific and now Chairman of the Board of Royal Bank of Canada, argued Canada would have to adopt US-style immigration policies to keep the border open. He said that we have to make North Americans secure from the outside. 'We're going to lose increasingly our sovereignty but it's necessarily so.' Mr. O'Brien is an influential man. Within months, the Canadian government had signed the Safe Third Country agreement with the United States whereby Canadian refugee policy was essentially assimilated into the refugee policy of the United States. The rights of human beings to asylum when they're being persecuted for their religious or political opinions or ethnic identities is one of the most fundamental rights of all.
Then there was Nancy Hughes Anthony, the President of the Canadian Chambers of Commerce who said that we're not going to get anywhere with our American friends unless we can show we have good strong anti-terrorist legislation and we intend to enforce it. The result was the 2001 Anti- terrorism Act, which, of course was modelled on the [US] Patriot Act.
And then there was Patrick E. Daniels, the President of Enbridge, the big energy company based in Calgary, who complained that Canada pushed its sovereignty 'a little too far.' He said it would be realistic for Canada to either get onside with US foreign policy or 'accept some change in our relationship.'
I was asked to speak about one aspect of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, namely security, or more specifically, the military. In the immediate aftermath of September 2001, plans were devised within the American and Canadian governments to put the entire Canadian Forces under the umbrella of the US Northern Command. To put all our soldiers, sailors and pilots and all their equipment under the operational control of the United States, in a much- expanded version of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD). Fortunately some sunshine was let in upon that thinking before it could be taken too far. Some serious credit needs to be given here to a former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, who took advantage of being out of Cabinet to let the rest of us know what his former colleagues were up to.
So those who wanted to pursue the efforts of further integration of the Canadian and US military decided to take their efforts underground in arrangements that bear striking similarity to the SPP. And the SPP is part of a larger process. The Bi-National Planning Group was the military sister or brother of the SPP. Essentially it was a transborder committee of unelected bureaucrats, military officers and consultants who were given task of studying and then reporting on the options for improving the efficacy of the North American defensive system. The goal was simply to allow us to respond faster and better to the various kinds of threats that might arise.
The military officers worked away quietly in Colorado Springs, Colorado, headquarters of NORAD, as well as the US space command.... Canadian military leaders quite liked playing with the big boys and using the best military equipment in the world...
The proponents of closer military integration could not believe their luck when Stephen Harper was elected. And very shortly after Mr. Harper came to power, they released their final report... which sets out four different options for the closer integration of the Canadian and US military. Most of the report is concerned with public relations, noting that Canadians are particularly attached to sovereignty.
Imagine how you might actually explain that closer military cooperation enhances sovereignty because giving up sovereignty is an exercise in sovereignty! You actually affirm your sovereignty by giving some of it away..
The report was very very clear that its preferred option was full integration, the option that had been floated internally in 2002, the assignment of Canadian Forces to what looked like an expanded NORAD, to an umbrella command where operational control would ultimately rest with the US military.
Some steps have been taken in that direction, including, last year, the NORAD agreement to expand the sharing of maritime surveillance including within the Northwest Passage. It wasn't much noticed at the time. Only one party opposed it in Parliament, the New Democratic Party of Canada.
When the report actually came out and was put up on the website of the Bi-National Planning Group, some smart people, including possibly the Prime Minister of Canada, decided that you were not yet ready for this. That somehow it wasn't the time to make the public case for the full integration of Canadian and US forces because Mr. Harper didn't get that majority he so desperately desired. And so it was shuffled away once again, it disappeared off the website, and the Bi-National Planning Group was shut down, and who knows what they're talking about in Montebello.
But something did happen, and I'm talking about Afghanistan.... We are seeing the implementation in theatre of precisely the kind of planning that was going into the Bi-National Planning Group. We are seeing the Canadian Forces being given more and more equipment. We're even buying new tanks. We're seeing the integration of attitudes and rules of engagement with respect to issues like the treatment of detainees. Why did we not adopt the Western European approach to detainee transfer rights, following models that were provided to us by the British, the Dutch and the Danish? Because Washington wanted to do it another way. And why should we volunteer for the most dangerous mission in Afghanistan, a forward-leaning, war- fighting search and kill mission supported by US airstrikes and working in tandem with a US-led and -commanded mission that is not part of the NATO command?
Why have 67 Canadian soldiers died in Afghanistan? Why did Private Simon Longtin die today? The simple explanation, and it's only a partial explanation, is that there are people who want to transform the Canadian Forces into a miniature version of the US Marine Corps and want Canada to only choose missions that involve fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States; that want us to acquire equipment that integrates seamlessly with the US military, including in the relatively near future new F35 fighters. The same people who will tell you that peace-keeping is dead, that we really don't need new search-and-rescue aircraft in the second largest country on Earth, and who will tell you that those who stand up for the rights of detainees are expressing disrespect and a lack of support for the brave young Canadian men and women who serve this country in whatever mission they're given because they love this country just as much as you and I.
The integration of the Canadian and US military is not officially part of the SPP, but the SPP and the integration of the Canadian and US military are part of a larger project, and we need to address that larger project, and understand that what we're up against here does not involve the existence of an independent Canada. But as we saw with the Bi-National Planning Group, a little bit of sunshine can chase these plans away. When I look at this room I see a whole lot of sunshine
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Charkaoui witness recants.
This is from the CBC.
It's strange that the police always believe bad guys when they are caught and making a deal. Ressam probably just reeled off the names of anyone he knew hoping that would get him a reduced sentence.
Charkaoui witness recants, reporter tells court
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 | 1:30 PM ET
CBC News
A Montreal reporter said in Federal Court on Wednesday that one of the main witnesses against Adil Charkaoui has withdrawn his allegations against the accused al-Qaeda sleeper agent.
Journal de Montreal's Fabrice de Pierrebourg was subpoenaed to appear at the court hearing launched by Charkaoui, who is trying to have his strict bail conditions quashed.
Adil Charkaoui was released under strict bail conditions that allow police to enter his home without a warrant.
(Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press) Last year, de Pierrebourg noticed one of the main witnesses against Charkaoui, convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam, had withdrawn accusations against another Montrealer being held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The reporter wrote to Ressam to ask whether he held to his accusations against Charkaoui, including that he met him at an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.
That allegation was one of the main reasons Charkaoui was arrested on a federal security certificate. He was jailed for 21 months under the terms of the security certificate, but released on strict bail conditions in February 2005.
Ressam, an Algerian-born Montrealer, was arrested in 1999 while trying to cross the B.C.-Washington border with a bomb intended for Los Angeles International Airport. In exchange for a lighter sentence, Ressam agreed to co-operate with authorities, providing information on other suspected terrorists.
Continue Article
In a return letter to de Pierrebourg, written in Arabic, Ressam retracted all his allegations against Charkaoui. He said he was psychologically unbalanced when he was interrogated by Canadian security agents.
Charkaoui's lawyers are hoping that letter is enough to get the judge to lift the strict bail conditions he has been living under since February 2005.
He must be supervised at work and accompanied by one of his parents all other times. He cannot use the internet and police are permitted to enter his home at any time without a warrant.
His lawyers were also expected to argue that the leak of a classified report, published in Montreal's La Presse in June 2007, violates his charter rights and constitutes an abuse of procedures.
The report cited a Canadian Security Intelligence Service document that alleges Charkaoui followed two al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, and in 2000 talked about plans to fly a plane into a building in Europe with another man, Hisham Tahir.
Charkaoui admits knowing Tahir, but denies being part of any terrorist plot. He's accused the federal government of leading a smear campaign against him by leaking classified information even his lawyers haven't seen.
Charkaoui's lawyer, Johanne Doyon, has said the publication of the document violates federal law.
Charkaoui, a 33-year-old French teacher, has called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to launch an inquiry to investigate how CSIS handled the security certificates, and also wants the police to intervene.
The country's top court has already struck down the security certificates in a groundbreaking decision released in February 2007 that determined they violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But the court suspended the ruling for 12 months, to allow the government enough time to rewrite security laws, effectively meaning the security certificates are valid until further notice.
It's strange that the police always believe bad guys when they are caught and making a deal. Ressam probably just reeled off the names of anyone he knew hoping that would get him a reduced sentence.
Charkaoui witness recants, reporter tells court
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 | 1:30 PM ET
CBC News
A Montreal reporter said in Federal Court on Wednesday that one of the main witnesses against Adil Charkaoui has withdrawn his allegations against the accused al-Qaeda sleeper agent.
Journal de Montreal's Fabrice de Pierrebourg was subpoenaed to appear at the court hearing launched by Charkaoui, who is trying to have his strict bail conditions quashed.
Adil Charkaoui was released under strict bail conditions that allow police to enter his home without a warrant.
(Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press) Last year, de Pierrebourg noticed one of the main witnesses against Charkaoui, convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam, had withdrawn accusations against another Montrealer being held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The reporter wrote to Ressam to ask whether he held to his accusations against Charkaoui, including that he met him at an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.
That allegation was one of the main reasons Charkaoui was arrested on a federal security certificate. He was jailed for 21 months under the terms of the security certificate, but released on strict bail conditions in February 2005.
Ressam, an Algerian-born Montrealer, was arrested in 1999 while trying to cross the B.C.-Washington border with a bomb intended for Los Angeles International Airport. In exchange for a lighter sentence, Ressam agreed to co-operate with authorities, providing information on other suspected terrorists.
Continue Article
In a return letter to de Pierrebourg, written in Arabic, Ressam retracted all his allegations against Charkaoui. He said he was psychologically unbalanced when he was interrogated by Canadian security agents.
Charkaoui's lawyers are hoping that letter is enough to get the judge to lift the strict bail conditions he has been living under since February 2005.
He must be supervised at work and accompanied by one of his parents all other times. He cannot use the internet and police are permitted to enter his home at any time without a warrant.
His lawyers were also expected to argue that the leak of a classified report, published in Montreal's La Presse in June 2007, violates his charter rights and constitutes an abuse of procedures.
The report cited a Canadian Security Intelligence Service document that alleges Charkaoui followed two al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, and in 2000 talked about plans to fly a plane into a building in Europe with another man, Hisham Tahir.
Charkaoui admits knowing Tahir, but denies being part of any terrorist plot. He's accused the federal government of leading a smear campaign against him by leaking classified information even his lawyers haven't seen.
Charkaoui's lawyer, Johanne Doyon, has said the publication of the document violates federal law.
Charkaoui, a 33-year-old French teacher, has called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to launch an inquiry to investigate how CSIS handled the security certificates, and also wants the police to intervene.
The country's top court has already struck down the security certificates in a groundbreaking decision released in February 2007 that determined they violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But the court suspended the ruling for 12 months, to allow the government enough time to rewrite security laws, effectively meaning the security certificates are valid until further notice.
Agents tried to incite violence at Montebello?
Certainly the situation looks suspicious. Maybe the police or whomever is training people and used the demonstration as a practice session. Given that at least one of the persons clearly had a rock ready to throw the cops could have charged him, but no they did not. As a result no names are released. Convenient.
Undercover cops tried to incite violence in Montebello: union leader
YouTube video shows union leaders trying to push back masked men
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 | 4:06 PM ET
CBC News
Organizers of the protests at the North American leaders' summit in Montebello, Que., say they have video that shows police disguised as masked demonstrators tried to incite violence on Monday.
The YouTube video shows Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, ordering three masked men back from a line of riot police.
(CBC)
About 1,200 protesters were in the small resort town near Ottawa as Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon at a two-day summit to discuss issues under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America pact.
The video titled Stop SPP Protest — Union Leader stops provocateurs, posted on YouTube Tuesday, was shown at a news conference held Wednesday in Ottawa by protest organizers, including Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, who appears in the video.
In the footage filmed Monday afternoon, three burly men with bandanas and other covers over their faces push through protesters toward a line of riot police. One of the men has a rock in his hand.
Continue Article
As they move forward, Coles and other union leaders dressed in suits order the men to put the rock down and leave, accuse them of being police agents provocateurs, and try unsuccessfully to unmask them.
In the end, they squeeze behind the police line, where they are calmly handcuffed.
In this handout photo provided by CUPE, police and protesters clash in Montebello on Monday. Union leaders say photos and video taken by protesters raise troubling questions about police actions during the summit.
(CUPE/Canadian Press)
"The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union believes that the security force at Montebello were ordered to infiltrate our peaceful assembly and to provoke incidents," Coles told reporters. "I think the evidence that we've shown you today reinforces the view."
Coles showed photographs of the masked men's and police officers' boots taken during the handcuffing, in which they appear to have identical tread patterns on their soles.
He also questioned why other activists have been unable to identify the three men whose images have been broadcast worldwide and demanded to know who the masked men were.
"Do they have any connection to the Quebec police force or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or are they part of some other security force that was at Montebello?" Coles asked, adding that he wants to know how the Prime Minister's Office was involved in security during the protests.
He suggested that the government might want to provoke violence in order justify its security budget for the summit and discredit protesters.
"They want to defuse our questions ... by trying to make it look like some radical group trying to create a confrontation," he said.
The RCMP has refused to comment, while Quebec's provincial force has flatly denied that its officers were involved in the incident.
It said it is not releasing any names as no charges were laid.
Retired police officer believes masked men were cops
Meanwhile, a retired Ottawa police officer who was formerly in charge of overseeing demonstrations for the force said he questions who the masked men really are, after viewing the video.
"Were they legitimate protesters? I don’t think so," said Doug Kirkland.
"Well, if they weren't police, I think they might well have been working in the best interests of police."
He added that if the situation was as it appeared, he did not approve of the tactic. "It's pretty close to baiting," he said.
On Wednesday, the mayor of Montebello thanked police and protesters, praising the fact that there wasn't a single report of damage during the two-day summit.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership pact, signed in 2005, is intended to forge closer trade and security links between the countries.
Opponents say negotiations about the agreement are secretive and undemocratic, and the treaty itself erodes Canada's control over its natural resources, security and defence.
Undercover cops tried to incite violence in Montebello: union leader
YouTube video shows union leaders trying to push back masked men
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 | 4:06 PM ET
CBC News
Organizers of the protests at the North American leaders' summit in Montebello, Que., say they have video that shows police disguised as masked demonstrators tried to incite violence on Monday.
The YouTube video shows Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, ordering three masked men back from a line of riot police.
(CBC)
About 1,200 protesters were in the small resort town near Ottawa as Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon at a two-day summit to discuss issues under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America pact.
The video titled Stop SPP Protest — Union Leader stops provocateurs, posted on YouTube Tuesday, was shown at a news conference held Wednesday in Ottawa by protest organizers, including Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, who appears in the video.
In the footage filmed Monday afternoon, three burly men with bandanas and other covers over their faces push through protesters toward a line of riot police. One of the men has a rock in his hand.
Continue Article
As they move forward, Coles and other union leaders dressed in suits order the men to put the rock down and leave, accuse them of being police agents provocateurs, and try unsuccessfully to unmask them.
In the end, they squeeze behind the police line, where they are calmly handcuffed.
In this handout photo provided by CUPE, police and protesters clash in Montebello on Monday. Union leaders say photos and video taken by protesters raise troubling questions about police actions during the summit.
(CUPE/Canadian Press)
"The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union believes that the security force at Montebello were ordered to infiltrate our peaceful assembly and to provoke incidents," Coles told reporters. "I think the evidence that we've shown you today reinforces the view."
Coles showed photographs of the masked men's and police officers' boots taken during the handcuffing, in which they appear to have identical tread patterns on their soles.
He also questioned why other activists have been unable to identify the three men whose images have been broadcast worldwide and demanded to know who the masked men were.
"Do they have any connection to the Quebec police force or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or are they part of some other security force that was at Montebello?" Coles asked, adding that he wants to know how the Prime Minister's Office was involved in security during the protests.
He suggested that the government might want to provoke violence in order justify its security budget for the summit and discredit protesters.
"They want to defuse our questions ... by trying to make it look like some radical group trying to create a confrontation," he said.
The RCMP has refused to comment, while Quebec's provincial force has flatly denied that its officers were involved in the incident.
It said it is not releasing any names as no charges were laid.
Retired police officer believes masked men were cops
Meanwhile, a retired Ottawa police officer who was formerly in charge of overseeing demonstrations for the force said he questions who the masked men really are, after viewing the video.
"Were they legitimate protesters? I don’t think so," said Doug Kirkland.
"Well, if they weren't police, I think they might well have been working in the best interests of police."
He added that if the situation was as it appeared, he did not approve of the tactic. "It's pretty close to baiting," he said.
On Wednesday, the mayor of Montebello thanked police and protesters, praising the fact that there wasn't a single report of damage during the two-day summit.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership pact, signed in 2005, is intended to forge closer trade and security links between the countries.
Opponents say negotiations about the agreement are secretive and undemocratic, and the treaty itself erodes Canada's control over its natural resources, security and defence.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Is Water on the table at Montebello?
Here is a quote from the Council of Canadians response to the Calgary material re water etc. The CSIS is short for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Much of the pressure over Canadian water is coming directly from the U.S. government.
In fact Erik Peterson, listed in the “Key Personnel” section of CSIS’s North American
Future 2025 project, has said that the U.S. government must make water a top priority in
foreign policy.
Through CSIS, Peterson has teamed up with ITT Industries, a giant water technology
company, Proctor & Gamble, which has created a home water purifier called PUR and is
working with the UN in a joint public-private venture in developing countries, Coca Cola,
and Sandia National Laboratories to launch a joint research institute called Global Water
Futures (GWF).
The mandate of GWF is to effect U.S. policy on the global water crisis and to develop
technology in order to solve that crisis. A September 2005 report by GWF called
“Addressing Our Global Water Future” contains the following passage: “Policies focused
on water in regions across the planet must be regarded as a critical element in U.S.
national security strategy. Such policies should be part of a broader, comprehensive,
and integrated U.S. strategy toward the global water challenges.”
Like Canada’s oil and gas, the United States has obviously staked its claim over
Canada’s water supplies and is ready to make it a national security issue if those
supplies are not forthcoming.
On Energy
“To address the energy outlook, the study will rely on various models
developed in each of the three countries, such as the Global Energy
Futures Model and the Electricity Generation Cost Simulation Model
developed at Sandia National Laboratories; ‘The Outlook for Energy: A
View to 2030’ prepared by ExxonMobil; and data compiled by the U.S.
Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency.”
Sandia National Laboratories’ motto is “securing a peaceful and free world through
technology” and one of its goals is to “maintain U.S. military and nuclear superiority.”
ExxonMobil’s top priority in terms of energy security is, “supporting free and open
markets to enable consumers to access the energy they need, and to spur continued
innovation.” And of the two Canadian sources cited as energy references in CSIS’s
preliminary bibliography, one is actually a Security and Prosperity Partnership document,
drafted by Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, called the “North American Natural Gas
Vision.” So much for Canadian input into CSIS’s North American energy plan!
“Trilateral coordination of energy policy is crucial to assuring North
America’s future competitiveness and regional security.”
Translation: The United States economy needs guaranteed access to Canadian and
Mexican oil and gas. Limits to that access must be ironed out through trilateral, closeddoor
discussions on energy integration.
Is water on the table at Montebello?
>by Linda MacQuaig
August 21, 2007
One thing we can be pretty sure won't be announced when Stephen Harper, George Bush and Mexican president Felipe Calderon emerge from their summit in Montebello, Que., later today is a plan to divert Canadian water to the United States.
The leaders aren't that dumb. They know that would get the Canadian public stirred up against the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the deal they're discussing about integrating the economies of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
One of the most controversial charges made by Canadian critics of the SPP—including Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion—is that the deal may eventually include plans to divert Canadian water to the U.S., parts of which are facing serious long-term water shortages.
Canadian and U.S. officials deny water is on the table. But there's evidence that business groups in all three countries, which are the driving force pushing for deeper continental integration, have focused on the water issue in meetings connected to the SPP process.
The meetings are being held by business groups as part of the North American Future 2025 Project, which was set up by the three governments last year to help guide the SPP process. At one of those meetings, held in Calgary in April, the agenda included talks about possible water diversions.
The meetings came to light due to a document leaked to the grassroots group, the Council of Canadians. The document was prepared for the North American Future 2025 Project by the influential Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The document highlights the coming scarcity of U.S. and Mexican water, and notes that Canada is well endowed with 20 per cent of the world's water.
The document goes on to advocate “a more proactive approach to exploring different creative solutions beyond the current trans-boundary water arrangements.”
“One such option could be regional agreements between Canada, the United States and Mexico on issues such as water consumption, water transfers, artificial diversions of fresh water ...” notes the document, available on the Council of Canadians website.
The author of the document, Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, said in an interview yesterday that the Harper government has distanced itself from the project, apparently feeling that the subject of water was too volatile politically. But the project is co-sponsored by the Conference Board of Canada, which produces economic reports for business and government.
So whether the Canadian government is actually involved, business leaders in all three countries appear to be talking about the possibility of diverting Canadian water. This may be significant, given the central role of business in the SPP process.
The normal process of policy-making—involving consultation with a wide number of groups—has been set aside with the SPP. Instead, policy is being developed by business representatives, who make their recommendations directly to political leaders.
By the time the public finds out what's going on, it may be too late.
This is essentially what happened in the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement. The public wasn't aware that Ottawa, in consultation with the oil industry, was planning to give up a significant degree of Canadian sovereignty over energy by signing section 605, which prevents Canada from cutting back energy exports to the U.S.
But that's what ended up in the final agreement, and now we're bound by it.
My fear is that the same sort of thing could happen to our even more precious water resources. We'll lose control over them—not with a bang, but a quiet drip.
Linda McQuaig's column is originally published by The Toronto Star.
Much of the pressure over Canadian water is coming directly from the U.S. government.
In fact Erik Peterson, listed in the “Key Personnel” section of CSIS’s North American
Future 2025 project, has said that the U.S. government must make water a top priority in
foreign policy.
Through CSIS, Peterson has teamed up with ITT Industries, a giant water technology
company, Proctor & Gamble, which has created a home water purifier called PUR and is
working with the UN in a joint public-private venture in developing countries, Coca Cola,
and Sandia National Laboratories to launch a joint research institute called Global Water
Futures (GWF).
The mandate of GWF is to effect U.S. policy on the global water crisis and to develop
technology in order to solve that crisis. A September 2005 report by GWF called
“Addressing Our Global Water Future” contains the following passage: “Policies focused
on water in regions across the planet must be regarded as a critical element in U.S.
national security strategy. Such policies should be part of a broader, comprehensive,
and integrated U.S. strategy toward the global water challenges.”
Like Canada’s oil and gas, the United States has obviously staked its claim over
Canada’s water supplies and is ready to make it a national security issue if those
supplies are not forthcoming.
On Energy
“To address the energy outlook, the study will rely on various models
developed in each of the three countries, such as the Global Energy
Futures Model and the Electricity Generation Cost Simulation Model
developed at Sandia National Laboratories; ‘The Outlook for Energy: A
View to 2030’ prepared by ExxonMobil; and data compiled by the U.S.
Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency.”
Sandia National Laboratories’ motto is “securing a peaceful and free world through
technology” and one of its goals is to “maintain U.S. military and nuclear superiority.”
ExxonMobil’s top priority in terms of energy security is, “supporting free and open
markets to enable consumers to access the energy they need, and to spur continued
innovation.” And of the two Canadian sources cited as energy references in CSIS’s
preliminary bibliography, one is actually a Security and Prosperity Partnership document,
drafted by Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, called the “North American Natural Gas
Vision.” So much for Canadian input into CSIS’s North American energy plan!
“Trilateral coordination of energy policy is crucial to assuring North
America’s future competitiveness and regional security.”
Translation: The United States economy needs guaranteed access to Canadian and
Mexican oil and gas. Limits to that access must be ironed out through trilateral, closeddoor
discussions on energy integration.
Is water on the table at Montebello?
>by Linda MacQuaig
August 21, 2007
One thing we can be pretty sure won't be announced when Stephen Harper, George Bush and Mexican president Felipe Calderon emerge from their summit in Montebello, Que., later today is a plan to divert Canadian water to the United States.
The leaders aren't that dumb. They know that would get the Canadian public stirred up against the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the deal they're discussing about integrating the economies of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
One of the most controversial charges made by Canadian critics of the SPP—including Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion—is that the deal may eventually include plans to divert Canadian water to the U.S., parts of which are facing serious long-term water shortages.
Canadian and U.S. officials deny water is on the table. But there's evidence that business groups in all three countries, which are the driving force pushing for deeper continental integration, have focused on the water issue in meetings connected to the SPP process.
The meetings are being held by business groups as part of the North American Future 2025 Project, which was set up by the three governments last year to help guide the SPP process. At one of those meetings, held in Calgary in April, the agenda included talks about possible water diversions.
The meetings came to light due to a document leaked to the grassroots group, the Council of Canadians. The document was prepared for the North American Future 2025 Project by the influential Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The document highlights the coming scarcity of U.S. and Mexican water, and notes that Canada is well endowed with 20 per cent of the world's water.
The document goes on to advocate “a more proactive approach to exploring different creative solutions beyond the current trans-boundary water arrangements.”
“One such option could be regional agreements between Canada, the United States and Mexico on issues such as water consumption, water transfers, artificial diversions of fresh water ...” notes the document, available on the Council of Canadians website.
The author of the document, Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, said in an interview yesterday that the Harper government has distanced itself from the project, apparently feeling that the subject of water was too volatile politically. But the project is co-sponsored by the Conference Board of Canada, which produces economic reports for business and government.
So whether the Canadian government is actually involved, business leaders in all three countries appear to be talking about the possibility of diverting Canadian water. This may be significant, given the central role of business in the SPP process.
The normal process of policy-making—involving consultation with a wide number of groups—has been set aside with the SPP. Instead, policy is being developed by business representatives, who make their recommendations directly to political leaders.
By the time the public finds out what's going on, it may be too late.
This is essentially what happened in the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement. The public wasn't aware that Ottawa, in consultation with the oil industry, was planning to give up a significant degree of Canadian sovereignty over energy by signing section 605, which prevents Canada from cutting back energy exports to the U.S.
But that's what ended up in the final agreement, and now we're bound by it.
My fear is that the same sort of thing could happen to our even more precious water resources. We'll lose control over them—not with a bang, but a quiet drip.
Linda McQuaig's column is originally published by The Toronto Star.
List of NACC members (SPP advisory group)
Here is a list of the 30 executives, ten from each country, that comprise the NACC, and are present at the SPP meeting in Montebello. Note that the US members are associated with some of the largest and most powerful global companies such as Ford,
General Motors, Chevron, Merck, etc. etc.
Embassy, June 13th, 2007
EMBASSY REPORT
Meet the Powerful Business Members of the North American Competitiveness Council
The North American Competitiveness Council, part of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, was established by the American, Canadian and Mexican governments at the June 2006 trilateral meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Comprised of 30 senior private sector representatives, 10 from each country (though there are 13 U.S. members), the council is mandated to provide governments with recommendations on issues including border regulation and competitiveness in the automotive, transportation, manufacturing and services sectors. The council is expected to meet annually with security and prosperity ministers and will engage with senior government officials on an ongoing basis. They last met in February 2007 in Ottawa and are expected to meet again in Canada in August. The following is a brief list of the council members.
CANADIAN MEMBERS
Dominic D'Alessandro, Manulife Financial
Italian-born chartered accountant has been Manulife Financial's president since 1994. Mr. D'Alessandro is a vice chairman of the board of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and a director of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association. He also co-chairs the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council.
Paul Desmarais, Jr., Power Corporation of Canada
In 1984, appointed vice-chairman of Power Financial Corporation, a company he helped set up, becoming chairman of the board in 1990 and chairman of the executive committee in May 2005. He was appointed chairman of the board and co-CEO of Power Corporation of Canada in 1996.
David Ganong, Ganong Bros. Ltd.
Director of Ganong Bros. since 1977, director of Canadian Council of Chief Executive Officers, and chairman on the University of New Brunswick's board of governors. He is also director of Sun Life Financial, director of the Conference Board of Canada, chairman of the New Brunswick Business Council.
Richard George, Suncor Energy Inc.
Originally from Colorado, Mr. George spent 10 years with Sun Company in the U.S. and the UK. Appointed Suncor's president and CEO in 1991. Took Canadian citizenship in 1996. Honourary chair of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and a member of the board of directors of the U.S. offshore and onshore drilling company, GlobalSantaFe Corporation.
E. Hunter Harrison, CN
President and CEO of CN since 2003. Former president and CEO of the Illinois Central Corporation and the Illinois Central Railroad Company. Member of Canadian Council of Chief Executives. Authored the book, How We Work and Why in 2005. Born in Tennessee.
Linda Hasenfratz, Linamar Corporation (NACC chairperson)
Ms. Hasenfratz joined Linamar Corporation in 1990 and held many positions, including director, president and chief operating officer. Named CEO in August 2002. Holds an Executive MBA from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. Also sits on the board of directors for CIBC and the Royal Ontario Museum.
Michael Sabia, Bell Canada Enterprises
President and CEO of BCE, and CEO of Bell Canada, Mr. Sabia has held these same positions and others in both companies as well as Bell Canada International Inc. since 1999. He's also board chairman of Bell Aliant Regional Communications, as well as director of the Thomson Corporation. Previously worked with the CN Railway, the federal Department of Finance and the Privy Council Office.
Jim Shepherd, Canfor Corporation
Appointed Canfor Corporation's president and CEO in April 2004, Mr. Shepherd quit his post on March 30. Mr. Shepherd has worked in Ontario and B.C.'s forestry industries for over 25 years, including as Slocan Forest Products's president in 1999. He sits on a number of boards including the Vancouver Board of Trade and the Asia Pacific Trade Council.
Annette Verschuren, The Home Depot
Former president and co-owner of arts and crafts chain Michael's of Canada, Ms. Verschuren joined Home Depot in 1996, and is president of Canadian operations. She sits on the boards of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and Habitat for Humanity, and is chancellor to University College of Cape Breton.
Rick Waugh, Scotiabank
Appointed president and CEO in 2003, Mr. Waugh has been with Scotiabank since 1970, serving in investment, corporate, international and retail banking areas. He also serves on the board of the Institute for International Finance, is a member of the Chairman's Advisory Council for the Council of the Americas, and the IMF's Capital Markets Consultative Group.
MEXICAN MEMBERS
José Luís Barraza Gonzalez, Consejo Coordinador Empresarial
Over 22 years' experience in international commerce, promotion and industrial development. President of the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (Enterprise Coordinating Council) since 2004, and of the Council of Administration of Companies. Mr. Barraza is also CEO of Grupo Impulso, Realiza & Asociados, Inmobiliaria Realiza and Optima. He previously served as vice-president for the promotion of economic development in the state of Chihuahua.
Gastón Azcárraga Andrade, Consejo Mexicano de Hombres de Negocios
President of Consejo Mexicano de Hombres de Negocios, a group of Mexico's leading industrialists, and CEO of Mexicana de Aviación and Grupo Posadas. In 1989 became CEO of Grupo Posadas, a leading hotel operator in Latin America founded by his father. He is also a member of the board of directors of ING Mexico and Holcim-Apasco and is an advisor to the National Tourism Council.
César de Anda Molina, president and CEO of Avicar de Occidente
Mr. Anda Molina has been involved with Mexico's poultry and farming industry in a variety of capacities, including as president of the National Union of Poultry Producers and vice-president of International Relations of the Farming National Council.
Valentín Díez Morodo, Consejo Mexicano de Comercio Exterior
As well as being president of the Consejo Mexicano de Comercio Exterior (Mexican Business Council for Foreign Trade, Investment and Technology), Mr. Diez is a member of the Mexican Business Council, president of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness and board president of Iberoamericana University. He sits on a number of boards of directors including Grupo Financiero Banamex, Mexichem and Kimberly Clark de México.
Jaime Yesaki Cavazos, Consejo Nacional Agropecuario
Mr. Yesaki is director of the Consejo Nacional Agropecuario (National Agriculture and Livestock Council), the principal agri-business federation in Mexico. He is also the CEO of several poultry companies.
Claudio X. González, Centro de Estudios Económicos del Sector Privado
In addition to being president of the Centro de Estudios Económicos del Sector Privado (Center of Economic Studies of the Private Sector), Mr. Gonzalez is also a director of Kellogg Company, The Mexico Fund, Inc., Banco Nacional de Mexico, Grupo Televisa and Telefonos de Mexico, among others. He is has also been board chairman and CEO of Kimberly-Clark de Mexico since 1973.
Guillermo Vogel, vice-president of TAMSA (Tubos de Acero de México)
Mr. Vogel joined TAMSA in 1983 and has been vice chairman since 1997. He is also vice chairman of the American Iron and Steel Institute, vice-chairman of the board of Tenaris and chairman of the North American Steel Council. He is also a board director of Amazonia, Instituto Latinoamericano del Fierro y el Acero, Citibank-Banamex and HSBC Bank Mexico.
León Halkin, Confederación de Cámaras Industriales (CONCAMIN)
Mr. Halkin was president of the Confederación de Cámaras Industriales (Mexican Federation of Industrial Chambers) until October 2006. He is also chairman of the board and CEO of four companies in the industrial and real estate markets.
Tomás González Sada, president and CEO of Grupo CYDSA
Took over as chairman, president and CEO of Grupo Cydsa, a textiles manufacturing firm, in 1994. Involved in a sister enterprise, Vitro Corporativo S.A. de C.V. Mr. Gonzalez Sada is also chairman of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness.
Alfredo Moisés Ceja, president of Finca Montegrande
Asides from being president of the winery Finca Montegrande, Mr. Moises Ceja is president of the council of the Mexican Association of Coffee Exporters and is vice president of international commerce on Mexico's National Agricultural Council.
U.S. MEMBERS
Lou Schorsch, Mittal Steel USA
Named Mittal Steel USA's CEO in 2006 after serving for a year as CEO in 2005. Dr. Schorsch previously serves as CEO of Ispat Inland and has over 26 years of experience in consulting and management in the steel industry, as well as the e-commerce sector. He is the co-author of the book Steel: Upheaval in a Basic Industry.
Joseph Gilmour, New York Life
Promoted to chief executive of New York Life International in 2006. Served as executive vice president and chief financial officer there since 2003. Worked for 25 years with Canada Life, including role as senior vice president of the international and reinsurance Division. Mr. Gilmour is a fellow of the Society of Actuaries.
Rick Wagoner, General Motors
Elected GM's chairman and chief executive officer in 2003. He had been president and CEO since 2000. Began career with GM in 1977 and has worked for the firm in Canada, Brazil and Switzerland. Mr. Wagoner is a member of the boards of trustees of Duke University, the Board of Dean's Advisors of the Harvard Business School, and the Board of Directors of Catalyst. He is chairman of the Society of Automotive Engineers.
William Clay Ford Jr., Ford
Director since 1988, chairman of the board of directors since 2001 and executive chairman since 2006 of the Ford Motor Company. Mr. Ford has held a number of management positions within Ford. He also is vice chairman of the Detroit Lions, Inc. and chairman of the Detroit Economic Club.
Raymond Gilmartin, Merck
Mr. Gilmartin left his role as chairman, president and CEO of pharmaceutical firm Merck in 2005, joining the Harvard Business School's MBA program in 2006, his alma mater. He joined Merck in 1994. He sits on the boards of Microsoft and General Mills Inc. Mr. Gilmartin has been involved in global economic and trade issues that concern the pharmaceutical industry.
David J. O'Reilly, Chevron
Born in Ireland, Mr. O'Reilly joined Chevron in 1968 and was elected chairman and CEO in 2000. Mr. O'Reilly is a committee director at the American Petroleum Institute and a director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He is also a member of the World Economic Forum's International Business Council, the JPMorgan International Council, the American Society of Corporate Executives and the Trilateral Commission.
Jeffrey R. Immelt, General Electric
Mr. Immelt has been the General Electric Company's CEO since 2001, the latest senior position he's held since joining the corporation in 1982. He has been president since 2000. Mr. Immelt also serves as a director of Catalyst, Robin Hood and The Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
H. Lee Scott, Wal-Mart
President and CEO since January 2000. Joined Wal-Mart in 1979 and rose through the ranks of the company's logistics operations, including as director of transportation. Mr. Scott also serves on the board of directors for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Robert Stevens, Lockheed Martin
Former director of Monsanto Company, he joined Lockheed Martin Corporation in the 1990s and held many senior positions until being appointed the firm's chairman, president and chief executive officer in 2005.
Michael Haverty, Kansas City Southern
President and CEO of Kansas City Southern, a transportation holding company that has railroad investments in the United States, Mexico and Panama, since 2000. He is also board chairman and CEO of Kansas City Southern De Mexico.
Douglas R. Conant, Campbell's Soup
Has been Campbell Soup Company's president, CEO and director since 2001. Over 25 years experience in the food industry, notably with General Mills, Inc., Phillip Morris Companies, Inc. (Kraft), and Nabisco, where he served as president from 1995-2000. Mr. Conant is also a director of Applebee's International, Inc. and a vice-chairman and trustee of The Conference Board.
James M. Kilts, Gillette
Retired as Gillette Company CEO in 2005 after helping merge the firm with Procter & Gamble in 2004. Former president and CEO of Nabisco, Kraft Foods, and Altria. Mr. Kilts is a member of the board of directors of The New York Times, the Metropolitan Life Insurance, MeadWestvaco and serves as a member of Citigroup's International Advisory Board.
Herman Cain, Whirlpool
A director of Whirlpool Corp. since 1992 and is a member of the board of directors. Mr. Cain is also the CEO and president of THE New Voice, Inc., a business and leadership consulting company. Formerly with The Pillsbury Company, the U.S. Navy and Coca-Cola, Mr. Cain also serves on the boards of AGCO, Inc., Aquila, Inc., Reader's Digest and Hallmark Cards, and is a member of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform.
–compiled by Christina Leadlay
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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General Motors, Chevron, Merck, etc. etc.
Embassy, June 13th, 2007
EMBASSY REPORT
Meet the Powerful Business Members of the North American Competitiveness Council
The North American Competitiveness Council, part of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, was established by the American, Canadian and Mexican governments at the June 2006 trilateral meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Comprised of 30 senior private sector representatives, 10 from each country (though there are 13 U.S. members), the council is mandated to provide governments with recommendations on issues including border regulation and competitiveness in the automotive, transportation, manufacturing and services sectors. The council is expected to meet annually with security and prosperity ministers and will engage with senior government officials on an ongoing basis. They last met in February 2007 in Ottawa and are expected to meet again in Canada in August. The following is a brief list of the council members.
CANADIAN MEMBERS
Dominic D'Alessandro, Manulife Financial
Italian-born chartered accountant has been Manulife Financial's president since 1994. Mr. D'Alessandro is a vice chairman of the board of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and a director of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association. He also co-chairs the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council.
Paul Desmarais, Jr., Power Corporation of Canada
In 1984, appointed vice-chairman of Power Financial Corporation, a company he helped set up, becoming chairman of the board in 1990 and chairman of the executive committee in May 2005. He was appointed chairman of the board and co-CEO of Power Corporation of Canada in 1996.
David Ganong, Ganong Bros. Ltd.
Director of Ganong Bros. since 1977, director of Canadian Council of Chief Executive Officers, and chairman on the University of New Brunswick's board of governors. He is also director of Sun Life Financial, director of the Conference Board of Canada, chairman of the New Brunswick Business Council.
Richard George, Suncor Energy Inc.
Originally from Colorado, Mr. George spent 10 years with Sun Company in the U.S. and the UK. Appointed Suncor's president and CEO in 1991. Took Canadian citizenship in 1996. Honourary chair of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and a member of the board of directors of the U.S. offshore and onshore drilling company, GlobalSantaFe Corporation.
E. Hunter Harrison, CN
President and CEO of CN since 2003. Former president and CEO of the Illinois Central Corporation and the Illinois Central Railroad Company. Member of Canadian Council of Chief Executives. Authored the book, How We Work and Why in 2005. Born in Tennessee.
Linda Hasenfratz, Linamar Corporation (NACC chairperson)
Ms. Hasenfratz joined Linamar Corporation in 1990 and held many positions, including director, president and chief operating officer. Named CEO in August 2002. Holds an Executive MBA from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. Also sits on the board of directors for CIBC and the Royal Ontario Museum.
Michael Sabia, Bell Canada Enterprises
President and CEO of BCE, and CEO of Bell Canada, Mr. Sabia has held these same positions and others in both companies as well as Bell Canada International Inc. since 1999. He's also board chairman of Bell Aliant Regional Communications, as well as director of the Thomson Corporation. Previously worked with the CN Railway, the federal Department of Finance and the Privy Council Office.
Jim Shepherd, Canfor Corporation
Appointed Canfor Corporation's president and CEO in April 2004, Mr. Shepherd quit his post on March 30. Mr. Shepherd has worked in Ontario and B.C.'s forestry industries for over 25 years, including as Slocan Forest Products's president in 1999. He sits on a number of boards including the Vancouver Board of Trade and the Asia Pacific Trade Council.
Annette Verschuren, The Home Depot
Former president and co-owner of arts and crafts chain Michael's of Canada, Ms. Verschuren joined Home Depot in 1996, and is president of Canadian operations. She sits on the boards of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and Habitat for Humanity, and is chancellor to University College of Cape Breton.
Rick Waugh, Scotiabank
Appointed president and CEO in 2003, Mr. Waugh has been with Scotiabank since 1970, serving in investment, corporate, international and retail banking areas. He also serves on the board of the Institute for International Finance, is a member of the Chairman's Advisory Council for the Council of the Americas, and the IMF's Capital Markets Consultative Group.
MEXICAN MEMBERS
José Luís Barraza Gonzalez, Consejo Coordinador Empresarial
Over 22 years' experience in international commerce, promotion and industrial development. President of the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (Enterprise Coordinating Council) since 2004, and of the Council of Administration of Companies. Mr. Barraza is also CEO of Grupo Impulso, Realiza & Asociados, Inmobiliaria Realiza and Optima. He previously served as vice-president for the promotion of economic development in the state of Chihuahua.
Gastón Azcárraga Andrade, Consejo Mexicano de Hombres de Negocios
President of Consejo Mexicano de Hombres de Negocios, a group of Mexico's leading industrialists, and CEO of Mexicana de Aviación and Grupo Posadas. In 1989 became CEO of Grupo Posadas, a leading hotel operator in Latin America founded by his father. He is also a member of the board of directors of ING Mexico and Holcim-Apasco and is an advisor to the National Tourism Council.
César de Anda Molina, president and CEO of Avicar de Occidente
Mr. Anda Molina has been involved with Mexico's poultry and farming industry in a variety of capacities, including as president of the National Union of Poultry Producers and vice-president of International Relations of the Farming National Council.
Valentín Díez Morodo, Consejo Mexicano de Comercio Exterior
As well as being president of the Consejo Mexicano de Comercio Exterior (Mexican Business Council for Foreign Trade, Investment and Technology), Mr. Diez is a member of the Mexican Business Council, president of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness and board president of Iberoamericana University. He sits on a number of boards of directors including Grupo Financiero Banamex, Mexichem and Kimberly Clark de México.
Jaime Yesaki Cavazos, Consejo Nacional Agropecuario
Mr. Yesaki is director of the Consejo Nacional Agropecuario (National Agriculture and Livestock Council), the principal agri-business federation in Mexico. He is also the CEO of several poultry companies.
Claudio X. González, Centro de Estudios Económicos del Sector Privado
In addition to being president of the Centro de Estudios Económicos del Sector Privado (Center of Economic Studies of the Private Sector), Mr. Gonzalez is also a director of Kellogg Company, The Mexico Fund, Inc., Banco Nacional de Mexico, Grupo Televisa and Telefonos de Mexico, among others. He is has also been board chairman and CEO of Kimberly-Clark de Mexico since 1973.
Guillermo Vogel, vice-president of TAMSA (Tubos de Acero de México)
Mr. Vogel joined TAMSA in 1983 and has been vice chairman since 1997. He is also vice chairman of the American Iron and Steel Institute, vice-chairman of the board of Tenaris and chairman of the North American Steel Council. He is also a board director of Amazonia, Instituto Latinoamericano del Fierro y el Acero, Citibank-Banamex and HSBC Bank Mexico.
León Halkin, Confederación de Cámaras Industriales (CONCAMIN)
Mr. Halkin was president of the Confederación de Cámaras Industriales (Mexican Federation of Industrial Chambers) until October 2006. He is also chairman of the board and CEO of four companies in the industrial and real estate markets.
Tomás González Sada, president and CEO of Grupo CYDSA
Took over as chairman, president and CEO of Grupo Cydsa, a textiles manufacturing firm, in 1994. Involved in a sister enterprise, Vitro Corporativo S.A. de C.V. Mr. Gonzalez Sada is also chairman of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness.
Alfredo Moisés Ceja, president of Finca Montegrande
Asides from being president of the winery Finca Montegrande, Mr. Moises Ceja is president of the council of the Mexican Association of Coffee Exporters and is vice president of international commerce on Mexico's National Agricultural Council.
U.S. MEMBERS
Lou Schorsch, Mittal Steel USA
Named Mittal Steel USA's CEO in 2006 after serving for a year as CEO in 2005. Dr. Schorsch previously serves as CEO of Ispat Inland and has over 26 years of experience in consulting and management in the steel industry, as well as the e-commerce sector. He is the co-author of the book Steel: Upheaval in a Basic Industry.
Joseph Gilmour, New York Life
Promoted to chief executive of New York Life International in 2006. Served as executive vice president and chief financial officer there since 2003. Worked for 25 years with Canada Life, including role as senior vice president of the international and reinsurance Division. Mr. Gilmour is a fellow of the Society of Actuaries.
Rick Wagoner, General Motors
Elected GM's chairman and chief executive officer in 2003. He had been president and CEO since 2000. Began career with GM in 1977 and has worked for the firm in Canada, Brazil and Switzerland. Mr. Wagoner is a member of the boards of trustees of Duke University, the Board of Dean's Advisors of the Harvard Business School, and the Board of Directors of Catalyst. He is chairman of the Society of Automotive Engineers.
William Clay Ford Jr., Ford
Director since 1988, chairman of the board of directors since 2001 and executive chairman since 2006 of the Ford Motor Company. Mr. Ford has held a number of management positions within Ford. He also is vice chairman of the Detroit Lions, Inc. and chairman of the Detroit Economic Club.
Raymond Gilmartin, Merck
Mr. Gilmartin left his role as chairman, president and CEO of pharmaceutical firm Merck in 2005, joining the Harvard Business School's MBA program in 2006, his alma mater. He joined Merck in 1994. He sits on the boards of Microsoft and General Mills Inc. Mr. Gilmartin has been involved in global economic and trade issues that concern the pharmaceutical industry.
David J. O'Reilly, Chevron
Born in Ireland, Mr. O'Reilly joined Chevron in 1968 and was elected chairman and CEO in 2000. Mr. O'Reilly is a committee director at the American Petroleum Institute and a director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He is also a member of the World Economic Forum's International Business Council, the JPMorgan International Council, the American Society of Corporate Executives and the Trilateral Commission.
Jeffrey R. Immelt, General Electric
Mr. Immelt has been the General Electric Company's CEO since 2001, the latest senior position he's held since joining the corporation in 1982. He has been president since 2000. Mr. Immelt also serves as a director of Catalyst, Robin Hood and The Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
H. Lee Scott, Wal-Mart
President and CEO since January 2000. Joined Wal-Mart in 1979 and rose through the ranks of the company's logistics operations, including as director of transportation. Mr. Scott also serves on the board of directors for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Robert Stevens, Lockheed Martin
Former director of Monsanto Company, he joined Lockheed Martin Corporation in the 1990s and held many senior positions until being appointed the firm's chairman, president and chief executive officer in 2005.
Michael Haverty, Kansas City Southern
President and CEO of Kansas City Southern, a transportation holding company that has railroad investments in the United States, Mexico and Panama, since 2000. He is also board chairman and CEO of Kansas City Southern De Mexico.
Douglas R. Conant, Campbell's Soup
Has been Campbell Soup Company's president, CEO and director since 2001. Over 25 years experience in the food industry, notably with General Mills, Inc., Phillip Morris Companies, Inc. (Kraft), and Nabisco, where he served as president from 1995-2000. Mr. Conant is also a director of Applebee's International, Inc. and a vice-chairman and trustee of The Conference Board.
James M. Kilts, Gillette
Retired as Gillette Company CEO in 2005 after helping merge the firm with Procter & Gamble in 2004. Former president and CEO of Nabisco, Kraft Foods, and Altria. Mr. Kilts is a member of the board of directors of The New York Times, the Metropolitan Life Insurance, MeadWestvaco and serves as a member of Citigroup's International Advisory Board.
Herman Cain, Whirlpool
A director of Whirlpool Corp. since 1992 and is a member of the board of directors. Mr. Cain is also the CEO and president of THE New Voice, Inc., a business and leadership consulting company. Formerly with The Pillsbury Company, the U.S. Navy and Coca-Cola, Mr. Cain also serves on the boards of AGCO, Inc., Aquila, Inc., Reader's Digest and Hallmark Cards, and is a member of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform.
–compiled by Christina Leadlay
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Why we should worry about the Montebello talks
In looking at comments on articles about Montebello I find that many of them are opposed to the protesters and also think that a meeting restricted to the leaders and business executives is just fine. They also say there is nothing secret about the meetings! Well even the full agenda has not been released. You can find lists of who the executives are but of course the news media themselves cannot be bothered to comment upon or post the lists as far as I can discern.
Campbell here outlines some of the reasons we should be worried about the talks.
Why we should worry about the Montebello talks
Posted: August 20, 2007
Bruce Campbell, August 20, 2007, The Chronicle Herald -- The term SPP is likely to draw blank stares from most Canadians, though hopefully that will begin to change after the upcoming summit of North American leaders – George Bush, Felipe Calderon and Stephen Harper – in Montebello, Que. The North American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) was launched by the three NAFTA countries in March 2005. This is their third meeting, and the first held in Canada.
The SPP is the successor to the 1994 NAFTA, the next stage on the path to fully integrate the North American economy along the lines advocated by business and political elites. It is a NAFTA-plus initiative, but with several differences.
First, the SPP fuses economic integration and security integration, reflecting the reality of the post-Sept. 11 U.S. security paradigm.
Second, unlike NAFTA, the SPP it is not a treaty; it is an executive-to-executive agreement. It requires no legislative change, hence minimal parliamentary involvement, and thus is proceeding largely out of the public eye. Civil society organizations are excluded. But business, remarkably, has secured a privileged place for itself at the SPP table, with the creation a year ago of the North American Competitiveness Council. The NACC gives big business a hand on the wheel driving the SPP agenda.
Third, the SPP is an umbrella for a dizzying array of projects: Some appear benign and others disturbing. However, because the public reporting on SPP initiatives is so devoid of substance, it is difficult to figure out which is which.
Here are three of the 300 SPP initiatives that raise alarm bells for me.
•Passenger "no fly" lists: In June, Canada’s "no-fly" list came into effect, part of a broader agenda of security measures negotiated under the SPP. The list is rife with potential for abuse – blacklisting innocent people, racial profiling, invasion of privacy, use of false information and faulty criteria for judging high-risk travellers – to name a few.
Canada’s list will almost certainly merge with the much larger U.S. "no-fly" list, with major negative implications for civil liberties. The Arar commission found that the RCMP, through its intelligence-sharing practices, was complicit in the rendition and torture of Canadian citizens in violation of international law. Maher Arar has still not been taken off the U.S. terrorist watch list.
The commission recommended a strong review mechanism to protect against civil-liberties and racial-profiling abuses. There is no evidence that these issues are being addressed under the SPP. As far as we know, the potential for continued Canadian complicity is still there. The U.S. remains a rogue state, which has systematically violated the Geneva Conventions on torture and rendition, recently codifying these practices in the notorious Military Commissions Act. The Harper government has not raised its voice publicly against U.S. abuses. What it is it doing at the SPP table?
•Domestic processing of oil: Energy security, especially oil, is a top priority for the United States, and the Harper government is eager to oblige by facilitating the rapid expansion of Alberta oilsands production for export south. This raises huge environmental and Canadian energy security issues.
But set these aside for the moment. Among the energy accomplishments cited by the leaders at their 2006 meeting was a pipeline agreement that would lead, they said, to a uniform regulatory approach for cross-border pipelines. Recently, the three energy ministers met to prepare for the Montebello meeting. They talked about cutting red tape (read: deregulation) for various planned pipelines that would take tarsands bitumen to the U.S. for processing.
This comes as the National Energy Board is holding hearings on the first of these proposals, the Keystone pipeline. U.S. multinational ConocoPhillips, a partner in the project, is investing billions in upgrading refineries in the United States to process the raw bitumen. The Communications Energy and Paperworkers union has produced studies showing that 18,000 jobs – that would otherwise be created by processing in Canada – will go south. And other studies show that it would discourage future investment in Canadian upgrading facilities.
Will the National Energy Board include employment, investment and domestic value-added criteria in its evaluation of the Keystone pipeline? Will an SPP agreement prevent these issues from being considered? Will we ever know?
•Regulatory harmonization, or regulatory co-operation as it is euphemistically called, is another top priority for business. Leaders have asked their officials to complete a "regulatory framework agreement" in time for the Montebello meeting. This will set the guidelines for many SPP initiatives. It is unlikely that we will see the full framework agreement, and even less so that we will see how it is applied in specific circumstances. Critics believe the government is preparing to weaken Canadian health, safety and environmental regulations and standards in the name of trade.
Let’s take the example of food safety. The SPP’s business council (the NACC) called for the harmonization of Canadian and U.S. lists of toxic substances, which are preventing some U.S. products from being sold in Canada. We also know that an SPP committee is working to resolve differences in pesticide maximum-residue limits. But will we ever know the outcome of these negotiations?
In this case, we do know now, thanks to an astute Ottawa Citizen reporter, who discovered that the Canadian government is in fact planning under the SPP to relax its requirements on pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables entering from the U.S. Some 40 per cent of the pesticides Canada regulates have stricter limits than U.S. regulations. The U.S. sees them as trade barriers and wants the list of priority pesticides to be relaxed. With the Bush administration aggressively dismantling its own regulatory systems, this harmonization concession amounts to Canada importing U.S. deregulation. Will this be the norm or the exception?
The final difference from NAFTA is that the SPP is not a "grand bargain" initiative. It is an incremental process (many steps) with no explicit vision, such as big-business lobbyist Tom d’Aquino’s North American Community. Each step may, or may not, by itself have significant consequences for Canadian policy flexibility. But cumulatively, the negative overall impact on Canadian sovereignty and democracy will be huge. Business’s desire for a seamless continental market requires uniformity across a broad range of policies and regulations. And guess which countries will do the harmonizing?
The key danger is this: SPP agreements progressively shrink Canada’s room to manoeuvre in key policy areas. This is political integration by stealth – something that deep integration proponents vigorously deny. The result is that Canadian sovereignty and democracy over time become increasingly hollow.
Bruce Campbell is executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Campbell here outlines some of the reasons we should be worried about the talks.
Why we should worry about the Montebello talks
Posted: August 20, 2007
Bruce Campbell, August 20, 2007, The Chronicle Herald -- The term SPP is likely to draw blank stares from most Canadians, though hopefully that will begin to change after the upcoming summit of North American leaders – George Bush, Felipe Calderon and Stephen Harper – in Montebello, Que. The North American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) was launched by the three NAFTA countries in March 2005. This is their third meeting, and the first held in Canada.
The SPP is the successor to the 1994 NAFTA, the next stage on the path to fully integrate the North American economy along the lines advocated by business and political elites. It is a NAFTA-plus initiative, but with several differences.
First, the SPP fuses economic integration and security integration, reflecting the reality of the post-Sept. 11 U.S. security paradigm.
Second, unlike NAFTA, the SPP it is not a treaty; it is an executive-to-executive agreement. It requires no legislative change, hence minimal parliamentary involvement, and thus is proceeding largely out of the public eye. Civil society organizations are excluded. But business, remarkably, has secured a privileged place for itself at the SPP table, with the creation a year ago of the North American Competitiveness Council. The NACC gives big business a hand on the wheel driving the SPP agenda.
Third, the SPP is an umbrella for a dizzying array of projects: Some appear benign and others disturbing. However, because the public reporting on SPP initiatives is so devoid of substance, it is difficult to figure out which is which.
Here are three of the 300 SPP initiatives that raise alarm bells for me.
•Passenger "no fly" lists: In June, Canada’s "no-fly" list came into effect, part of a broader agenda of security measures negotiated under the SPP. The list is rife with potential for abuse – blacklisting innocent people, racial profiling, invasion of privacy, use of false information and faulty criteria for judging high-risk travellers – to name a few.
Canada’s list will almost certainly merge with the much larger U.S. "no-fly" list, with major negative implications for civil liberties. The Arar commission found that the RCMP, through its intelligence-sharing practices, was complicit in the rendition and torture of Canadian citizens in violation of international law. Maher Arar has still not been taken off the U.S. terrorist watch list.
The commission recommended a strong review mechanism to protect against civil-liberties and racial-profiling abuses. There is no evidence that these issues are being addressed under the SPP. As far as we know, the potential for continued Canadian complicity is still there. The U.S. remains a rogue state, which has systematically violated the Geneva Conventions on torture and rendition, recently codifying these practices in the notorious Military Commissions Act. The Harper government has not raised its voice publicly against U.S. abuses. What it is it doing at the SPP table?
•Domestic processing of oil: Energy security, especially oil, is a top priority for the United States, and the Harper government is eager to oblige by facilitating the rapid expansion of Alberta oilsands production for export south. This raises huge environmental and Canadian energy security issues.
But set these aside for the moment. Among the energy accomplishments cited by the leaders at their 2006 meeting was a pipeline agreement that would lead, they said, to a uniform regulatory approach for cross-border pipelines. Recently, the three energy ministers met to prepare for the Montebello meeting. They talked about cutting red tape (read: deregulation) for various planned pipelines that would take tarsands bitumen to the U.S. for processing.
This comes as the National Energy Board is holding hearings on the first of these proposals, the Keystone pipeline. U.S. multinational ConocoPhillips, a partner in the project, is investing billions in upgrading refineries in the United States to process the raw bitumen. The Communications Energy and Paperworkers union has produced studies showing that 18,000 jobs – that would otherwise be created by processing in Canada – will go south. And other studies show that it would discourage future investment in Canadian upgrading facilities.
Will the National Energy Board include employment, investment and domestic value-added criteria in its evaluation of the Keystone pipeline? Will an SPP agreement prevent these issues from being considered? Will we ever know?
•Regulatory harmonization, or regulatory co-operation as it is euphemistically called, is another top priority for business. Leaders have asked their officials to complete a "regulatory framework agreement" in time for the Montebello meeting. This will set the guidelines for many SPP initiatives. It is unlikely that we will see the full framework agreement, and even less so that we will see how it is applied in specific circumstances. Critics believe the government is preparing to weaken Canadian health, safety and environmental regulations and standards in the name of trade.
Let’s take the example of food safety. The SPP’s business council (the NACC) called for the harmonization of Canadian and U.S. lists of toxic substances, which are preventing some U.S. products from being sold in Canada. We also know that an SPP committee is working to resolve differences in pesticide maximum-residue limits. But will we ever know the outcome of these negotiations?
In this case, we do know now, thanks to an astute Ottawa Citizen reporter, who discovered that the Canadian government is in fact planning under the SPP to relax its requirements on pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables entering from the U.S. Some 40 per cent of the pesticides Canada regulates have stricter limits than U.S. regulations. The U.S. sees them as trade barriers and wants the list of priority pesticides to be relaxed. With the Bush administration aggressively dismantling its own regulatory systems, this harmonization concession amounts to Canada importing U.S. deregulation. Will this be the norm or the exception?
The final difference from NAFTA is that the SPP is not a "grand bargain" initiative. It is an incremental process (many steps) with no explicit vision, such as big-business lobbyist Tom d’Aquino’s North American Community. Each step may, or may not, by itself have significant consequences for Canadian policy flexibility. But cumulatively, the negative overall impact on Canadian sovereignty and democracy will be huge. Business’s desire for a seamless continental market requires uniformity across a broad range of policies and regulations. And guess which countries will do the harmonizing?
The key danger is this: SPP agreements progressively shrink Canada’s room to manoeuvre in key policy areas. This is political integration by stealth – something that deep integration proponents vigorously deny. The result is that Canadian sovereignty and democracy over time become increasingly hollow.
Bruce Campbell is executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
US report from Montebello
This is from US News. Typically there is zilch about Canada. No mention of the Northwest Passage Issue. Bush re-affirmed his denial of Canadian sovereignty. Apparently the US was wanting to have its narcs work in Mexico but Mexicans worry abouot their sovereignty too. There is no mention of the 30 top business leaders at the meeting. The protests don't merit a mention either. So much for the free press. Free of most significant information.
Tensions Overshadow North American Summit
By Thomas Omestad
Posted 8/21/07
To the Mexicans, it was emblematic of the six-plus years of the Bush administration: As the leaders of the United States, Mexico, and Canada concluded their summit in Montebello, Canada, on Tuesday, the first question by reporters was not about North American affairs but, rather, about Iraq. The question earned a lengthy, detailed response from President Bush, who defended his handling of the Iraqi government's weakness. But his replies to questions about North America tended to be shorter and more general.
The Bush administration's preoccupation with Iraq and the war on terrorism loomed over the summit, even though it was not the focus of the two-day discussion among the three North American countries at a log-framed resort château on the Ottawa River.
The talks mostly covered border security, economic competitiveness, product safety, environment, and energy. Sovereignty claims over the Arctic, peacekeeping in Afghanistan, and global health issues also came up. And yet, this was a summit hindered by distractions. Hurricane Dean, slamming into Mexican coastal areas, forced President Felipe Calderón to hurry up the meetings and leave Canada earlier than planned. And lurking beneath the surface was continued Mexican disappointment with an administration that took office characterizing the U.S.-Mexican relationship as central to its international agenda. With a border-state politician who speaks some Spanish in the Oval Office, many Mexicans had anticipated a new closeness in the often prickly relations between the two neighbors.
But the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq all concentrated the administration's energies on countering terrorism and beefing up security rather than forging a more open border—and relationship—with Mexico. Mexico's initially ham-handed reaction to the attacks also served to cool some of the early ardor. "It turned out differently," Peter Hakim, president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, said of Mexico's expectations for a warmer relationship with the United States.
This summer Mexican hopes for immigration reform in the United States were also dashed, as Congress blocked a plan promoted by Bush that would have increased border security but also expanded guest-worker programs and ways to gain legal U.S. citizenship. After the legislation died in June, Calderón called the failure a "grave error" that would hurt both the Mexican and the American economies. He also criticized a 700-mile border-security fence being constructed with the support of Bush and Congress.
Though Calderón, as well as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is conservative, the Mexican leader has been careful to limit Mexican expectations of Bush and to focus on pragmatic avenues for cooperation. Says Hakim, "Whatever the disappointments and differences, Mexico wants some things from the United States." Bush offered U.S. help for storm damage.
Contrary to some predictions, a U.S.-Mexican plan to fight narcotrafficking was not finalized at the summit. Mexico, concerned with erosion of sovereignty, does not want U.S. military personnel performing antidrug operations on its soil—operations that have accelerated under Calderón. But the two countries are discussing a package of hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid that might include surveillance technology, training, and higher salaries for law-enforcement officers in Mexico.
"We're working hard to get a plan ready," said Bush. Calderón said Mexico wants more surveillance on the U.S. side of the border in part to halt the flow of high-powered American weapons to violent drug gangs. The eventual plan is likely to face serious opposition in Congress, where skepticism about the value of another antidrug program—Plan Colombia—has been growing.
Leaders of the three countries will convene again next year in Texas.
Tensions Overshadow North American Summit
By Thomas Omestad
Posted 8/21/07
To the Mexicans, it was emblematic of the six-plus years of the Bush administration: As the leaders of the United States, Mexico, and Canada concluded their summit in Montebello, Canada, on Tuesday, the first question by reporters was not about North American affairs but, rather, about Iraq. The question earned a lengthy, detailed response from President Bush, who defended his handling of the Iraqi government's weakness. But his replies to questions about North America tended to be shorter and more general.
The Bush administration's preoccupation with Iraq and the war on terrorism loomed over the summit, even though it was not the focus of the two-day discussion among the three North American countries at a log-framed resort château on the Ottawa River.
The talks mostly covered border security, economic competitiveness, product safety, environment, and energy. Sovereignty claims over the Arctic, peacekeeping in Afghanistan, and global health issues also came up. And yet, this was a summit hindered by distractions. Hurricane Dean, slamming into Mexican coastal areas, forced President Felipe Calderón to hurry up the meetings and leave Canada earlier than planned. And lurking beneath the surface was continued Mexican disappointment with an administration that took office characterizing the U.S.-Mexican relationship as central to its international agenda. With a border-state politician who speaks some Spanish in the Oval Office, many Mexicans had anticipated a new closeness in the often prickly relations between the two neighbors.
But the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq all concentrated the administration's energies on countering terrorism and beefing up security rather than forging a more open border—and relationship—with Mexico. Mexico's initially ham-handed reaction to the attacks also served to cool some of the early ardor. "It turned out differently," Peter Hakim, president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, said of Mexico's expectations for a warmer relationship with the United States.
This summer Mexican hopes for immigration reform in the United States were also dashed, as Congress blocked a plan promoted by Bush that would have increased border security but also expanded guest-worker programs and ways to gain legal U.S. citizenship. After the legislation died in June, Calderón called the failure a "grave error" that would hurt both the Mexican and the American economies. He also criticized a 700-mile border-security fence being constructed with the support of Bush and Congress.
Though Calderón, as well as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is conservative, the Mexican leader has been careful to limit Mexican expectations of Bush and to focus on pragmatic avenues for cooperation. Says Hakim, "Whatever the disappointments and differences, Mexico wants some things from the United States." Bush offered U.S. help for storm damage.
Contrary to some predictions, a U.S.-Mexican plan to fight narcotrafficking was not finalized at the summit. Mexico, concerned with erosion of sovereignty, does not want U.S. military personnel performing antidrug operations on its soil—operations that have accelerated under Calderón. But the two countries are discussing a package of hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid that might include surveillance technology, training, and higher salaries for law-enforcement officers in Mexico.
"We're working hard to get a plan ready," said Bush. Calderón said Mexico wants more surveillance on the U.S. side of the border in part to halt the flow of high-powered American weapons to violent drug gangs. The eventual plan is likely to face serious opposition in Congress, where skepticism about the value of another antidrug program—Plan Colombia—has been growing.
Leaders of the three countries will convene again next year in Texas.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Arar Case heats up again.
This is from a US source but hardly a mass circulation newspaper! The article has a good summary of the significance of the new material. By now though the case is cooling off quickly. The Iacobucci inquiry is also in a deep media freeze. Unless some public hearings are called it seems that no progress reports are being released.
Canada: Arar case heats up again
By: Reuel S. Amdur / The Arab American News
2007-08-18
Maher Arar is the Canadian citizen rendered by the CIA via Jordan to Syria, where he was born. His plane from Europe had landed in New York, where he was to transfer to another plane to take him home to Montreal. However, he was seized on arrival. Justice Dennis O'Connor headed up a major public inquiry in Canada, which completely exonerated Arar of any connection with terrorism. However, the Canadian government demanded that certain extracts of O'Connor's report be deleted for security reasons.
O'Connor challenged the deletions in court, and as a result on August 9 the government was forced to disclose about 1,000 of the 1,500 words previously restricted. Those words tell a sad story about shady practices by both Canadian and American governments. The Americans relied largely on faulty intelligence supplied by Canadian security officials.
The principle conclusion that observers have made regarding the hitherto secret passages is that the deletions were not made for reasons of security. They were made to prevent further embarrassment to security agencies in Canada and the United States. As a "Toronto Globe and Mail" columnist expressed it, the exercise was one of "covering your ass."
The main revelations in the liberated passages relate to the origins of the faulty information about Arar, Syria's attitude toward their captive, the apparent concealment of information from elected politicians, and the general knowledge in the security field of American practices of torture by proxy.
It turns out that the original source of false information about Arar came from torture of Egyptian-Canadian Ahmad El Matti, who was taken into custody when he went to Syria to get a wife. El Matti's ordeal and Canadian officials' role in it are now part of the charge to Judge Frank Iacobucci's judicial inquiry.
While officials from the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), who went to Syria while Arar was in prison and being tortured, were told by Syrian officials that Arar was "a nuisance," rather than an al-Qaeda operative, CSIS and the RCMP did what they could to forestall Canadian government efforts to get Arar released and returned to Canada.
CSIS deputy director Jack Hooper wrote a memo in October, 2002, in which he said, "I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan, where they can have their way with him." Yet, it appears that this kind of information was confined within the agency and not shared with Canadian elected officials.
Hooper's comment ties in with observations of a CSIS agent in Washington, who reported on a developing practice on the part of the American government: "When the CIA or FBI cannot legally hold a terrorist suspect. . . they have them rendered" to places where interrogation will take place in "a firm manner." While reports from Guantanamo and elsewhere discredit Condoleezza Rice's pointed "We don't do torture," much of the dirty work is simply contracted out.
One other note: It was the current Conservative Canadian cabinet that attempted to censor the O'Connor report, though Prime Minister Stephen Harper has tried to lay all the blame on the previous Liberal government.
Canada: Arar case heats up again
By: Reuel S. Amdur / The Arab American News
2007-08-18
Maher Arar is the Canadian citizen rendered by the CIA via Jordan to Syria, where he was born. His plane from Europe had landed in New York, where he was to transfer to another plane to take him home to Montreal. However, he was seized on arrival. Justice Dennis O'Connor headed up a major public inquiry in Canada, which completely exonerated Arar of any connection with terrorism. However, the Canadian government demanded that certain extracts of O'Connor's report be deleted for security reasons.
O'Connor challenged the deletions in court, and as a result on August 9 the government was forced to disclose about 1,000 of the 1,500 words previously restricted. Those words tell a sad story about shady practices by both Canadian and American governments. The Americans relied largely on faulty intelligence supplied by Canadian security officials.
The principle conclusion that observers have made regarding the hitherto secret passages is that the deletions were not made for reasons of security. They were made to prevent further embarrassment to security agencies in Canada and the United States. As a "Toronto Globe and Mail" columnist expressed it, the exercise was one of "covering your ass."
The main revelations in the liberated passages relate to the origins of the faulty information about Arar, Syria's attitude toward their captive, the apparent concealment of information from elected politicians, and the general knowledge in the security field of American practices of torture by proxy.
It turns out that the original source of false information about Arar came from torture of Egyptian-Canadian Ahmad El Matti, who was taken into custody when he went to Syria to get a wife. El Matti's ordeal and Canadian officials' role in it are now part of the charge to Judge Frank Iacobucci's judicial inquiry.
While officials from the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), who went to Syria while Arar was in prison and being tortured, were told by Syrian officials that Arar was "a nuisance," rather than an al-Qaeda operative, CSIS and the RCMP did what they could to forestall Canadian government efforts to get Arar released and returned to Canada.
CSIS deputy director Jack Hooper wrote a memo in October, 2002, in which he said, "I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan, where they can have their way with him." Yet, it appears that this kind of information was confined within the agency and not shared with Canadian elected officials.
Hooper's comment ties in with observations of a CSIS agent in Washington, who reported on a developing practice on the part of the American government: "When the CIA or FBI cannot legally hold a terrorist suspect. . . they have them rendered" to places where interrogation will take place in "a firm manner." While reports from Guantanamo and elsewhere discredit Condoleezza Rice's pointed "We don't do torture," much of the dirty work is simply contracted out.
One other note: It was the current Conservative Canadian cabinet that attempted to censor the O'Connor report, though Prime Minister Stephen Harper has tried to lay all the blame on the previous Liberal government.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Protests at Montebello.
It is good that at least some protesters are going beyond the pens. Harper's dismissive comments should be good from the PR point of view. Those with access to the leaders are 30 big business executives. I haven't seen the list yet. Aquino's remarks are even more fatuous than Harper's. Now if he had recommended that the protestors should also be granted 30 representatives to attend the meetings that would have been nice! If what is going on is so beneficial and harmless one would think that at least the press should be in on the meetings. Better still liven up CPAC by having the sessions televised.
Clashes break out at summit protest
Last Updated: Monday, August 20, 2007 | 6:15 PM ET
CBC News
Police used tear gas and pepper spray against protesters who were hurling rocks and branches during confrontations outside the leaders summit in Quebec on Monday.
Police arrested at least one protester in the small resort town of Montebello, near Ottawa, where Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon to discuss issues including border security and free trade.
The leaders began their talks Monday inside the Fairmont Le Château Montebello hotel, which is being protected by a four-metre security fence and police in riot gear who are patrolling the area on foot, in cars, on motorcycles and in helicopters.
At least 500 protesters took part in a march outside the hotel, carrying signs with slogans such as "No to Americanada." Others held a peaceful family-friendly rally away from police lines.
Continue Article
Many protesters arrived to the site by the busload from cities including Montreal, Kingston and Ottawa.
Harper dismissed the demonstration after he was told hundreds of protesters were involved.
"I've heard it's nothing. A couple hundred? It's sad," he said.
'We're going to protest where we want to protest'
Police and protesters clash in Montebello, Que.
(Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)
Some of the demonstrators went to designated protest areas — one in an empty field and the other a picnic area — while others chose to walk down Route 148 toward the hotel.
Some protesters decried the use of designated protest areas, calling them "protest pens."
"They're like cages and they want to keep people in an area where they can manage them," said Trevor Haché, who was part of a caravan of cyclists who rode from Ottawa to join the protest. "We're going to protest where we want to protest. It's our democratic right."
The two-day summit is set to focus on the broad-ranging Security and Prosperity Partnership pact signed in 2005 by the Canada, Mexico and the United States.
The SPP, meant to compliment treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, was created to boost co-operation on security, trade and public-health issues among the three countries.
But protesters say the SPP is anti-democratic because it didn't require a vote in Parliament or a change in the law.
Demonstrators carry signs to protest the leaders summit in Montebello.
(Loreen Pindera/CBC)
"If this is such a wonderful deal and it is about protecting North Americans from shoddy products or whatever they're now saying … then be proud of it, stand up, tell us what's in it … and send it to our Parliament for oversight," Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, told CBC News in an interview from Ottawa Monday morning.
Barlow said the SPP forces Mexico and Canada to adopt Bush's notions of security, "kind of putting a zip-lock of a security perimeter around North America."
Concerned about Canada losing control
Many protesters said they are concerned about Canada losing control of its energy, water resources and border as initiatives such as the SPP treaty increase and expand.
While Harper has offered assurances that won't happen, many of the protesters said Sunday they don't believe him.
"I think ultimately, his allegiance is to the corporate kind of world," demonstrator Andy Elliott told CBC News. "He doesn't seem too concerned for the average person."
The demonstrators are also decrying the secrecy surrounding the meeting and that the only people with access to the three leaders at the summit are 30 chief executives of some of the biggest corporations in the world.
But Thomas D'Aquino, president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, said getting access to political leaders is not the only way to be heard.
"I do not say to myself, 'If I don't get an hour with the prime minister in the next six months, I'm going to go out and protest and reject the system outright,' " he told CBC News.
"I don't do that because civilized human beings — those who believe in democracy — don't do that."
Canadian government officials said the three leaders will be able to see and hear the protesters through a video link inside if they choose to watch.
Clashes break out at summit protest
Last Updated: Monday, August 20, 2007 | 6:15 PM ET
CBC News
Police used tear gas and pepper spray against protesters who were hurling rocks and branches during confrontations outside the leaders summit in Quebec on Monday.
Police arrested at least one protester in the small resort town of Montebello, near Ottawa, where Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon to discuss issues including border security and free trade.
The leaders began their talks Monday inside the Fairmont Le Château Montebello hotel, which is being protected by a four-metre security fence and police in riot gear who are patrolling the area on foot, in cars, on motorcycles and in helicopters.
At least 500 protesters took part in a march outside the hotel, carrying signs with slogans such as "No to Americanada." Others held a peaceful family-friendly rally away from police lines.
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Many protesters arrived to the site by the busload from cities including Montreal, Kingston and Ottawa.
Harper dismissed the demonstration after he was told hundreds of protesters were involved.
"I've heard it's nothing. A couple hundred? It's sad," he said.
'We're going to protest where we want to protest'
Police and protesters clash in Montebello, Que.
(Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)
Some of the demonstrators went to designated protest areas — one in an empty field and the other a picnic area — while others chose to walk down Route 148 toward the hotel.
Some protesters decried the use of designated protest areas, calling them "protest pens."
"They're like cages and they want to keep people in an area where they can manage them," said Trevor Haché, who was part of a caravan of cyclists who rode from Ottawa to join the protest. "We're going to protest where we want to protest. It's our democratic right."
The two-day summit is set to focus on the broad-ranging Security and Prosperity Partnership pact signed in 2005 by the Canada, Mexico and the United States.
The SPP, meant to compliment treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, was created to boost co-operation on security, trade and public-health issues among the three countries.
But protesters say the SPP is anti-democratic because it didn't require a vote in Parliament or a change in the law.
Demonstrators carry signs to protest the leaders summit in Montebello.
(Loreen Pindera/CBC)
"If this is such a wonderful deal and it is about protecting North Americans from shoddy products or whatever they're now saying … then be proud of it, stand up, tell us what's in it … and send it to our Parliament for oversight," Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, told CBC News in an interview from Ottawa Monday morning.
Barlow said the SPP forces Mexico and Canada to adopt Bush's notions of security, "kind of putting a zip-lock of a security perimeter around North America."
Concerned about Canada losing control
Many protesters said they are concerned about Canada losing control of its energy, water resources and border as initiatives such as the SPP treaty increase and expand.
While Harper has offered assurances that won't happen, many of the protesters said Sunday they don't believe him.
"I think ultimately, his allegiance is to the corporate kind of world," demonstrator Andy Elliott told CBC News. "He doesn't seem too concerned for the average person."
The demonstrators are also decrying the secrecy surrounding the meeting and that the only people with access to the three leaders at the summit are 30 chief executives of some of the biggest corporations in the world.
But Thomas D'Aquino, president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, said getting access to political leaders is not the only way to be heard.
"I do not say to myself, 'If I don't get an hour with the prime minister in the next six months, I'm going to go out and protest and reject the system outright,' " he told CBC News.
"I don't do that because civilized human beings — those who believe in democracy — don't do that."
Canadian government officials said the three leaders will be able to see and hear the protesters through a video link inside if they choose to watch.
SPP website and the US flag.
There is an SPP website. Note the prominent US flag. There is no Canadian or Mexican flag that I can see on the home page.
The Montebello Summit
Sort of Tristram Shandy journalism wandering all over the place. It would be most interesting if the US decides to give Harper a bon-bon and recognise the Northwest Passage as Canadian Waters. There could be a secret quid pro quo that Canada would let the US use the passage without bothering to be searched etc. by Canadian authorities. Of course US submarines probably enter Canadian arctic waters without bothering to tell anyone. The real enemy is to become again Russia. Harper will be glad to become a new Cold Warrior. Stay tuned for Evil Empire, the Sequel.
Montebello gives the lie to all the rhetoric about accountability and transparency. The taxpayer foots the bill to ensure the the unaccountable and the untransparent continue so in security.
Leaders at Montebello summit eye hurricane warily
JANE TABER AND ALAN FREEMAN
From Monday's Globe and Mail
August 20, 2007 at 12:37 AM EDT
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.S. President George Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon meet Monday in Montebello, Que., to discuss immigration, closer trade ties and Arctic sovereignty but their eyes will also be focused on hurricane Dean as it hurtles toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
“We are monitoring the weather very closely,” said a Mexican official Sunday as Mr. Calderon and his family spent the day relaxing with the Harper family at the Prime Minister's summer residence at Harrington Lake, Que.
If it stays on course, the hurricane seems poised to wreak havoc on the Mexican resorts of Cancun and Cozumel, but is not expected to reach the region until Tuesday morning. That would leave the Mexican President enough time to complete the summit, but force him to cut short a series of bilateral meetings with Mr. Harper and other events in Ottawa on Wednesday.
Sunday, tourists were lined up at the airport in Cancun, trying to find a way out, and residents on the island of Cozumel were boarding up windows. The same region suffered heavy damage when it was struck by hurricane Wilma in 2005.
The officials noted that even if the hurricane strikes Mexico tomorrow, it would not be possible or appropriate for Mr. Calderon to visit the region until Wednesday night or Thursday.
“If there is a last-minute change, we will have to mobilize many things to get him back,” the official said.
Meanwhile, several hundred people gathered on Parliament Hill Sunday, under strong police presence, to protest against the summit and the visit by Mr. Bush. The protesters continued their peaceful march to the U.S. embassy.
More protesters are expected near the Montebello site today, again under heavy police security.
Mr. Harper is to meet Mr. Bush at 2:15 p.m. just after he arrives at the Montebello resort, on the Ottawa River just east of the capital. The Mexican leader is scheduled to arrive about an hour later to meet with Mr. Bush. The three leaders are to have a working dinner tonight.
A senior Harper official said Sunday that the Prime Minister will raise the issue of Arctic sovereignty today in his bilateral meeting with the U.S. President, gauging Mr. Bush's opinion on what the Russians are up to globally, especially in terms of the flag they planted recently on the ocean floor under the North Pole. Last month, Mr. Harper committed to building between six and eight Arctic patrol ships to ensure Canadian sovereignty over the area.
The Americans hold a much different position – they claim the waters are international.
On CTV's Question Period Sunday, however, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, said the Americans should rethink their position on the Northwest Passage for security reasons.
“I think that in the age of terror, it's in our security interests that the Northwest Passage be considered part of Canada,” said Mr. Cellucci, a Republican who was appointed to his post by Mr. Bush. “That will enable the Canadian navy to intercept and board vessels in the Northwest Passage to make sure they are not bringing weapons of mass destruction into North America. … I think that it's in our security interests that this be considered part of Canada.”
Mr. Cellucci has made his view known before. He says he has spoken to the State Department about this as well as to his successor, David Wilkins.
The Canadian official said the mission in Afghanistan will also likely be raised with Mr. Bush. The Prime Minister has said he needs a consensus from all parties to extend the mission past February, 2009.
Mr. Cellucci said, “I think this is something that the Canadians are going to have to look at as the time approaches, but the Canadian Forces have done quite well and they've made Canada proud. My hope is that the decision will be made that they continue to help that country and the people of Afghanistan.”
Mexican Ambassador Emilio Goicoechea told Question Period his President wants to raise the issue of Mexican workers coming to Canada to work in the Alberta oil sands, the construction and hotel industries. He emphasized, however, the workers would just come temporarily and then return to their families in Mexico.
The three leaders will also discuss the Security and Prosperity Partnership, a controversial initiative launched only two years ago to ensure the borders stay open to trade but to keep them secure against terrorism. Opponents to the SPP believe it threatens Canadian sovereignty.
In a recent article, U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins dismissed the idea of the three governments pushing for integration.
writing that he is “certain that no one will be talking about a North American Union, or a North American Super Highway, or a North American currency, except maybe in jest.”
However, “Those who worry about integration of our countries should open their eyes,” he wrote in the special August edition of Focal Point, a magazine produced by the Canadian Foundation for the Americas, he wrote: “It is happening, and it is not being directed by the governments. It is happening from the bottom up, at the ground level. It is de facto integration and people continue to make these individual choices because they know that it works.”
Montebello gives the lie to all the rhetoric about accountability and transparency. The taxpayer foots the bill to ensure the the unaccountable and the untransparent continue so in security.
Leaders at Montebello summit eye hurricane warily
JANE TABER AND ALAN FREEMAN
From Monday's Globe and Mail
August 20, 2007 at 12:37 AM EDT
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.S. President George Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon meet Monday in Montebello, Que., to discuss immigration, closer trade ties and Arctic sovereignty but their eyes will also be focused on hurricane Dean as it hurtles toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
“We are monitoring the weather very closely,” said a Mexican official Sunday as Mr. Calderon and his family spent the day relaxing with the Harper family at the Prime Minister's summer residence at Harrington Lake, Que.
If it stays on course, the hurricane seems poised to wreak havoc on the Mexican resorts of Cancun and Cozumel, but is not expected to reach the region until Tuesday morning. That would leave the Mexican President enough time to complete the summit, but force him to cut short a series of bilateral meetings with Mr. Harper and other events in Ottawa on Wednesday.
Sunday, tourists were lined up at the airport in Cancun, trying to find a way out, and residents on the island of Cozumel were boarding up windows. The same region suffered heavy damage when it was struck by hurricane Wilma in 2005.
The officials noted that even if the hurricane strikes Mexico tomorrow, it would not be possible or appropriate for Mr. Calderon to visit the region until Wednesday night or Thursday.
“If there is a last-minute change, we will have to mobilize many things to get him back,” the official said.
Meanwhile, several hundred people gathered on Parliament Hill Sunday, under strong police presence, to protest against the summit and the visit by Mr. Bush. The protesters continued their peaceful march to the U.S. embassy.
More protesters are expected near the Montebello site today, again under heavy police security.
Mr. Harper is to meet Mr. Bush at 2:15 p.m. just after he arrives at the Montebello resort, on the Ottawa River just east of the capital. The Mexican leader is scheduled to arrive about an hour later to meet with Mr. Bush. The three leaders are to have a working dinner tonight.
A senior Harper official said Sunday that the Prime Minister will raise the issue of Arctic sovereignty today in his bilateral meeting with the U.S. President, gauging Mr. Bush's opinion on what the Russians are up to globally, especially in terms of the flag they planted recently on the ocean floor under the North Pole. Last month, Mr. Harper committed to building between six and eight Arctic patrol ships to ensure Canadian sovereignty over the area.
The Americans hold a much different position – they claim the waters are international.
On CTV's Question Period Sunday, however, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, said the Americans should rethink their position on the Northwest Passage for security reasons.
“I think that in the age of terror, it's in our security interests that the Northwest Passage be considered part of Canada,” said Mr. Cellucci, a Republican who was appointed to his post by Mr. Bush. “That will enable the Canadian navy to intercept and board vessels in the Northwest Passage to make sure they are not bringing weapons of mass destruction into North America. … I think that it's in our security interests that this be considered part of Canada.”
Mr. Cellucci has made his view known before. He says he has spoken to the State Department about this as well as to his successor, David Wilkins.
The Canadian official said the mission in Afghanistan will also likely be raised with Mr. Bush. The Prime Minister has said he needs a consensus from all parties to extend the mission past February, 2009.
Mr. Cellucci said, “I think this is something that the Canadians are going to have to look at as the time approaches, but the Canadian Forces have done quite well and they've made Canada proud. My hope is that the decision will be made that they continue to help that country and the people of Afghanistan.”
Mexican Ambassador Emilio Goicoechea told Question Period his President wants to raise the issue of Mexican workers coming to Canada to work in the Alberta oil sands, the construction and hotel industries. He emphasized, however, the workers would just come temporarily and then return to their families in Mexico.
The three leaders will also discuss the Security and Prosperity Partnership, a controversial initiative launched only two years ago to ensure the borders stay open to trade but to keep them secure against terrorism. Opponents to the SPP believe it threatens Canadian sovereignty.
In a recent article, U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins dismissed the idea of the three governments pushing for integration.
writing that he is “certain that no one will be talking about a North American Union, or a North American Super Highway, or a North American currency, except maybe in jest.”
However, “Those who worry about integration of our countries should open their eyes,” he wrote in the special August edition of Focal Point, a magazine produced by the Canadian Foundation for the Americas, he wrote: “It is happening, and it is not being directed by the governments. It is happening from the bottom up, at the ground level. It is de facto integration and people continue to make these individual choices because they know that it works.”
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Why Does CBC have so much coverage of Benazir Bhutto
The US and probably the UK are plotting regime change in Pakistan in order to get more action either by Pakistan or US forces against the tribal areas. Perhaps it is just coincidence that the BBC is giving extensive coverage to Bhutto with interviews and a documentary. There have been no embarassing questions or even mention of the events brought up by this article! Of course given the level of corruption in Pakistan this article may not be above reproach either! It is from this site.
Pakistan:
Benazir Bhutto's Unprincipled Politics
by Dr. Subhash Kapila
In the violent turbulence that has engulfed Pakistan for over a year now, the one bright feature was that the nation witnessed the first appreciable stirrings for democracy within the country. Notably, the struggle for restoration of democracy within Pakistan was not spearheaded by Pakistan’s political parties but was generated and led relentlessly by the legal fraternity of Pakistan in the wake of the suspension of the Chief Justice of Pakistan by General Musharraf in March this year.
Pakistan’s legal fraternity despite the violence launched against them by the state apparatus valiantly struggled for restoration of the rule of law and constitutional propriety. It provided a spark for the suppressed feelings of Pakistan’s civil society to clamor for restoration of democracy in Pakistan. In fact this popular upsurge rode piggy-back on the lawyer’s movement who were careful not to allow the political parties to hi-jack their movement and dilute their cause. In the end the legal fraternity prevailed and General Musharraf under pressure from the United States desisted from ignoring the judgment given by Pakistan’s Supreme Court’s Special Judicial Panel, that the case against the Chief Justice had no merit and that he should be re-instated. That has been done since.
In marked contrast to the high moral contours of the movement of Pakistan’s legal fraternity, the leader of Pakistan’s main political party (PPP) led by former twice Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has stabbed in the back the political movement for restoration of democracy in Pakistan. Last year, Benazir Bhutto joined hands with former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (who was displaced by General Musharraf in the 1999 military cong) to sign a “Charter for Democracy” along with other political leaders. The avowed purpose of this ‘Charter of Democracy’ was to mobilize the people of Pakistan towards restoration of democracy in a united manner. There was also a specific commitment that none of the political leaders signing the “Charter of Democracy” would enter into any negotiations with Pakistan’s military ruler to strike a personal deal.
Sordidly, Benazir Bhutto despite the above commitment has precisely done what was feared all along. It appears now that for the last two years. Benazir Bhutto had been in secret negotiations with General Musharraf, sponsored by the United States using a former senior British diplomat who had served in Pakistan. That the deal is now virtually through is evident from General Musharraf condescending to fly to Dubai for final discussions with Benazir Bhutto who lives in exile there.
Under this deal, General Musharraf has agreed to share power with Benazir Bhutto in that General Musharraf takes over as a civilian President with Benazir Bhutto as the Prime Minister. While such a power sharing arrangement serves the strategic interests of the United States, it is a betrayal by Benazir Bhutto of the ‘democracy movement’ in Pakistan that was picking up steam.
Such an arrangement that this deal has worked out, and the United States and everyone else knows it is unconstitutional, General Musharraf when he gives up his position as Chief of Army Staff is not permitted constitutionally from standing for any office for two years. Further, the present Assemblies are not empowered to re-elect him as President, even minus his uniform.
Benazir Bhutto has a whole long list of corruption causes against her and was liable for arrest on return to Pakistan from exile.. Also as per the existing Constitution, she is not eligible for a third term as Prime Minister.
But then everything is possible in Pakistan when Pakistan Army’s interest and those of the United States are at stake. The corruption cases are being withdrawn, her bank accounts frozen in Pakistan have been consequently de-frozen and the Constitution will be amended to enable her to be Prime Minister for a third time.
While one could not expect much from the Pakistan Army in terms of principled behavior and the United States can excuse itself on the grounds of ‘realpolitik’, Benazir Bhutto has no viable excuses for the betrayal of democracy in Pakistan.
She has emerged as an “accomplice” of the Pakistan Army in thwarting the emergence of democracy in Pakistan. By becoming an “accomplice” of the Pakistan Army, Benazir Bhutto dishonors her father the late Prime Minister Zulfiqar Bhutto who was executed by the Pakistan Army on questionable grounds.
All in all, Benazir Bhutto emerges in this drama as a unprincipled political leader, unworthy of the trust that the people of Pakistan had placed in her as the leader of Pakistan’s leading political party and claiming to be the scion of Pakistan’s prominent political dynasty.
Further, for those who fawn over her in India, let it be reminded that it was Benazir Bhutto who brought Kashmir as an emotional frenzied issue in Pakistan’s electoral politics, it was during her prime ministerial tenures that proxy war and terrorism against India was heightened in Kashmir and it was she again who was instrumental in launching the Taliban which emerged as a scourge in Afghanistan and in Kashmir.
The United States has made a wrong choice in foisting Benazir Bhutto as the Prime Minister of Pakistan or the power alternatively to nominate one of her lackeys as Prime Minister.
Pakistan sadly, is once again set to be in turbulent times generated by unprincipled politics and unprincipled vested interests sacrificing the democratic aspirations of the people of Pakistan.
August 4, 2007
Pakistan:
Benazir Bhutto's Unprincipled Politics
by Dr. Subhash Kapila
In the violent turbulence that has engulfed Pakistan for over a year now, the one bright feature was that the nation witnessed the first appreciable stirrings for democracy within the country. Notably, the struggle for restoration of democracy within Pakistan was not spearheaded by Pakistan’s political parties but was generated and led relentlessly by the legal fraternity of Pakistan in the wake of the suspension of the Chief Justice of Pakistan by General Musharraf in March this year.
Pakistan’s legal fraternity despite the violence launched against them by the state apparatus valiantly struggled for restoration of the rule of law and constitutional propriety. It provided a spark for the suppressed feelings of Pakistan’s civil society to clamor for restoration of democracy in Pakistan. In fact this popular upsurge rode piggy-back on the lawyer’s movement who were careful not to allow the political parties to hi-jack their movement and dilute their cause. In the end the legal fraternity prevailed and General Musharraf under pressure from the United States desisted from ignoring the judgment given by Pakistan’s Supreme Court’s Special Judicial Panel, that the case against the Chief Justice had no merit and that he should be re-instated. That has been done since.
In marked contrast to the high moral contours of the movement of Pakistan’s legal fraternity, the leader of Pakistan’s main political party (PPP) led by former twice Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has stabbed in the back the political movement for restoration of democracy in Pakistan. Last year, Benazir Bhutto joined hands with former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (who was displaced by General Musharraf in the 1999 military cong) to sign a “Charter for Democracy” along with other political leaders. The avowed purpose of this ‘Charter of Democracy’ was to mobilize the people of Pakistan towards restoration of democracy in a united manner. There was also a specific commitment that none of the political leaders signing the “Charter of Democracy” would enter into any negotiations with Pakistan’s military ruler to strike a personal deal.
Sordidly, Benazir Bhutto despite the above commitment has precisely done what was feared all along. It appears now that for the last two years. Benazir Bhutto had been in secret negotiations with General Musharraf, sponsored by the United States using a former senior British diplomat who had served in Pakistan. That the deal is now virtually through is evident from General Musharraf condescending to fly to Dubai for final discussions with Benazir Bhutto who lives in exile there.
Under this deal, General Musharraf has agreed to share power with Benazir Bhutto in that General Musharraf takes over as a civilian President with Benazir Bhutto as the Prime Minister. While such a power sharing arrangement serves the strategic interests of the United States, it is a betrayal by Benazir Bhutto of the ‘democracy movement’ in Pakistan that was picking up steam.
Such an arrangement that this deal has worked out, and the United States and everyone else knows it is unconstitutional, General Musharraf when he gives up his position as Chief of Army Staff is not permitted constitutionally from standing for any office for two years. Further, the present Assemblies are not empowered to re-elect him as President, even minus his uniform.
Benazir Bhutto has a whole long list of corruption causes against her and was liable for arrest on return to Pakistan from exile.. Also as per the existing Constitution, she is not eligible for a third term as Prime Minister.
But then everything is possible in Pakistan when Pakistan Army’s interest and those of the United States are at stake. The corruption cases are being withdrawn, her bank accounts frozen in Pakistan have been consequently de-frozen and the Constitution will be amended to enable her to be Prime Minister for a third time.
While one could not expect much from the Pakistan Army in terms of principled behavior and the United States can excuse itself on the grounds of ‘realpolitik’, Benazir Bhutto has no viable excuses for the betrayal of democracy in Pakistan.
She has emerged as an “accomplice” of the Pakistan Army in thwarting the emergence of democracy in Pakistan. By becoming an “accomplice” of the Pakistan Army, Benazir Bhutto dishonors her father the late Prime Minister Zulfiqar Bhutto who was executed by the Pakistan Army on questionable grounds.
All in all, Benazir Bhutto emerges in this drama as a unprincipled political leader, unworthy of the trust that the people of Pakistan had placed in her as the leader of Pakistan’s leading political party and claiming to be the scion of Pakistan’s prominent political dynasty.
Further, for those who fawn over her in India, let it be reminded that it was Benazir Bhutto who brought Kashmir as an emotional frenzied issue in Pakistan’s electoral politics, it was during her prime ministerial tenures that proxy war and terrorism against India was heightened in Kashmir and it was she again who was instrumental in launching the Taliban which emerged as a scourge in Afghanistan and in Kashmir.
The United States has made a wrong choice in foisting Benazir Bhutto as the Prime Minister of Pakistan or the power alternatively to nominate one of her lackeys as Prime Minister.
Pakistan sadly, is once again set to be in turbulent times generated by unprincipled politics and unprincipled vested interests sacrificing the democratic aspirations of the people of Pakistan.
August 4, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
A Warning from a US health care expert!
The CMA has elected a president who is for more private involvement a situation from which he might benefit directly. However this doesn't seem to bother the majority who elected him no doubt because many of them could similarly benefit. No doubt most doctors are interested in our health but they also are interested in their financial health as well.
The search for new areas to make profit in unending. Harper would like to catch up with the US. Not only has he increased military spending to aid military suppliers but with his crime bills we can see overcrowded jails and a push for a prison-industrial complex that will be a northern extension of the US system.
What Canadians should learn from the U.S. health care disaster
ARNOLD S. RELMAN
Special to Globe and Mail Update
August 15, 2007 at 6:49 PM EDT
The Canadian Medical Association has recently recommended that private competition be introduced into medicare by allowing physicians to bill patients (or private insurance plans) for services that are covered by medicare, and allowing medicare to purchase covered services from for-profit private facilities.
Those who champion privatization claim these modifications of Canada's publicly funded health-care system would save money, help eliminate waiting times and possibly even improve the quality of care.
Policy-makers need only look to the United States for the evidence such claims have no merit. The U.S. experience shows that private, for-profit medical insurance and investor-owned medical facilities are a bad deal for the public, and that a health-care system that encourages physicians to behave like private entrepreneurs leads to extravagant costs.
Those who would deny this obvious evidence are either blinded by unshakeable faith in market ideology or are biased by their interests in businesses that profit from the privatization of health care.
Ken Frankel: Mexico can use a helping hand from its NAFTA friends
Summit unlikely to extend the scope of NAFTA
Coming to a summit near you: Protest TV
I have been studying and writing about the consequences of commercialized medical care in the U.S. for many years. My conclusions, summarized in a recent book (A Second Opinion, Public Affairs), are that the high, rapidly rising cost of the U.S. health-care system, its failure to provide insurance coverage for about 15 per cent of U.S. citizens, and the uneven quality and limited accessibility of services it provides to so many more, can all be attributed in substantial degree to the fact that the U.S. has the most commercialized health-care system in the Western world.
This, despite the government's funding of more than half the total cost of U.S. health care, through the Medicare plan for the elderly, the Medicaid plan for the poor, and through many other public programs.
For-profit medical care in the U.S. has usually been found to be more expensive than not-for-profit care, when facilities providing similar types of services to similar patient populations have been carefully compared. Also, the quality of investor-owned services has often been inferior — never better — when compared with those provided in similar non-profit facilities. Physicians in our commercialized, profit-driven system tend to gravitate toward the highly paid specialties, so we now face a major shortage of primary-care doctors.
Financial incentives are also causing an increasing number of U.S. physicians to avoid Medicare and Medicaid patients in favour of those with private insurance, or patients who can pay out of pocket. Uninsured patients, and even many of those insured under public plans, now must wait to receive specialty services. Many poor patients never receive such services at all. Our hospital emergency rooms are increasingly flooded with patients who cannot find or afford care from private physicians. Waiting times for those with limited means are increased — certainly not eliminated — in our privatized health-care system.
If Canada were so unwise as to allow privatization to grow in its health-care system, it would sooner or later experience all of the problems driving the U.S. system toward collapse. One thing is certain: When medical care and health insurance are allowed to become private businesses, costs go up and patients with little or no resources do not get the care they need. That is the lesson Canadians should learn from the United States.
If they are to avoid exploitation by those who would like to make profits from publicly funded health care, Canadians should not follow Americans down the path to greater privatization.
Arnold S. Rahlman is a professor emeritus of medicine and of social medicine at Harvard Medical School, and is a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.
The search for new areas to make profit in unending. Harper would like to catch up with the US. Not only has he increased military spending to aid military suppliers but with his crime bills we can see overcrowded jails and a push for a prison-industrial complex that will be a northern extension of the US system.
What Canadians should learn from the U.S. health care disaster
ARNOLD S. RELMAN
Special to Globe and Mail Update
August 15, 2007 at 6:49 PM EDT
The Canadian Medical Association has recently recommended that private competition be introduced into medicare by allowing physicians to bill patients (or private insurance plans) for services that are covered by medicare, and allowing medicare to purchase covered services from for-profit private facilities.
Those who champion privatization claim these modifications of Canada's publicly funded health-care system would save money, help eliminate waiting times and possibly even improve the quality of care.
Policy-makers need only look to the United States for the evidence such claims have no merit. The U.S. experience shows that private, for-profit medical insurance and investor-owned medical facilities are a bad deal for the public, and that a health-care system that encourages physicians to behave like private entrepreneurs leads to extravagant costs.
Those who would deny this obvious evidence are either blinded by unshakeable faith in market ideology or are biased by their interests in businesses that profit from the privatization of health care.
Ken Frankel: Mexico can use a helping hand from its NAFTA friends
Summit unlikely to extend the scope of NAFTA
Coming to a summit near you: Protest TV
I have been studying and writing about the consequences of commercialized medical care in the U.S. for many years. My conclusions, summarized in a recent book (A Second Opinion, Public Affairs), are that the high, rapidly rising cost of the U.S. health-care system, its failure to provide insurance coverage for about 15 per cent of U.S. citizens, and the uneven quality and limited accessibility of services it provides to so many more, can all be attributed in substantial degree to the fact that the U.S. has the most commercialized health-care system in the Western world.
This, despite the government's funding of more than half the total cost of U.S. health care, through the Medicare plan for the elderly, the Medicaid plan for the poor, and through many other public programs.
For-profit medical care in the U.S. has usually been found to be more expensive than not-for-profit care, when facilities providing similar types of services to similar patient populations have been carefully compared. Also, the quality of investor-owned services has often been inferior — never better — when compared with those provided in similar non-profit facilities. Physicians in our commercialized, profit-driven system tend to gravitate toward the highly paid specialties, so we now face a major shortage of primary-care doctors.
Financial incentives are also causing an increasing number of U.S. physicians to avoid Medicare and Medicaid patients in favour of those with private insurance, or patients who can pay out of pocket. Uninsured patients, and even many of those insured under public plans, now must wait to receive specialty services. Many poor patients never receive such services at all. Our hospital emergency rooms are increasingly flooded with patients who cannot find or afford care from private physicians. Waiting times for those with limited means are increased — certainly not eliminated — in our privatized health-care system.
If Canada were so unwise as to allow privatization to grow in its health-care system, it would sooner or later experience all of the problems driving the U.S. system toward collapse. One thing is certain: When medical care and health insurance are allowed to become private businesses, costs go up and patients with little or no resources do not get the care they need. That is the lesson Canadians should learn from the United States.
If they are to avoid exploitation by those who would like to make profits from publicly funded health care, Canadians should not follow Americans down the path to greater privatization.
Arnold S. Rahlman is a professor emeritus of medicine and of social medicine at Harvard Medical School, and is a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Censorship of Arar report to protect Americans?
I don't quite see this really except as protecting the myth that the emperor really is clothed when he is naked. Everyone surely knew that the US security agencies were involved in Arar's deportation. While Canadian agencies may not have been directly involved they certainly did not object and did nothing to notify the government of the truth even though they knew what was happening. They used Arar's imprisonment as a chance to go fishing for more information just as the US did. The Canadians did so earlier too with El Maati and used his confessions against Arar. Nothing but nothing has been done to deal with the rat's nest of informers who deliberately spread false information about Arar to the press using classified material. There is no reason for journalists to protect their sources when those sources are using them to spread lies that harm innocent people.
The involvement of William Elliot in the censorship may show why Harper chose him to head the RCMP. What other reasons are there we don't know about? No doubt they are classified!
Arar report censorship meant to protect American security establishment
Harper likely involved in decisions meant to protect allies - Arar lawyer.
Toronto, August 16, 2007: This week, HarperIndex.ca interviewed immigration and human rights lawyer Lorne Waldman concerning recent news that much of the report of Justice Dennis O'Connor on the Mahar Arar affair had been censored by Harper government officials. Here are excerpts of the interview:-
HarperIndex.ca: Is there anything new on this file since the news reports of last weekend?
Lorne Waldman: There is nothing new. I think that's really all we're going to get... I don't think we'll see any more information through the inquiry process.
HI: Why would the Harper government fight to keep so much of the O'Connor report secret?
Lorne Waldman: The issue is one of protecting the Americans. The Harper government is much more interested in protecting the Americans than the Liberals were, due to Harper's own close alliance with George W. Bush. They tried to keep from the public the direct role of the CIA in order to protect the Americans from embarrassment. I also think this government would be much more sympathetic to the national security establishment.
What CSIS knew and when they knew it are the key questions, and it's very clear they knew that he would be tortured and knew very early on. That's one of things they tried to repress. The other thing is that the RCMP had misled the justices (judges).
HI: How far up do you think decision-making went concerning the censorship of the report? Why?
Lorne Waldman: We are sure [former public security minister] Stockwell Day was involved. Given the way Stephen Harper runs this government I can't believe he wasn't directly involved. It was a very political decision at the time.
Interestingly enough the new RCMP commissioner William Elliot was also involved, in his role as Associate Deputy Minister of Public Safety. It gives rise to concern about whether he's now become part of the secrecy mentality. It is hard to have any faith in his ability to make changes at the RCMP if he's going to fall into the same kind of thinking about covering everything up.
HI: Do you think the report reflects on their handling of the affair once elected or on the government's ability to engage in or help with further cases of extraordinary rendition?
Lorne Waldman: The Canadian government wasn't involved in any of the decision-making with respect to Arar. The only decision they made was to accept recommendations given to them to keep the O'Connor report secret. I think this is inconsistent with this government's often-stated preference for transparency and open government.
There are worrisome examples of other cases we have seen, such as Omar Khadr or Bashir Makhtal [a Canadian also caught fleeing Somalia late last year who was taken into Kenyan custody and sent to Ethiopia, where he is still detained]. He's a Canadian citizen but the Canadian government seems quite content to let him rot in Ethiopia.
HI: Are there things you believe the public should know about this and other related cases? How can they learn more?
Lorne Waldman: I think they should look at Makhtal case as a failure of the Canadian government to protect Canadian citizens. They should watch very carefully the Iacobucci inquiry, which is investigating the cases of the other four Canadians, who also were tortured in Syria, to see how they follow up.
Related individuals, organizations and significant events
The involvement of William Elliot in the censorship may show why Harper chose him to head the RCMP. What other reasons are there we don't know about? No doubt they are classified!
Arar report censorship meant to protect American security establishment
Harper likely involved in decisions meant to protect allies - Arar lawyer.
Toronto, August 16, 2007: This week, HarperIndex.ca interviewed immigration and human rights lawyer Lorne Waldman concerning recent news that much of the report of Justice Dennis O'Connor on the Mahar Arar affair had been censored by Harper government officials. Here are excerpts of the interview:-
HarperIndex.ca: Is there anything new on this file since the news reports of last weekend?
Lorne Waldman: There is nothing new. I think that's really all we're going to get... I don't think we'll see any more information through the inquiry process.
HI: Why would the Harper government fight to keep so much of the O'Connor report secret?
Lorne Waldman: The issue is one of protecting the Americans. The Harper government is much more interested in protecting the Americans than the Liberals were, due to Harper's own close alliance with George W. Bush. They tried to keep from the public the direct role of the CIA in order to protect the Americans from embarrassment. I also think this government would be much more sympathetic to the national security establishment.
What CSIS knew and when they knew it are the key questions, and it's very clear they knew that he would be tortured and knew very early on. That's one of things they tried to repress. The other thing is that the RCMP had misled the justices (judges).
HI: How far up do you think decision-making went concerning the censorship of the report? Why?
Lorne Waldman: We are sure [former public security minister] Stockwell Day was involved. Given the way Stephen Harper runs this government I can't believe he wasn't directly involved. It was a very political decision at the time.
Interestingly enough the new RCMP commissioner William Elliot was also involved, in his role as Associate Deputy Minister of Public Safety. It gives rise to concern about whether he's now become part of the secrecy mentality. It is hard to have any faith in his ability to make changes at the RCMP if he's going to fall into the same kind of thinking about covering everything up.
HI: Do you think the report reflects on their handling of the affair once elected or on the government's ability to engage in or help with further cases of extraordinary rendition?
Lorne Waldman: The Canadian government wasn't involved in any of the decision-making with respect to Arar. The only decision they made was to accept recommendations given to them to keep the O'Connor report secret. I think this is inconsistent with this government's often-stated preference for transparency and open government.
There are worrisome examples of other cases we have seen, such as Omar Khadr or Bashir Makhtal [a Canadian also caught fleeing Somalia late last year who was taken into Kenyan custody and sent to Ethiopia, where he is still detained]. He's a Canadian citizen but the Canadian government seems quite content to let him rot in Ethiopia.
HI: Are there things you believe the public should know about this and other related cases? How can they learn more?
Lorne Waldman: I think they should look at Makhtal case as a failure of the Canadian government to protect Canadian citizens. They should watch very carefully the Iacobucci inquiry, which is investigating the cases of the other four Canadians, who also were tortured in Syria, to see how they follow up.
Related individuals, organizations and significant events
RCMP cancels 25km security perimeter for SPP
I guess the huge perimeter was regarded as too provocative. However the protesters will be herded into two small areas. This may cause problems. Naturally the protesters will want to overflow and march into the streets. This could cause problems since no doubt police will be surrounding the areas and will arrest people and prevent protest in "unauthorised" areas.
In the Philippines many protesters take the position that restricting rights to where protest can take place is a violation of their rights (with a few exceptions perhaps). Perhaps Canadian (and US) protesters should take a similar view. Another good tactic is to put nuns in the front lines of the protest or some elderly clergy. This tends to cause restraint among the police or at least gives good photo ops for the protesters if it doesn't!
RCMP Cancels 25-km Security Perimeter for SPP in Montebello
Written by Brent Patterson
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
The RCMP has told the Council of Canadians that there will not be a 25-kilometre security perimeter and that Security and Prosperity Partnership opponents will be able to assemble in Montebello for the upcoming leaders summit.
In a new plan approved by the RCMP this past Friday, there will be two areas near the now heavily-fenced Chateau Montebello grounds where people can gather for the two-day summit which will be negotiating political and economic integration between Canada, the United States and Mexico.
We are looking at having Maude Barlow, former Mexican ambassador Gustavo Iruegas, and former US state department official Ann Wright - all opponents of the SPP - speak outside the Chateau Montebello in the early afternoon on Monday, the first day of the summit.
The Council of Canadians will also be negotiating with officials to allow a delegation led by Maude Barlow to deliver more than 10,000 petitions opposing the SPP to the gates of the Chateau Montebello.
Despite the Council's concerns about the limited size of the protest areas, it does appear that the RCMP is backing down from earlier reported plans of checkpoints outside Montebello and the turning away of cars and buses, which we believe would have been contraventions of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
A coalition of groups will be holding an Integrate This! Public forum on Sunday August 19 at 4:00 pm at the University of Ottawa. The forum was originally scheduled to take place in a Papineauville community centre but police prevented the municipality from renting the space to the Council of Canadians. For more information on the public forum, please go to www.integratethis.ca.
Please read the Council of Canadians 'statement on non-violence'.
Brent Patterson
Director of Campaigns / Organizing
The Council of Canadians
700-170 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5V5 Canada
Tel: 1-800-387-7177 x291
www.canadians.org
In the Philippines many protesters take the position that restricting rights to where protest can take place is a violation of their rights (with a few exceptions perhaps). Perhaps Canadian (and US) protesters should take a similar view. Another good tactic is to put nuns in the front lines of the protest or some elderly clergy. This tends to cause restraint among the police or at least gives good photo ops for the protesters if it doesn't!
RCMP Cancels 25-km Security Perimeter for SPP in Montebello
Written by Brent Patterson
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
The RCMP has told the Council of Canadians that there will not be a 25-kilometre security perimeter and that Security and Prosperity Partnership opponents will be able to assemble in Montebello for the upcoming leaders summit.
In a new plan approved by the RCMP this past Friday, there will be two areas near the now heavily-fenced Chateau Montebello grounds where people can gather for the two-day summit which will be negotiating political and economic integration between Canada, the United States and Mexico.
We are looking at having Maude Barlow, former Mexican ambassador Gustavo Iruegas, and former US state department official Ann Wright - all opponents of the SPP - speak outside the Chateau Montebello in the early afternoon on Monday, the first day of the summit.
The Council of Canadians will also be negotiating with officials to allow a delegation led by Maude Barlow to deliver more than 10,000 petitions opposing the SPP to the gates of the Chateau Montebello.
Despite the Council's concerns about the limited size of the protest areas, it does appear that the RCMP is backing down from earlier reported plans of checkpoints outside Montebello and the turning away of cars and buses, which we believe would have been contraventions of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
A coalition of groups will be holding an Integrate This! Public forum on Sunday August 19 at 4:00 pm at the University of Ottawa. The forum was originally scheduled to take place in a Papineauville community centre but police prevented the municipality from renting the space to the Council of Canadians. For more information on the public forum, please go to www.integratethis.ca.
Please read the Council of Canadians 'statement on non-violence'.
Brent Patterson
Director of Campaigns / Organizing
The Council of Canadians
700-170 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5V5 Canada
Tel: 1-800-387-7177 x291
www.canadians.org
Montebello battening down the hatches before summit
The main groups sponsoring the protests are non-violent but who knows who else will be there and also police action can sometimes provoke violence.
Quebec community erects fences before PM’s trilateral summit
Last Updated: Thursday, August 16, 2007 | 8:05 PM ET
CBC News
High fences went up all over Montebello, Que., this week as residents and police braced themselves for a meeting meant to break down barriers between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Prime Minister Stephen Harper are holding their North American Leaders' Summit in the western Quebec town on Aug. 20 and 21 to discuss the 2005 Security and Prosperity Partnership agreement.
A high metal fence encircles the Fairmont Château Montebello, where the meeting will take place.
(CBC) The meeting is expected to draw thousands of protesters opposed to the pact signed between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico in 2005 to boost co-operation on security, trade and public-health issues.
Opponents say the agreement represents an undemocratic process that gives business leaders too much say and ignores the will of the majority on issues such as climate change, the Iraq war and the use of energy resources such as Alberta's tar sands.
In preparation, a three metre metal fence has been erected between the Fairmont Château Montebello where the meeting will take place and the expected chanting, banner waving throngs outside.
Continue Article
Plywood protects 'White House'
Local business owners such as Guy Joanis, owner of Bar Centrale — the only one in town — have been busy building fences of their own.
Guy Joanis, owner of Bar Centrale, said police told him to barricade everything.
(CBC) A new plywood barrier now surrounds the stately, colonnaded building known to locals as "the White House," and a four-metre high replica of the Statue of Liberty that usually stands proudly on the front lawn has been encased in a protective plywood box.
"[We did it] because we're afraid and the policemen told me to barricade everything," Joanis said, adding that police also told him the theme of his bar won't be very popular when Bush is in the neighbourhood.
He plans to shut down his business for three or four days because of next week's summit, which will cost him $10,000 to $15,000.
"You can't take any chances," he said. "We don't know what's gonna happen."
Joanis has built a plywood fence around 'The White House' and a plywood box around a replica of the Statue of Liberty.
(CBC) Jean Ouellet, whose art store is across the street from the Château Montebello's main gate, said he will probably shut down for a few days too.
He said he's afraid if something happens to his property, he won't be compensated, given the circumstances.
Rocks removed
The municipality has taken other measures besides the fence — its workers have removed the rocks from a large floral display near the town hall, following police advice to put away anything that could be used as projectiles by protesters.
Meanwhile, local business owner Michel Gervais said he won't be putting up plywood around his french fry and ice cream stand because he thinks that might provoke the demonstrators.
And he plans to stay open.
"Those protesters are gonna have to eat, and I'll be there for that," he said.
During the summit, police say Highway 148 will be open to regular traffic, but closed to heavy trucks, which will have to go through Ontario.
Other roads may be closed depending on the number of protesters.
Quebec community erects fences before PM’s trilateral summit
Last Updated: Thursday, August 16, 2007 | 8:05 PM ET
CBC News
High fences went up all over Montebello, Que., this week as residents and police braced themselves for a meeting meant to break down barriers between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Prime Minister Stephen Harper are holding their North American Leaders' Summit in the western Quebec town on Aug. 20 and 21 to discuss the 2005 Security and Prosperity Partnership agreement.
A high metal fence encircles the Fairmont Château Montebello, where the meeting will take place.
(CBC) The meeting is expected to draw thousands of protesters opposed to the pact signed between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico in 2005 to boost co-operation on security, trade and public-health issues.
Opponents say the agreement represents an undemocratic process that gives business leaders too much say and ignores the will of the majority on issues such as climate change, the Iraq war and the use of energy resources such as Alberta's tar sands.
In preparation, a three metre metal fence has been erected between the Fairmont Château Montebello where the meeting will take place and the expected chanting, banner waving throngs outside.
Continue Article
Plywood protects 'White House'
Local business owners such as Guy Joanis, owner of Bar Centrale — the only one in town — have been busy building fences of their own.
Guy Joanis, owner of Bar Centrale, said police told him to barricade everything.
(CBC) A new plywood barrier now surrounds the stately, colonnaded building known to locals as "the White House," and a four-metre high replica of the Statue of Liberty that usually stands proudly on the front lawn has been encased in a protective plywood box.
"[We did it] because we're afraid and the policemen told me to barricade everything," Joanis said, adding that police also told him the theme of his bar won't be very popular when Bush is in the neighbourhood.
He plans to shut down his business for three or four days because of next week's summit, which will cost him $10,000 to $15,000.
"You can't take any chances," he said. "We don't know what's gonna happen."
Joanis has built a plywood fence around 'The White House' and a plywood box around a replica of the Statue of Liberty.
(CBC) Jean Ouellet, whose art store is across the street from the Château Montebello's main gate, said he will probably shut down for a few days too.
He said he's afraid if something happens to his property, he won't be compensated, given the circumstances.
Rocks removed
The municipality has taken other measures besides the fence — its workers have removed the rocks from a large floral display near the town hall, following police advice to put away anything that could be used as projectiles by protesters.
Meanwhile, local business owner Michel Gervais said he won't be putting up plywood around his french fry and ice cream stand because he thinks that might provoke the demonstrators.
And he plans to stay open.
"Those protesters are gonna have to eat, and I'll be there for that," he said.
During the summit, police say Highway 148 will be open to regular traffic, but closed to heavy trucks, which will have to go through Ontario.
Other roads may be closed depending on the number of protesters.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Memos show CSIS suspected torture
Indeed CSIS did nothing to inform the govt. of their suspicions. They took advantage of the situation to feed questions to the Syrians. They also used "info" from other Canadians (El Maati) in Syrian jails to get wiretaps without informing the judge that the info might have resulted from torture. These creeps then claim that they had independent verification. If they had that why did they not use it instead of the tainted evidence. Answer: Because they are simply lying and have no such evidence. It is just like the independent evidence that the US has that Arar is a terrorist. It is pure BS. Harper will do nothing further about Arar. You can count on that. This is from this site.Memos show CSIS suspected torture
August 10, 2007
Canadian Press
OTTAWA
Canada's spy agency suspected, within two days of Maher Arar's deportation from the United States, that the CIA had shipped him somewhere to face possible torture, newly released documents show.
But there's no indication, in the paper trail made public yesterday, that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service alerted its political masters at the time -- an oversight that critics say smacks of tacit collusion in the ordeal Arar ultimately faced in Syria.
The documentary evidence, compiled by a public inquiry into the affair, shows a Washington-based liaison officer for CSIS wrote to his superiors in Ottawa in early October 2002 about so-called "rendering'' of terrorist suspects to third countries by the Americans.
The CSIS officer suggested Arar's detention and subsequent removal from the U.S. fit an emerging trend in which American authorities would sometimes send terrorism suspects abroad for questioning "in a firm manner'' if they couldn't legally hold them or lay charges at home.
The deputy director of CSIS, Jack Hooper, later stated in a memorandum dated Oct. 10, 2002: "I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him.''
In fact, two days before Hooper wrote that memo, U.S. officials had already taken Arar from a holding cell in New York at 3 a.m. and put him on a Gulfstream executive jet to Jordan.
From there he was quickly transferred to Syria, where he was tortured into false confessions of links to al-Qaida.
At the time Hooper offered his observations, CSIS knew only that the Ottawa telecommunications engineer had been removed from New York. It didn't know any other details and was desperately trying to find out from both the CIA and FBI what had happened to him.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on a trip to the Arctic, noted that he's already raised the Arar case with Washington but dodged the question of whether he would renew that effort, or consult CSIS, in light of the latest findings.
Harper also attempted to shift the blame for what happened to Arar to the previous government, saying his aim is to "ensure that the events that occurred under the Liberals are not replicated for other Canadian citizens.''
Justice Dennis O'Connor, who headed the inquiry into the case, tried to include a description of the 2002 CSIS suspicions in his report last year.
The material was withheld from public view at that time because of claims -- by lawyers for Harper's government -- that it could undermine national security, international relations or the defence of Canada.
Those contentions were rejected by a Federal Court judge, who ruled last month that the information should be released.
Paul Cavalluzzo, chief counsel for the O'Connor inquiry, said he's glad the information is finally on the public record.
"Our position all along was that the government was overclaiming,'' said Cavalluzzo. "The law is very clear that the government can only legitimately claim material that could injure national security. That's not to be used to cover information that could cause embarrassment.''
Marlys Edwardh, one of the lawyers for Arar, said it doesn't appear, from the evidence she's seen, that CSIS ever shared its suspicions about the CIA's role in the affair with the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien five years ago.
"They did absolutely nothing,'' said Edwardh. "Where's the memo to cabinet, where's the memo to the prime minister, to the solicitor general?
"The only thing you can draw from this is that they (CSIS) are making sure that this policy of rendering people -- outsourcing interrogation in circumstances when someone is going to be tortured -- is something they supported.''
There was no comment from CSIS on the matter. In Washington, a spokesperson for the U.S. Justice Department reiterated his government's long-standing position that Arar was lawfully deported as a security risk. The Americans have always maintained they had assurances from the Syrian government that he wouldn't be tortured.
On another point, Edwardh was scathing in her criticism of the RCMP for relying on intelligence obtained abroad, again possibly under torture, to support search and wiretap warrant applications within Canada.
The Mounties played fast and loose with their duty to make full disclosure to the judges who issued those warrants, she said.
"The effect is to create a false impression . . . It perpetrates a fraud on the court.''
O'Connor concluded, in a section of his report that had also been secret until now, that the RCMP used information from an unnamed country to help obtain search warrants against several individuals in January 2002, as part of a wider anti-terrorist investigation known as Project A-O Canada.
They neglected to mention to the judge who issued the warrants that the country had a questionable human rights record, and conducted no analysis of their own to determine if the information had been obtained under torture.
O'Connor also found that the Mounties again included suspect evidence in an application for a wiretap warrant in September 2002. This time the information came from a purported confession by Ahmad El Maati, another Arab-Canadian who was interrogated in Damascus but later repudiated the statements he made there and said they were extracted under torture.
The RCMP acknowledged, in their affidavit, that El Maati had changed his story but suggested he could be lying in his claims of mistreatment as part of a "damage control'' effort. They also insisted that, whatever the circumstances of the original confession, they had obtained evidence to corroborate what the Syrians had passed to them.
A separate inquiry is currently underway, under former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, into the cases of El Maati and two other men, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All three deny any terrorist links and suspect the RCMP and CSIS collaborated in their detention and torture abroad.
O'Connor has already cleared Arar, saying the RCMP wrongly labelled him a terrorist and passed that information to U.S. authorities, who in turn used it to arrest him and deport him. The judge found no evidence, however, that Canadian intelligence or police officers directly collaborated in the decision to send Arar to Syria.
The Conservative government has since apologized to Arar and paid him $10.5 million in compensation. He has launched a separate legal action south of the border, seeking damages from the U.S. government, which continues to keep his name on a terrorism watch list despite the findings in Canada.
KEY ARAR DATES
Sept. 26, 2002: Arar arrives at JFK Airport in New York City, on a flight from Zurich, headed for Montreal. He is detained by U.S. authorities, questioned, told he is inadmissible to the United States and asked where he would like to go. He says Canada.
Oct. 4, 2002: Arar is visited by Maureen Girvan, a Canadian consular officer in New York. She later says she never thought the Americans would send him anywhere except home to Canada.
Oct. 8, 2002: Arar is taken from his cell at 3 a.m. and told by American officials he is being deported to Syria.
Oct. 9, 2002: The plane lands in Jordan and Arar is quickly transferred by car to Damascus where he is to be jailed.
Oct. 10, 2002: Arar gets his first look at a cell he describes as being the size of a grave. He is to spend most of the next 10 months there. In Ottawa, the deputy director of CSIS, not knowing where Arar is, states in a memorandum: "I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him.''
Oct. 11, 2002: Arar is tortured for the first time, beaten on his palms, wrists, lower back and hips with an electrical cable. He confesses -- falsely -- to terrorist training in Afghanistan.
Oct. 23, 2002: Arar meets Canadian consul Leo Martel for the first time. The beatings have lessened since he was first jailed.
April 23, 2003: Arar meets Canadian ambassador Franco Pillarella and two visiting Canadian MPs, Marlene Catterall and Sarkis Assadourian.
Aug. 14, 2003: Routine consular visits resume after a long interruption. Arar describes his living conditions and later says he told the consul he had been tortured.
Aug. 23, 2003: Arar is blindfolded, put in a car and driven to a new prison. His treatment improves and there is no further torture. He is no longer held in solitary confinement and can mix with other prisoners.
Oct. 4, 2003: After days of anticipating further interrogation, Arar is told instead that he will be going home to Canada. He doesn't believe it.
Oct. 5, 2003: Arar is taken to meet a prosecutor who reads out a confession of his supposed terrorist past and tells him to sign it without giving him a chance to read it. He is then taken to meet the head of Syrian military intelligence, who has been joined by Canadian officials for the occasion. Arar is freed and put on a plane to Canada.
Feb. 5, 2004: Government sets up a formal inquiry under Justice Dennis O'Connor to look into the whole Arar case.
Sept. 18, 2006: Justice O'Connor's report exonerates Arar of any wrongdoing, says inexperienced RCMP investigators wrongly gave inaccurate, unfair and overstated evidence about Arar's alleged terrorist leanings.
Jan. 26, 2007: Federal government settles with Arar with $10.5 million, plus legal fees. Prime Minister Stephen Harper offers a formal apology.
July 24, 2007: Justice Simon Noel rules in Federal Court that some previously secret findings of the commission must be revealed after commission counsel challenged a government decision to censor 1,500 words from O'Connor report.
July 26, 2007: Inquiry officials announce that despite the fact not all 1,500 censored words were opened to the public, they will not appeal federal Court decision; other parties to the inquiry follow suit.
Aug. 3, 2007: Deadline for federal attorney general appeal of decision passes.
Aug. 9, 2007: Censored words and passages are released, indicating Canadian security officials suspected that Arar had been shipped off to a third country by U.S. officials to be tortured.
CANADIAN PRESS
August 10, 2007
Canadian Press
OTTAWA
Canada's spy agency suspected, within two days of Maher Arar's deportation from the United States, that the CIA had shipped him somewhere to face possible torture, newly released documents show.
But there's no indication, in the paper trail made public yesterday, that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service alerted its political masters at the time -- an oversight that critics say smacks of tacit collusion in the ordeal Arar ultimately faced in Syria.
The documentary evidence, compiled by a public inquiry into the affair, shows a Washington-based liaison officer for CSIS wrote to his superiors in Ottawa in early October 2002 about so-called "rendering'' of terrorist suspects to third countries by the Americans.
The CSIS officer suggested Arar's detention and subsequent removal from the U.S. fit an emerging trend in which American authorities would sometimes send terrorism suspects abroad for questioning "in a firm manner'' if they couldn't legally hold them or lay charges at home.
The deputy director of CSIS, Jack Hooper, later stated in a memorandum dated Oct. 10, 2002: "I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him.''
In fact, two days before Hooper wrote that memo, U.S. officials had already taken Arar from a holding cell in New York at 3 a.m. and put him on a Gulfstream executive jet to Jordan.
From there he was quickly transferred to Syria, where he was tortured into false confessions of links to al-Qaida.
At the time Hooper offered his observations, CSIS knew only that the Ottawa telecommunications engineer had been removed from New York. It didn't know any other details and was desperately trying to find out from both the CIA and FBI what had happened to him.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on a trip to the Arctic, noted that he's already raised the Arar case with Washington but dodged the question of whether he would renew that effort, or consult CSIS, in light of the latest findings.
Harper also attempted to shift the blame for what happened to Arar to the previous government, saying his aim is to "ensure that the events that occurred under the Liberals are not replicated for other Canadian citizens.''
Justice Dennis O'Connor, who headed the inquiry into the case, tried to include a description of the 2002 CSIS suspicions in his report last year.
The material was withheld from public view at that time because of claims -- by lawyers for Harper's government -- that it could undermine national security, international relations or the defence of Canada.
Those contentions were rejected by a Federal Court judge, who ruled last month that the information should be released.
Paul Cavalluzzo, chief counsel for the O'Connor inquiry, said he's glad the information is finally on the public record.
"Our position all along was that the government was overclaiming,'' said Cavalluzzo. "The law is very clear that the government can only legitimately claim material that could injure national security. That's not to be used to cover information that could cause embarrassment.''
Marlys Edwardh, one of the lawyers for Arar, said it doesn't appear, from the evidence she's seen, that CSIS ever shared its suspicions about the CIA's role in the affair with the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien five years ago.
"They did absolutely nothing,'' said Edwardh. "Where's the memo to cabinet, where's the memo to the prime minister, to the solicitor general?
"The only thing you can draw from this is that they (CSIS) are making sure that this policy of rendering people -- outsourcing interrogation in circumstances when someone is going to be tortured -- is something they supported.''
There was no comment from CSIS on the matter. In Washington, a spokesperson for the U.S. Justice Department reiterated his government's long-standing position that Arar was lawfully deported as a security risk. The Americans have always maintained they had assurances from the Syrian government that he wouldn't be tortured.
On another point, Edwardh was scathing in her criticism of the RCMP for relying on intelligence obtained abroad, again possibly under torture, to support search and wiretap warrant applications within Canada.
The Mounties played fast and loose with their duty to make full disclosure to the judges who issued those warrants, she said.
"The effect is to create a false impression . . . It perpetrates a fraud on the court.''
O'Connor concluded, in a section of his report that had also been secret until now, that the RCMP used information from an unnamed country to help obtain search warrants against several individuals in January 2002, as part of a wider anti-terrorist investigation known as Project A-O Canada.
They neglected to mention to the judge who issued the warrants that the country had a questionable human rights record, and conducted no analysis of their own to determine if the information had been obtained under torture.
O'Connor also found that the Mounties again included suspect evidence in an application for a wiretap warrant in September 2002. This time the information came from a purported confession by Ahmad El Maati, another Arab-Canadian who was interrogated in Damascus but later repudiated the statements he made there and said they were extracted under torture.
The RCMP acknowledged, in their affidavit, that El Maati had changed his story but suggested he could be lying in his claims of mistreatment as part of a "damage control'' effort. They also insisted that, whatever the circumstances of the original confession, they had obtained evidence to corroborate what the Syrians had passed to them.
A separate inquiry is currently underway, under former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, into the cases of El Maati and two other men, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All three deny any terrorist links and suspect the RCMP and CSIS collaborated in their detention and torture abroad.
O'Connor has already cleared Arar, saying the RCMP wrongly labelled him a terrorist and passed that information to U.S. authorities, who in turn used it to arrest him and deport him. The judge found no evidence, however, that Canadian intelligence or police officers directly collaborated in the decision to send Arar to Syria.
The Conservative government has since apologized to Arar and paid him $10.5 million in compensation. He has launched a separate legal action south of the border, seeking damages from the U.S. government, which continues to keep his name on a terrorism watch list despite the findings in Canada.
KEY ARAR DATES
Sept. 26, 2002: Arar arrives at JFK Airport in New York City, on a flight from Zurich, headed for Montreal. He is detained by U.S. authorities, questioned, told he is inadmissible to the United States and asked where he would like to go. He says Canada.
Oct. 4, 2002: Arar is visited by Maureen Girvan, a Canadian consular officer in New York. She later says she never thought the Americans would send him anywhere except home to Canada.
Oct. 8, 2002: Arar is taken from his cell at 3 a.m. and told by American officials he is being deported to Syria.
Oct. 9, 2002: The plane lands in Jordan and Arar is quickly transferred by car to Damascus where he is to be jailed.
Oct. 10, 2002: Arar gets his first look at a cell he describes as being the size of a grave. He is to spend most of the next 10 months there. In Ottawa, the deputy director of CSIS, not knowing where Arar is, states in a memorandum: "I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him.''
Oct. 11, 2002: Arar is tortured for the first time, beaten on his palms, wrists, lower back and hips with an electrical cable. He confesses -- falsely -- to terrorist training in Afghanistan.
Oct. 23, 2002: Arar meets Canadian consul Leo Martel for the first time. The beatings have lessened since he was first jailed.
April 23, 2003: Arar meets Canadian ambassador Franco Pillarella and two visiting Canadian MPs, Marlene Catterall and Sarkis Assadourian.
Aug. 14, 2003: Routine consular visits resume after a long interruption. Arar describes his living conditions and later says he told the consul he had been tortured.
Aug. 23, 2003: Arar is blindfolded, put in a car and driven to a new prison. His treatment improves and there is no further torture. He is no longer held in solitary confinement and can mix with other prisoners.
Oct. 4, 2003: After days of anticipating further interrogation, Arar is told instead that he will be going home to Canada. He doesn't believe it.
Oct. 5, 2003: Arar is taken to meet a prosecutor who reads out a confession of his supposed terrorist past and tells him to sign it without giving him a chance to read it. He is then taken to meet the head of Syrian military intelligence, who has been joined by Canadian officials for the occasion. Arar is freed and put on a plane to Canada.
Feb. 5, 2004: Government sets up a formal inquiry under Justice Dennis O'Connor to look into the whole Arar case.
Sept. 18, 2006: Justice O'Connor's report exonerates Arar of any wrongdoing, says inexperienced RCMP investigators wrongly gave inaccurate, unfair and overstated evidence about Arar's alleged terrorist leanings.
Jan. 26, 2007: Federal government settles with Arar with $10.5 million, plus legal fees. Prime Minister Stephen Harper offers a formal apology.
July 24, 2007: Justice Simon Noel rules in Federal Court that some previously secret findings of the commission must be revealed after commission counsel challenged a government decision to censor 1,500 words from O'Connor report.
July 26, 2007: Inquiry officials announce that despite the fact not all 1,500 censored words were opened to the public, they will not appeal federal Court decision; other parties to the inquiry follow suit.
Aug. 3, 2007: Deadline for federal attorney general appeal of decision passes.
Aug. 9, 2007: Censored words and passages are released, indicating Canadian security officials suspected that Arar had been shipped off to a third country by U.S. officials to be tortured.
CANADIAN PRESS
Canada refuses requests to accept Guantanamo detainees
So the US does not see these detainees as threats but after keeping them for years and not charging them with anything they refuse to grant them asylum even though they will not deport them back to China for fear of their being persecuted.
I wonder if Albania were given some reward for accepting a few. Perhaps the US should accept the refugees in exchange for the US closing down Guantanamo.
Canada refused U.S. requests to accept Guantanamo detainees, documents say
Last Updated: Thursday, August 16, 2007 | 7:58 AM ET
The Canadian Press
The Canadian government balked at several requests from Washington to provide asylum to men cleared for release from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, say newly released documents.
U.S. troopers walk on a road as the sun rises over the razor-wired detention compound at Guantanamo Bay.
(Brennan Linsley/Associated Press)
The material, obtained by the Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, indicates the U.S. administration asked Canada to accept detainees of Uighur descent from China's Xinjiang region who were deemed to be no threat to national security.
The U.S. was not prepared to resettle the men in its own territory, but could not send them back to China for fear they would face persecution.
Today, 17 of the men are still being held and live in isolation for 22 hours a day.
Continue Article
American officials travelled to Ottawa on three separate occasions in late 2005 to press their case with the Liberal government of the time, but to no avail. By May 2006, Washington had succeeded in persuading Albania to take five men, who now live in squalid conditions.
A week after the transfer to Albania, the Americans were back in Canada again, this time meeting with political aides and bureaucrats from several departments and Prime Minister's Stephen Harper's office.
But under the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, refugees cannot make claims to enter Canada from the United States except under a few specific exceptions, such as fear they would face the death penalty in America.
Notes prepared for Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay in February this year suggest the government was still uncertain about whether it had the appetite for any future transfers.
"There has been no final decision by the government of Canada as to whether to formally discourage or encourage the U.S. from making formal referrals for resettlement. [Foreign Affairs] will need to consider the bilateral and multilateral implications."
I wonder if Albania were given some reward for accepting a few. Perhaps the US should accept the refugees in exchange for the US closing down Guantanamo.
Canada refused U.S. requests to accept Guantanamo detainees, documents say
Last Updated: Thursday, August 16, 2007 | 7:58 AM ET
The Canadian Press
The Canadian government balked at several requests from Washington to provide asylum to men cleared for release from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, say newly released documents.
U.S. troopers walk on a road as the sun rises over the razor-wired detention compound at Guantanamo Bay.
(Brennan Linsley/Associated Press)
The material, obtained by the Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, indicates the U.S. administration asked Canada to accept detainees of Uighur descent from China's Xinjiang region who were deemed to be no threat to national security.
The U.S. was not prepared to resettle the men in its own territory, but could not send them back to China for fear they would face persecution.
Today, 17 of the men are still being held and live in isolation for 22 hours a day.
Continue Article
American officials travelled to Ottawa on three separate occasions in late 2005 to press their case with the Liberal government of the time, but to no avail. By May 2006, Washington had succeeded in persuading Albania to take five men, who now live in squalid conditions.
A week after the transfer to Albania, the Americans were back in Canada again, this time meeting with political aides and bureaucrats from several departments and Prime Minister's Stephen Harper's office.
But under the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, refugees cannot make claims to enter Canada from the United States except under a few specific exceptions, such as fear they would face the death penalty in America.
Notes prepared for Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay in February this year suggest the government was still uncertain about whether it had the appetite for any future transfers.
"There has been no final decision by the government of Canada as to whether to formally discourage or encourage the U.S. from making formal referrals for resettlement. [Foreign Affairs] will need to consider the bilateral and multilateral implications."
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
NDP wants Tom Long out of CBC hiring process
This is the second place I have seen mention of this matter. I wonder if it will ever manage to become big news in the mainstream press. It seems odd that news media have not jumped on this already.
NDP asks CBC chair to remove Long
NDP MP Angus sends letter to Timothy Casgrain asking him to keep Tom Long out of hiring process
OTTAWA – NDP Culture and Heritage Critic Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay) called on recently appointed CBC Chair Timothy Casgrain to remove Tom Long from any involvement in the search for a new CEO and executive director of news for the public broadcaster.
“Mr. Long is a Conservative insider with ties that go all the way to PMO communications director, Sandra Buckler,” said Angus. “This is just another way for Harper to control media content. We are hoping that Mr. Casgrain will recognize this clear conflict of interest and remove Tom Long from participating in any way in the process.”
Angus raised the issue of Mr. Long’s involvement last week, after an internal memo went out to CBC staff advising them to send their application for the open position to him. The NDP MP sent a letter to Mr. Casgrain on Thursday asking him to do everything in his power as chair of the institution to remove any doubt in Canadians’ minds that the search is above reproach.
“The CBC is a public institution whose newsroom cannot afford to be tainted with the perception of political interference,” said Angus. “And Long’s involvement is akin to sugar in a gas tank.”
NDP asks CBC chair to remove Long
NDP MP Angus sends letter to Timothy Casgrain asking him to keep Tom Long out of hiring process
OTTAWA – NDP Culture and Heritage Critic Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay) called on recently appointed CBC Chair Timothy Casgrain to remove Tom Long from any involvement in the search for a new CEO and executive director of news for the public broadcaster.
“Mr. Long is a Conservative insider with ties that go all the way to PMO communications director, Sandra Buckler,” said Angus. “This is just another way for Harper to control media content. We are hoping that Mr. Casgrain will recognize this clear conflict of interest and remove Tom Long from participating in any way in the process.”
Angus raised the issue of Mr. Long’s involvement last week, after an internal memo went out to CBC staff advising them to send their application for the open position to him. The NDP MP sent a letter to Mr. Casgrain on Thursday asking him to do everything in his power as chair of the institution to remove any doubt in Canadians’ minds that the search is above reproach.
“The CBC is a public institution whose newsroom cannot afford to be tainted with the perception of political interference,” said Angus. “And Long’s involvement is akin to sugar in a gas tank.”
Misguided proposals for two-tier health care
The incoming CMA president Brian Day is for greater private involvement in medicare. It doesn't seem to matter that this is a conflict of interest since he himself is involved in a private clinic. Why the CMA elected this fellow is hard to fathom unless they themselves in a majority favor the same policies. Perhaps by now they do.
It is interesting that discussion of the controversial recommendations in Medicare Plus are not on the agenda for discussion at the upcoming meeting of the CMA. It would be healthier if they were!
Misguided proposals for two-tier health care
Aug 15, 2007 04:30 AM
Danielle Martin
What will the Canadian Medical Association do next?
Condemned by the public, editorial boards and politicians of all persuasions for its recent policy statement "Medicare Plus," the CMA will have some explaining to do to its members – and to Canadians – at its annual meeting in Vancouver next week, Aug. 19 to 22.
Few Canadians would disagree with CMA president Colin McMillan's speech releasing the recommendations in "Medicare Plus" calling for more doctors, nurses and other health professionals; for a broader spectrum of standards and a publicly funded guarantee to protect us against unreasonable wait times; and for the expansion of medicare to cover services like expensive drugs and long-term care.
These proposals recognize that our publicly funded system needs reforming to meet the needs of our aging population, the massive growth in pharmaceuticals and the shift away from a hospital and physician-centric model of health care.
However, conspicuously absent from McMillan's remarks – and from the CMA's Ipsos Reid poll on Canadians' attitudes towards "Medicare Plus" – was the proposal that doctors be permitted to work in both public and private systems (dual practice) and that patients be allowed to buy private insurance for some publicly funded services covered by medicare.
It's as if the CMA were embarrassed about this aspect of its policy and decided not to highlight it in public statements and surveys. And embarrassed it should be. There is a compelling body of evidence against parallel private insurance in the Canadian context. There is also an inherent conflict of interest for physicians working in dual practice since, as the public would understandably perceive, these physicians could have an interest in promoting longer wait times in the public system to increase use of the more lucrative private system.
This very evidence was reviewed in the CMA's own 2006 discussion paper "It's About Access!," which found that the introduction of parallel private insurance:
would not improve access to publicly insured services.
would not lower costs or improve quality of care.
could increase wait times for those who are not privately insured.
could exacerbate human resource shortages in the public system.
Indeed, the CMA's 2006 findings are in keeping with the recommendations of the Romanow Commission and the Kirby Senate Report against parallel private insurance, and with the experience of those few Western countries where it is actually permitted. Despite the repeated claims of incoming CMA president Brian Day, these countries do not include France and Germany. However, they do include the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, where experience has shown that parallel private insurance and dual practice reduces cost efficiency and increases wait times for patients in the public system. There is every reason to believe that this would also happen in Canada, particularly given our acute shortage of health professionals (which the CMA prominently and appropriately decries in "Medicare Plus").
At a time when our neighbours to the south are absorbing the lessons of the Michael Moore film Sicko – including that health care should not be left to the profit motives of private insurers – the CMA should reject any regressive attempt to turn back the clock here in Canada. This is especially the case since, in comparison with the U.S., the evidence shows that Canada has as good or better health outcomes at significantly lower cost.
We all know medicare needs reform. Issues such as wait times, the rising cost of pharmaceuticals and our shortage of health-care professionals are real challenges that must be addressed. But nothing has happened to the health-care system in the last year to justify the CMA ignoring the findings of its own 2006 study. Rather, as McMillan himself acknowledged, "the fact of the matter is that governments ARE making progress" (his emphasis). As the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has documented, across Canada there has been significant progress in reducing wait times through better management and team-based practice.
As CMA members and physicians, we need to ask our association why, if some physician resources are being underutilized, isn't the CMA advocating for solutions that would increase patient care to all Canadians, on the basis of need, within the public system? Why is the CMA proposing dual practice and private insurance when this would pull nurses, technicians and other needed human resources out of the public system? Why is the CMA ignoring the evidence and separating itself from every other professional group on the issue of for-profit care?
During next week's meeting, the CMA will have a chance to show a more constructive approach to health-care reform when delegates debate proposals on the expansion of homecare, pharmacare and environmental health – proposals that will help expand and modernize our publicly-funded health-care system to meet the needs of all Canadians, not just a wealthy few.
The misguided recommendations of "Medicare Plus" on private insurance and dual practice – which are not scheduled for debate – are best discarded like the bad medicine they are.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Danielle Martin is a family physician in Toronto and Chair of Canadian Doctors for Medicare.
It is interesting that discussion of the controversial recommendations in Medicare Plus are not on the agenda for discussion at the upcoming meeting of the CMA. It would be healthier if they were!
Misguided proposals for two-tier health care
Aug 15, 2007 04:30 AM
Danielle Martin
What will the Canadian Medical Association do next?
Condemned by the public, editorial boards and politicians of all persuasions for its recent policy statement "Medicare Plus," the CMA will have some explaining to do to its members – and to Canadians – at its annual meeting in Vancouver next week, Aug. 19 to 22.
Few Canadians would disagree with CMA president Colin McMillan's speech releasing the recommendations in "Medicare Plus" calling for more doctors, nurses and other health professionals; for a broader spectrum of standards and a publicly funded guarantee to protect us against unreasonable wait times; and for the expansion of medicare to cover services like expensive drugs and long-term care.
These proposals recognize that our publicly funded system needs reforming to meet the needs of our aging population, the massive growth in pharmaceuticals and the shift away from a hospital and physician-centric model of health care.
However, conspicuously absent from McMillan's remarks – and from the CMA's Ipsos Reid poll on Canadians' attitudes towards "Medicare Plus" – was the proposal that doctors be permitted to work in both public and private systems (dual practice) and that patients be allowed to buy private insurance for some publicly funded services covered by medicare.
It's as if the CMA were embarrassed about this aspect of its policy and decided not to highlight it in public statements and surveys. And embarrassed it should be. There is a compelling body of evidence against parallel private insurance in the Canadian context. There is also an inherent conflict of interest for physicians working in dual practice since, as the public would understandably perceive, these physicians could have an interest in promoting longer wait times in the public system to increase use of the more lucrative private system.
This very evidence was reviewed in the CMA's own 2006 discussion paper "It's About Access!," which found that the introduction of parallel private insurance:
would not improve access to publicly insured services.
would not lower costs or improve quality of care.
could increase wait times for those who are not privately insured.
could exacerbate human resource shortages in the public system.
Indeed, the CMA's 2006 findings are in keeping with the recommendations of the Romanow Commission and the Kirby Senate Report against parallel private insurance, and with the experience of those few Western countries where it is actually permitted. Despite the repeated claims of incoming CMA president Brian Day, these countries do not include France and Germany. However, they do include the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, where experience has shown that parallel private insurance and dual practice reduces cost efficiency and increases wait times for patients in the public system. There is every reason to believe that this would also happen in Canada, particularly given our acute shortage of health professionals (which the CMA prominently and appropriately decries in "Medicare Plus").
At a time when our neighbours to the south are absorbing the lessons of the Michael Moore film Sicko – including that health care should not be left to the profit motives of private insurers – the CMA should reject any regressive attempt to turn back the clock here in Canada. This is especially the case since, in comparison with the U.S., the evidence shows that Canada has as good or better health outcomes at significantly lower cost.
We all know medicare needs reform. Issues such as wait times, the rising cost of pharmaceuticals and our shortage of health-care professionals are real challenges that must be addressed. But nothing has happened to the health-care system in the last year to justify the CMA ignoring the findings of its own 2006 study. Rather, as McMillan himself acknowledged, "the fact of the matter is that governments ARE making progress" (his emphasis). As the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has documented, across Canada there has been significant progress in reducing wait times through better management and team-based practice.
As CMA members and physicians, we need to ask our association why, if some physician resources are being underutilized, isn't the CMA advocating for solutions that would increase patient care to all Canadians, on the basis of need, within the public system? Why is the CMA proposing dual practice and private insurance when this would pull nurses, technicians and other needed human resources out of the public system? Why is the CMA ignoring the evidence and separating itself from every other professional group on the issue of for-profit care?
During next week's meeting, the CMA will have a chance to show a more constructive approach to health-care reform when delegates debate proposals on the expansion of homecare, pharmacare and environmental health – proposals that will help expand and modernize our publicly-funded health-care system to meet the needs of all Canadians, not just a wealthy few.
The misguided recommendations of "Medicare Plus" on private insurance and dual practice – which are not scheduled for debate – are best discarded like the bad medicine they are.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Danielle Martin is a family physician in Toronto and Chair of Canadian Doctors for Medicare.
Architect of Common Sense Revolution to pick new CBC news heads
You would think this would be headlines across the nation. But this is the first I have seen anything about it. Except for some excellent documentaries (and some bad ones too) the CBC is hardly exceptional. It wastes endless TV time on Black or the Pickton trial, or human interest stories and not having much time for anything more. Maybe Harper is aiming for a public FOX news north.
Long, Tom - Architect of "Common Sense Revolution" to pick CBC News heads
Rhetoric and framing expert a natural ally for Stephen Harper.
TORONTO, August 13, 2007: One of Canada's top right-wing strategists to recruit two top managers for CBC News. Engaging former (Ontario Premier) Mike Harris' advisor, Tom Long, could signal the Harper government's desire to politicize the public broadcaster.
Long is remembered as the architect of one of Canada's most successful rhetorical campaigns, the so-called "Common Sense Revolution" (CSR) that elected Harris in 1995 and 1999. He was also one of four well-connected advisors who won untendered contracts worth $5.6 million from the Conservatives in 1999. Others were his close colleagues in the party and Premier's office, Leslie Noble, Paul Rhodes, and Michael Gourley.
Long attracted negative attention over doing for Mike Harris what he has now been hired to do for Stephen Harper. In 1999, he worked, as he does now, for corporate "headhunting" firm Egon Zehnder International. It received $83,000 for Long's services in recruiting top Harris advisor and longtime colleague Debbie Hutton as the vice-president of corporate relations for Hydro One, the province's electrical supplier. "That must have been a long hunt," commented columnist Andrew Coyne, with irony, when the news broke.
"Tom Long has been a true believer in his right-wing politics for a long time," says Graham Murray, a consultant and editor of the insider newsletter Inside Queen's Park.
"He has been active in the PC party at the provincial and federal level for a long time," said Murray, in a telephone interview with HarperIndex.ca. "I think he is fairly credited with having played a crucial role in the development of the CSR." Long was "the front man in the CSR effort to, among other things, recruit Mike Harris as a suitable standard bearer in efforts to turn the party sharply to the right."
According to Murray, Long had been critical of the party's moderate tendencies under Premier Bill Davis, such as its support for the purchase of energy company Suncor, and an emphasis on human rights. "He was very much part of a youth underground opposed to the centrist thrust of the 'Big Blue Machine'."
The "crowning touch" for Long and right-wing ideologues like Alister Campbell and Noble "was being able to recruit Harris, who did not begin in politics as a hard right-winger, so it made him an acceptable figurehead for the CSR."
There are ironies in hiring a master of political rhetoric, such as Long, to choose the head of what Canadians have always felt to be a trusted news service. "Persuasion, rhetoric and framing were very much the work he was doing with the party, and he did a superlative job," said Murray.
Although a highly effective organizer, Long "self-destructed" when he tried his hand as a politician, seeking the Canadian Alliance leadership in a race against Stockwell Day in 2000. "That race collapsed in an embarrassing pileup with large-scale digging up of dead bodies in Gaspé," recalls Murray. Long's leadership campaign organizers signed up thousands of bogus new party members in that region of Quebec, reminiscent of "old-style" politics.
Murray observes that, "Not infrequently, very effective backroom functionaries prove not very effective in the frontroom. He went from being a very effective organizer to stumbling in a very humiliating failure."
A news report today says Long's firm has been instructed to recruit two top managers to implement a corporate "transformation" that will result in "decentralizing decision rights across the new system and a reallocation of resources to support these changes." The plan is to "identify opportunities for cost savings and operational efficiencies, ensure that new technology is acquired and implemented to support the efficiency drive." These directives appear to indicate cuts to management and staff at the broadcaster, long a target of Conservative criticism.
Harper Conservative vs. Public Values Frame
Stephen Harper / Mike Harris
New government / Old-style politics
Transform CBC / Government spin
Links and sources
Minister 'sickened' rich contracts went to Tories, Canadian Press, February 24, 2004
New twist in the search to fill CBC's top jobs, Globe and Mail, August 11, 2007
Grit or Tory, same old story, AndrewCoyne.com, February 24, 2004
G.P. Murray Research Limited
Letter from NDP Culture critic Charlie Angus to CBC Chair Timothy Casgrain
Tom Long: Dead wrong for PCs, Canada, Scott Piatkowski, Straight Goods
Posted: August 13, 2007
Harper Index (HarperIndex
Long, Tom - Architect of "Common Sense Revolution" to pick CBC News heads
Rhetoric and framing expert a natural ally for Stephen Harper.
TORONTO, August 13, 2007: One of Canada's top right-wing strategists to recruit two top managers for CBC News. Engaging former (Ontario Premier) Mike Harris' advisor, Tom Long, could signal the Harper government's desire to politicize the public broadcaster.
Long is remembered as the architect of one of Canada's most successful rhetorical campaigns, the so-called "Common Sense Revolution" (CSR) that elected Harris in 1995 and 1999. He was also one of four well-connected advisors who won untendered contracts worth $5.6 million from the Conservatives in 1999. Others were his close colleagues in the party and Premier's office, Leslie Noble, Paul Rhodes, and Michael Gourley.
Long attracted negative attention over doing for Mike Harris what he has now been hired to do for Stephen Harper. In 1999, he worked, as he does now, for corporate "headhunting" firm Egon Zehnder International. It received $83,000 for Long's services in recruiting top Harris advisor and longtime colleague Debbie Hutton as the vice-president of corporate relations for Hydro One, the province's electrical supplier. "That must have been a long hunt," commented columnist Andrew Coyne, with irony, when the news broke.
"Tom Long has been a true believer in his right-wing politics for a long time," says Graham Murray, a consultant and editor of the insider newsletter Inside Queen's Park.
"He has been active in the PC party at the provincial and federal level for a long time," said Murray, in a telephone interview with HarperIndex.ca. "I think he is fairly credited with having played a crucial role in the development of the CSR." Long was "the front man in the CSR effort to, among other things, recruit Mike Harris as a suitable standard bearer in efforts to turn the party sharply to the right."
According to Murray, Long had been critical of the party's moderate tendencies under Premier Bill Davis, such as its support for the purchase of energy company Suncor, and an emphasis on human rights. "He was very much part of a youth underground opposed to the centrist thrust of the 'Big Blue Machine'."
The "crowning touch" for Long and right-wing ideologues like Alister Campbell and Noble "was being able to recruit Harris, who did not begin in politics as a hard right-winger, so it made him an acceptable figurehead for the CSR."
There are ironies in hiring a master of political rhetoric, such as Long, to choose the head of what Canadians have always felt to be a trusted news service. "Persuasion, rhetoric and framing were very much the work he was doing with the party, and he did a superlative job," said Murray.
Although a highly effective organizer, Long "self-destructed" when he tried his hand as a politician, seeking the Canadian Alliance leadership in a race against Stockwell Day in 2000. "That race collapsed in an embarrassing pileup with large-scale digging up of dead bodies in Gaspé," recalls Murray. Long's leadership campaign organizers signed up thousands of bogus new party members in that region of Quebec, reminiscent of "old-style" politics.
Murray observes that, "Not infrequently, very effective backroom functionaries prove not very effective in the frontroom. He went from being a very effective organizer to stumbling in a very humiliating failure."
A news report today says Long's firm has been instructed to recruit two top managers to implement a corporate "transformation" that will result in "decentralizing decision rights across the new system and a reallocation of resources to support these changes." The plan is to "identify opportunities for cost savings and operational efficiencies, ensure that new technology is acquired and implemented to support the efficiency drive." These directives appear to indicate cuts to management and staff at the broadcaster, long a target of Conservative criticism.
Harper Conservative vs. Public Values Frame
Stephen Harper / Mike Harris
New government / Old-style politics
Transform CBC / Government spin
Links and sources
Minister 'sickened' rich contracts went to Tories, Canadian Press, February 24, 2004
New twist in the search to fill CBC's top jobs, Globe and Mail, August 11, 2007
Grit or Tory, same old story, AndrewCoyne.com, February 24, 2004
G.P. Murray Research Limited
Letter from NDP Culture critic Charlie Angus to CBC Chair Timothy Casgrain
Tom Long: Dead wrong for PCs, Canada, Scott Piatkowski, Straight Goods
Posted: August 13, 2007
Harper Index (HarperIndex
James Laxer on Ignatieff
Yet another article on Ignatieff. I thought Laxer was left wing but this simply ignores a lot of the features of Ignatieff's article. Apparently for Laxer the phony rhetoric about spreading democracy and human rights is OK. He has nothing critical to say on Ignatieff's position on the NATO mission in Kosovo. The articles by Mallick and Salutin are much more critical. Laxer seems to think that Ignatieff is a good guy and will be a great asset to Canadian politics now he has put Iraq behind him. Ugh!
Michael Ignatieff: Putting Iraq Behind Him
Canadian politicians are very mulish when it comes to admitting that they have ever been wrong about anything. That’s why when Michael Ignatieff proclaimed that he had been wrong about the invasion of Iraq, in an article in the New York Times Magazine, it mattered.
In his article, while Ignatieff says much and leaves much unsaid, he is clear in stating that his judgment had been wrong about the Iraq invasion.
Ignatieff attributes US failure in Iraq to the fact that it was a country “of which most Americans knew little”, and that those supporting the invasion were wrong in supposing that “a free state could arise on the foundations of 35 years of police terror.” He adds that those such as himself who championed the US mission were wrong in believing that “because America defended human rights and freedom in Bosnia and Kosovo it had to be doing so in Iraq.” He says that people such as himself did not grapple sufficiently with the hard questions like: “Can Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites hold together in peace what Saddam Hussein held together by terror?” On the subject of leadership, he says this of George W. Bush: “It was not merely that the president did not take the care to understand Iraq. He also did not take the care to understand himself. The sense of reality that might have saved him from catastrophe would have taken the form of some warning bell sounding inside, alerting him that he did not know what he was doing.”
Ignatieff dismisses the warnings of those he says predicted catastrophe in Iraq in advance for ideological reasons, those he says are always disposed to think the Americans are in the wrong. It is not surprising that Ignatieff has little time for those who opposed him from the beginning on Iraq. He sees them as having been right, but for the wrong reasons.
What Ignatieff does not tell us in the article is whether he has re-thought his position on the American Empire in light of Iraq. This is no small matter. Ignatieff framed his support for the invasion of Iraq as a telling case in which the American Empire was needed to act on behalf of those who had nowhere else to turn if they desired human rights and the rule of law. “The case for empire is that it has become, in a place like Iraq, the last hope for democracy and stability alike,” Ignatieff wrote in the New York Times Magazine in January 2003 two months before the invasion, noting that critics “have not factored in what tyranny or chaos can do to vital American interests.”
Has Ignatieff now changed his mind about the utility of empire, empire lite, the American Empire? He doesn’t tell us.
Perhaps we should not make too much of this. At length in the article, Ignatieff discusses the differences between a theorist on the one hand and a practicing politician on the other. He is at pains to tell us that while he was the former in the past, he is now the latter.
Throughout the course of Canadian history, ambiguity on the question of empire has been a hallmark of our most distinguished Liberal prime ministers.
Liberal prime ministers have always been well-disposed to the United States when they have come to office. But they have learned on the job how difficult the Canadian relationship with the empire can be.
Wilfrid Laurier received his education in office in the days when it was the British, not the Americans, who dominated our lives. Leading a country torn between pro-imperialists (mostly Anglo-Canadians) and anti-imperialists (mostly French Canadians), he once proclaimed: “I am neither imperialist, nor anti-imperialist. I am Canadian.”
When Lester Pearson came to office in 1963, he was regarded as a great friend of America, and was welcomed on board by President John F. Kennedy, who had detested Pearson’s Tory predecessor, John Diefenbaker. Pearson learned how short the leash for a Canadian prime minister can be when he was summoned to Camp David by JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was furious because Pearson had called on the White House, in a speech delivered in the US, to order a pause in the bombing of North Vietnam. At their meeting, Johnson seized Pearson by the lapels and pulled him to his feet. After leaving office, Pearson described his meeting with LBJ as “my trip to Berchdesgaden” (a reference to Hitler’s Bavarian retreat).
Today people forget that when Pierre Trudeau came to power, he was notably pro-American, once proclaiming that after he retired he might choose to live in New York. Trudeau abominated nationalism, not just Quebec nationalism, but Canadian nationalism as well. During his days at 24 Sussex Drive, Trudeau dealt with five US presidents, but his views of America were mostly shaped by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. When Nixon proclaimed his New Economic Policy in the summer of 1971, he delivered a severe blow to Canada. Trudeau learned the lesson that Canada ought to care about Canadian ownership of major economic sectors, particularly the energy sector. Nixon helped push Trudeau down the road to the creation of Petro-Canada as a publicly owned corporation, and later to launch the National Energy Program, whose central goal was fifty per cent Canadian ownership of the petroleum industry.
The members of the Reagan administration detested Trudeau, regarding him as an untrustworthy ally, who could not be brought into the loop on matters such as the US occupation of Grenada in 1983. The Reagan White House joined forces with the oil companies and the multinationals in their assault on Trudeau’s economic nationalism. By the time he left office, Trudeau was seen in Washington as an anti-American pinko.
If ambiguity on empire and learning on the job have turned up on the CVs of former Liberal prime ministers, including Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, what are we to make of Michael Ignatieff, who while not the leader is one of his party’s brightest lights?
Ignatieff returned to Canada to pursue the leadership of the Liberal Party with two strikes against him. The first, his decades-long absence from the country, is quickly fading with the passage of time. Ignatieff got himself elected to parliament, made a strong run for the leadership of his party and has performed effectively as the Liberals’ deputy leader. Those who thought he was just a Harvard intello have been proven wrong by Ignatieff’s stellar performance during Question Period. By far the most effective opposition politician in the House, Ignatieff has savaged the Tory front bench, regularly getting the better of Stephen Harper.
The second strike against Ignatieff was that he returned to Canada as an apologist for George W. Bush, and an advocate of empire and the invasion of Iraq. He appeared in the guise of a would-be Tony Blair. While Canadians have bred their own poodles for Reagan, Bush I and Bush II---their names are Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper---Liberal voters are not looking for a poodle.
For Ignatieff to realize his full potential in Canadian politics, he had to put his support for the invasion of Iraq behind him. He has now done that.
And although he voted in the House of Commons to extend the Canadian mission in Afghanistan to February 2009, he has become one of the most effective critics of the shortcomings of the mission.
Ignatieff’s major impact on our politics to date has been to force federal politicians to recognize Quebec as a nation within Canada---a step long overdue.
He has now cleared the debris aside so he can demonstrate just how much political talent he has.
posted by James Laxer
Michael Ignatieff: Putting Iraq Behind Him
Canadian politicians are very mulish when it comes to admitting that they have ever been wrong about anything. That’s why when Michael Ignatieff proclaimed that he had been wrong about the invasion of Iraq, in an article in the New York Times Magazine, it mattered.
In his article, while Ignatieff says much and leaves much unsaid, he is clear in stating that his judgment had been wrong about the Iraq invasion.
Ignatieff attributes US failure in Iraq to the fact that it was a country “of which most Americans knew little”, and that those supporting the invasion were wrong in supposing that “a free state could arise on the foundations of 35 years of police terror.” He adds that those such as himself who championed the US mission were wrong in believing that “because America defended human rights and freedom in Bosnia and Kosovo it had to be doing so in Iraq.” He says that people such as himself did not grapple sufficiently with the hard questions like: “Can Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites hold together in peace what Saddam Hussein held together by terror?” On the subject of leadership, he says this of George W. Bush: “It was not merely that the president did not take the care to understand Iraq. He also did not take the care to understand himself. The sense of reality that might have saved him from catastrophe would have taken the form of some warning bell sounding inside, alerting him that he did not know what he was doing.”
Ignatieff dismisses the warnings of those he says predicted catastrophe in Iraq in advance for ideological reasons, those he says are always disposed to think the Americans are in the wrong. It is not surprising that Ignatieff has little time for those who opposed him from the beginning on Iraq. He sees them as having been right, but for the wrong reasons.
What Ignatieff does not tell us in the article is whether he has re-thought his position on the American Empire in light of Iraq. This is no small matter. Ignatieff framed his support for the invasion of Iraq as a telling case in which the American Empire was needed to act on behalf of those who had nowhere else to turn if they desired human rights and the rule of law. “The case for empire is that it has become, in a place like Iraq, the last hope for democracy and stability alike,” Ignatieff wrote in the New York Times Magazine in January 2003 two months before the invasion, noting that critics “have not factored in what tyranny or chaos can do to vital American interests.”
Has Ignatieff now changed his mind about the utility of empire, empire lite, the American Empire? He doesn’t tell us.
Perhaps we should not make too much of this. At length in the article, Ignatieff discusses the differences between a theorist on the one hand and a practicing politician on the other. He is at pains to tell us that while he was the former in the past, he is now the latter.
Throughout the course of Canadian history, ambiguity on the question of empire has been a hallmark of our most distinguished Liberal prime ministers.
Liberal prime ministers have always been well-disposed to the United States when they have come to office. But they have learned on the job how difficult the Canadian relationship with the empire can be.
Wilfrid Laurier received his education in office in the days when it was the British, not the Americans, who dominated our lives. Leading a country torn between pro-imperialists (mostly Anglo-Canadians) and anti-imperialists (mostly French Canadians), he once proclaimed: “I am neither imperialist, nor anti-imperialist. I am Canadian.”
When Lester Pearson came to office in 1963, he was regarded as a great friend of America, and was welcomed on board by President John F. Kennedy, who had detested Pearson’s Tory predecessor, John Diefenbaker. Pearson learned how short the leash for a Canadian prime minister can be when he was summoned to Camp David by JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was furious because Pearson had called on the White House, in a speech delivered in the US, to order a pause in the bombing of North Vietnam. At their meeting, Johnson seized Pearson by the lapels and pulled him to his feet. After leaving office, Pearson described his meeting with LBJ as “my trip to Berchdesgaden” (a reference to Hitler’s Bavarian retreat).
Today people forget that when Pierre Trudeau came to power, he was notably pro-American, once proclaiming that after he retired he might choose to live in New York. Trudeau abominated nationalism, not just Quebec nationalism, but Canadian nationalism as well. During his days at 24 Sussex Drive, Trudeau dealt with five US presidents, but his views of America were mostly shaped by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. When Nixon proclaimed his New Economic Policy in the summer of 1971, he delivered a severe blow to Canada. Trudeau learned the lesson that Canada ought to care about Canadian ownership of major economic sectors, particularly the energy sector. Nixon helped push Trudeau down the road to the creation of Petro-Canada as a publicly owned corporation, and later to launch the National Energy Program, whose central goal was fifty per cent Canadian ownership of the petroleum industry.
The members of the Reagan administration detested Trudeau, regarding him as an untrustworthy ally, who could not be brought into the loop on matters such as the US occupation of Grenada in 1983. The Reagan White House joined forces with the oil companies and the multinationals in their assault on Trudeau’s economic nationalism. By the time he left office, Trudeau was seen in Washington as an anti-American pinko.
If ambiguity on empire and learning on the job have turned up on the CVs of former Liberal prime ministers, including Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, what are we to make of Michael Ignatieff, who while not the leader is one of his party’s brightest lights?
Ignatieff returned to Canada to pursue the leadership of the Liberal Party with two strikes against him. The first, his decades-long absence from the country, is quickly fading with the passage of time. Ignatieff got himself elected to parliament, made a strong run for the leadership of his party and has performed effectively as the Liberals’ deputy leader. Those who thought he was just a Harvard intello have been proven wrong by Ignatieff’s stellar performance during Question Period. By far the most effective opposition politician in the House, Ignatieff has savaged the Tory front bench, regularly getting the better of Stephen Harper.
The second strike against Ignatieff was that he returned to Canada as an apologist for George W. Bush, and an advocate of empire and the invasion of Iraq. He appeared in the guise of a would-be Tony Blair. While Canadians have bred their own poodles for Reagan, Bush I and Bush II---their names are Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper---Liberal voters are not looking for a poodle.
For Ignatieff to realize his full potential in Canadian politics, he had to put his support for the invasion of Iraq behind him. He has now done that.
And although he voted in the House of Commons to extend the Canadian mission in Afghanistan to February 2009, he has become one of the most effective critics of the shortcomings of the mission.
Ignatieff’s major impact on our politics to date has been to force federal politicians to recognize Quebec as a nation within Canada---a step long overdue.
He has now cleared the debris aside so he can demonstrate just how much political talent he has.
posted by James Laxer
Blocking public documents has become a pattern
If Stevens is correct that William Elliot the new RCMP commissioner was involved in blacking out the documents this is indeed an unhappy bit of data. Perhaps this action is what endeared him to Harper. This is the first I have seen a word about this. Anyway blocking documents that may be the least bit embarassing is standard for governments of any stripe. I did not get the impression the documents showed that the CSIS RCMP were in league with the CIA as far as agreeing to send him to Syria only that they were happy enough that he did end up there and took advantage of the situation to have Syrians ask him questions. They did nothing to help get Arar released or even inform the government that this was probably a rendering. Was the government too innocent to know this in the first place!
Blocking public documents has become a pattern
Harper cannot blame previous government for undermining his own inquiry.
by Geoffrey Stevens, originally published in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record
There's a rule of thumb that says an incoming government may blame its predecessor for anything that goes wrong in the new administration's first year. The statute of limitations on the transference of blame expires around the 12-month mark, however, and thereafter the new gang is expected to accept responsibility for gaffes and shortcomings.
In Ontario, Dalton McGuinty went through that process following his election in 2003. In Ottawa, however, Stephen Harper does not acknowledge that his grace period ran out six months ago. He still sounds more like an opposition leader than a prime minister as he lays the blame for everything bad on the ancien regime (while taking full credit, of course, for everything good that has happened since January 2006). He was at his sanctimonious best - which is very good indeed - the other day when the censored documents in the Maher Arar case were finally made public. Harper made a point of blaming the whole Arar mess, again, on previous Liberal administrations.
He would have us believe that the Conservatives are devoutly committed to openness and accountability, compared to the secrecy and suppression of legal rights that supposedly characterized the Chrétien and Martin regimes. And if you believe that, you will believe that the Rhinoceros party will win the next federal election.
Yes, Arar occurred on the Liberals' watch. It was under the Liberals that Canadian security officials conspired (the word is not too strong) with the CIA to have Arar shipped to Syria where they all knew he would be tortured. And it was the Liberals who, under pressure, appointed Justice Dennis O'Connor to conduct a public inquiry into the affair.
But the Conservatives were in power when Justice O'Connor brought down his report. It was the Conservatives who fought like tigers to exclude some key material from his report. The commission had to drag the Conservatives to the Federal Court for an order compelling the release of the censored portions. Rejecting the government's argument that the security of the nation would be imperilled if the deleted 1,500-odd words ever saw the light of day, the court granted the order, and most of the previously blacked-out words were released last week.
I am happy to report that the Peace Tower did not implode. In a nutshell, the missing passages showed how the RCMP and CSIS had danced to the tune of the CIA - scarcely a startling revelation. It may be embarrassing to the Canadian government (Liberal or Conservative) to be exposed as Washington's lackey, but the national-security argument was a red herring, a phoney.
(I am less happy, however, to report that one of the bureaucrats who secretly blacked out those documents was William Elliott, the new commissioner of the RCMP.)
There are disturbing signs that the Tories are even more deeply in the thrall of the security establishment than the Liberals were. Last December, the Conservatives appointed a commission to look into the cases of three other men - Muayyed Nureddin, Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad Abou El Maati - who were also imprisoned in the Middle East. One of the issues is the RCMP's use of information, apparently obtained through torture of one of the men in a Syrian prison, to support their application for search warrants in Canada.
The Tories set the rules for this inquiry, headed by former Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iacobucci. It is a private inquiry. Most of the proceedings are in secret and lawyers for the three men are not generally permitted to attend. They can't even find out whether former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli or the RCMP sergeant who obtained the search warrants will be called as witnesses.
Can the public expect a full, uncensored report? Don't count on it.
Next, there is the strange tale of the Air India inquiry. In May 2006, Harper appointed another retired Supreme Court justice, John Major, to conduct "a full public inquiry" into the botched police investigation of the 1985 crash that killed 329 people. The inquiry had barely gotten underway before the government started to block access to documents. There are thousands of documents involved and at last count the Harper government was fighting to withhold no fewer than 800 of them. Judge Major has had to postpone some hearings, and at one point last February he became so frustrated that he threatened to shut the inquiry down unless the government cooperated.
Surely Harper can't blame anyone but himself for the inanity of trying to undermine his own inquiry.
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens, an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail, teaches political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph. He welcomes comments at geoffstevens@sympatico.ca.
Blocking public documents has become a pattern
Harper cannot blame previous government for undermining his own inquiry.
by Geoffrey Stevens, originally published in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record
There's a rule of thumb that says an incoming government may blame its predecessor for anything that goes wrong in the new administration's first year. The statute of limitations on the transference of blame expires around the 12-month mark, however, and thereafter the new gang is expected to accept responsibility for gaffes and shortcomings.
In Ontario, Dalton McGuinty went through that process following his election in 2003. In Ottawa, however, Stephen Harper does not acknowledge that his grace period ran out six months ago. He still sounds more like an opposition leader than a prime minister as he lays the blame for everything bad on the ancien regime (while taking full credit, of course, for everything good that has happened since January 2006). He was at his sanctimonious best - which is very good indeed - the other day when the censored documents in the Maher Arar case were finally made public. Harper made a point of blaming the whole Arar mess, again, on previous Liberal administrations.
He would have us believe that the Conservatives are devoutly committed to openness and accountability, compared to the secrecy and suppression of legal rights that supposedly characterized the Chrétien and Martin regimes. And if you believe that, you will believe that the Rhinoceros party will win the next federal election.
Yes, Arar occurred on the Liberals' watch. It was under the Liberals that Canadian security officials conspired (the word is not too strong) with the CIA to have Arar shipped to Syria where they all knew he would be tortured. And it was the Liberals who, under pressure, appointed Justice Dennis O'Connor to conduct a public inquiry into the affair.
But the Conservatives were in power when Justice O'Connor brought down his report. It was the Conservatives who fought like tigers to exclude some key material from his report. The commission had to drag the Conservatives to the Federal Court for an order compelling the release of the censored portions. Rejecting the government's argument that the security of the nation would be imperilled if the deleted 1,500-odd words ever saw the light of day, the court granted the order, and most of the previously blacked-out words were released last week.
I am happy to report that the Peace Tower did not implode. In a nutshell, the missing passages showed how the RCMP and CSIS had danced to the tune of the CIA - scarcely a startling revelation. It may be embarrassing to the Canadian government (Liberal or Conservative) to be exposed as Washington's lackey, but the national-security argument was a red herring, a phoney.
(I am less happy, however, to report that one of the bureaucrats who secretly blacked out those documents was William Elliott, the new commissioner of the RCMP.)
There are disturbing signs that the Tories are even more deeply in the thrall of the security establishment than the Liberals were. Last December, the Conservatives appointed a commission to look into the cases of three other men - Muayyed Nureddin, Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad Abou El Maati - who were also imprisoned in the Middle East. One of the issues is the RCMP's use of information, apparently obtained through torture of one of the men in a Syrian prison, to support their application for search warrants in Canada.
The Tories set the rules for this inquiry, headed by former Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iacobucci. It is a private inquiry. Most of the proceedings are in secret and lawyers for the three men are not generally permitted to attend. They can't even find out whether former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli or the RCMP sergeant who obtained the search warrants will be called as witnesses.
Can the public expect a full, uncensored report? Don't count on it.
Next, there is the strange tale of the Air India inquiry. In May 2006, Harper appointed another retired Supreme Court justice, John Major, to conduct "a full public inquiry" into the botched police investigation of the 1985 crash that killed 329 people. The inquiry had barely gotten underway before the government started to block access to documents. There are thousands of documents involved and at last count the Harper government was fighting to withhold no fewer than 800 of them. Judge Major has had to postpone some hearings, and at one point last February he became so frustrated that he threatened to shut the inquiry down unless the government cooperated.
Surely Harper can't blame anyone but himself for the inanity of trying to undermine his own inquiry.
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens, an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail, teaches political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph. He welcomes comments at geoffstevens@sympatico.ca.
McQuaig: Tax Phobia Benefits the Wealthy
At those average prices agents must do quite well on commissions for sales. You would think that there should be other ways as well that Toronto could raise money. Maybe there should be Hogtown Lottery! A voluntary tax on the poor and working class such as lotteries, bingos, etc are always popular and keep alive the Canadian Dream.
Tax phobia benefits the wealthy
>by Linda McQuaig
August 9, 2007
It seems almost incomprehensible. Despite the urgent need to find a solution to the global warming crisis, the City of Toronto is contemplating deep cuts to our public transit system—one of the few public programs that move us toward a solution.
But we're told there is no choice. Otherwise, the city would have to raise taxes.
The proposed cuts to Toronto's subway system—and other vital city services—illustrate how truly short-sighted our rigid obsession with low taxes has become. We've adopted the notion that the highest duty of politicians is to keep taxes low, rather than to make our society—and our world—work better.
The Toronto example is particularly compelling, partly because there is a viable alternative available in the land transfer tax proposed by Mayor David Miller. But city council deferred a decision on the tax last month, following an aggressive anti-tax campaign orchestrated by the Toronto Real Estate Board, which claimed the tax “targets people who can least afford it.”
In fact, just the opposite is true. The tax—imposed on property sales, with higher rates on bigger properties—targets people most able to afford it. A top rate of 2 per cent applies on properties worth more than $400,000.
Essentially, it amounts to a small tax on the enormous wealth accumulating in the hands of the privileged minority who own property in Toronto.
The truth is that there's a largely invisible class line that runs through the city, separating those who own homes from those who don't.
Of course, not everyone who owns a home in Toronto is rich. But the possibility of owning even a modest home—unless you bought when prices were lower—has increasingly moved beyond the reach of most city dwellers.
A household typically needs an income of $106,000 to afford a standard, two-storey Toronto home—which puts it out of the reach of roughly 80 per cent of Toronto households, according to Michael Shapcott, an analyst with the Wellesley Institute. Even a standard condo is unaffordable to about 60 per cent of households.
Of course, those who bought when prices were lower can maintain their homes on lower incomes—and can cash in and trade up.
Homeowners, particularly those at the upper end, have seen their personal wealth rise dramatically in the hot real estate market of recent years. They've been aided by the Canadian tax system, which permits the profit, or capital gain, from a house sale to go tax-free—unlike income from employment or from other capital gains.
So while a construction worker earning $50,000 pays tax on his income, a homeowner receiving a $50,000 profit selling his house pays nothing. The bigger the profit—and profits on Rosedale mansions can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars—the bigger the tax saving.
So it's absurd to suggest, as some realtors have, that the land transfer tax would put home ownership out of reach of ordinary people. Home ownership is already out of reach of ordinary people, due to the dramatic price increases, which are partly fuelled by the generous tax treatment of home ownership.
For that matter, realtors' fees are a bigger stumbling block for home buyers. The average Toronto house—which sold for $381,963 in June—would face a land transfer tax levied by the city of $4,244. The realtors' fee was $19,098.
So is it really such a tough choice for the city: either cut vital public services that affect us all—or impose a small tax on the city's privileged homeowning elite?
Linda McQuaig's column is originally published by The Toronto Star.
Tax phobia benefits the wealthy
>by Linda McQuaig
August 9, 2007
It seems almost incomprehensible. Despite the urgent need to find a solution to the global warming crisis, the City of Toronto is contemplating deep cuts to our public transit system—one of the few public programs that move us toward a solution.
But we're told there is no choice. Otherwise, the city would have to raise taxes.
The proposed cuts to Toronto's subway system—and other vital city services—illustrate how truly short-sighted our rigid obsession with low taxes has become. We've adopted the notion that the highest duty of politicians is to keep taxes low, rather than to make our society—and our world—work better.
The Toronto example is particularly compelling, partly because there is a viable alternative available in the land transfer tax proposed by Mayor David Miller. But city council deferred a decision on the tax last month, following an aggressive anti-tax campaign orchestrated by the Toronto Real Estate Board, which claimed the tax “targets people who can least afford it.”
In fact, just the opposite is true. The tax—imposed on property sales, with higher rates on bigger properties—targets people most able to afford it. A top rate of 2 per cent applies on properties worth more than $400,000.
Essentially, it amounts to a small tax on the enormous wealth accumulating in the hands of the privileged minority who own property in Toronto.
The truth is that there's a largely invisible class line that runs through the city, separating those who own homes from those who don't.
Of course, not everyone who owns a home in Toronto is rich. But the possibility of owning even a modest home—unless you bought when prices were lower—has increasingly moved beyond the reach of most city dwellers.
A household typically needs an income of $106,000 to afford a standard, two-storey Toronto home—which puts it out of the reach of roughly 80 per cent of Toronto households, according to Michael Shapcott, an analyst with the Wellesley Institute. Even a standard condo is unaffordable to about 60 per cent of households.
Of course, those who bought when prices were lower can maintain their homes on lower incomes—and can cash in and trade up.
Homeowners, particularly those at the upper end, have seen their personal wealth rise dramatically in the hot real estate market of recent years. They've been aided by the Canadian tax system, which permits the profit, or capital gain, from a house sale to go tax-free—unlike income from employment or from other capital gains.
So while a construction worker earning $50,000 pays tax on his income, a homeowner receiving a $50,000 profit selling his house pays nothing. The bigger the profit—and profits on Rosedale mansions can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars—the bigger the tax saving.
So it's absurd to suggest, as some realtors have, that the land transfer tax would put home ownership out of reach of ordinary people. Home ownership is already out of reach of ordinary people, due to the dramatic price increases, which are partly fuelled by the generous tax treatment of home ownership.
For that matter, realtors' fees are a bigger stumbling block for home buyers. The average Toronto house—which sold for $381,963 in June—would face a land transfer tax levied by the city of $4,244. The realtors' fee was $19,098.
So is it really such a tough choice for the city: either cut vital public services that affect us all—or impose a small tax on the city's privileged homeowning elite?
Linda McQuaig's column is originally published by The Toronto Star.
Buzz Hargrove: Stop the SPP
This is Buzz (Basil?!)at his best or at least better than sometimes! I have not seen much coverage of the letter in the mainstream press.
Stop the Security and Prosperity Partnership
August 12, 2007, 9:50 p.m. EST
CAW President Buzz Hargrove wrote the following letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressing his concerns about the Security and Prosperity Partnership, on behalf of working people across the country.
August 13, 2007
Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0A2
Mr. Prime Minister;
I am writing to express my deep concern surrounding the Security and Prosperity Partnership and your government’s willingness to further a “deep integration” agenda across North America.
The SPP involves the merger of many of Canada's social, economic, and security policies and institutions with the United States and Mexico. The harmonization of regulatory standards and national security policy provides little (if any) benefit to Canadians. Further integration will reduce Canadian autonomy, restrict our ability to establish domestic rules and regulations that promote Canadian values, and further damage our national economy.
I am concerned that since its inception in 2005, the SPP has been developed and managed behind closed doors, without any measure of public accountability. From the beginning, this integration agenda has been directed by the business community and, despite the rhetoric, will serve a minority of special interests in Canada, the United States and Mexico.
We recognize that one of the stated goals of the SPP is to improve the efficiency and reliability of cross-border trade between Canada and the U.S., and this is a goal that we share (given the large number of CAW members who work in export-oriented industries).
Inadequate physical and administrative infrastructure on both sides of the border has become a significant friction inhibiting cross-border trade. We strongly support major investments, again on both sides of the border, to improve the functioning of border crossings, with appropriate input from border communities regarding locational and environmental issues. We are quite open to novel initiatives to speed up border traffic, such as pre-clearance areas, fast lanes for regular users, and other improvements.
However, these sensible investments in transportation and border infrastructure in no way require the sacrifice of Canadian sovereignty in areas such as security, citizenship and immigration, and inspection powers. We can work with the U.S. side as equals, to enhance the efficiency of our border facilities, without having to harmonize any of these important policies. In no way do these legitimate and concrete border improvements justify the far-reaching and dangerous features of the SPP initiative.
The SPP is part of a broader, corporate-driven agenda that your government has endorsed that overlooks the interests and protections of workers. It is an agenda that includes wrong-headed trade negotiations with countries like Japan, South Korea and Europe – deals that, if signed, will lead to further job loss in our auto, shipbuilding and other manufacturing industries. As well, it endorses trade negotiations with Columbia, a country that has been repeatedly condemned for its terrible record of human rights abuses.
Mr. Prime Minister, the interests of Canadian citizens are not served should their respective government choose to endorse an agenda that results in the loss of control over natural resources (such as natural gas and fresh water), that deepens ties to U.S. foreign policy and that erodes public decision-making power. Canadians continue to witness the negative impacts of integration under the NAFTA – as workers in our domestic auto, aerospace and other manufacturing industries continue to see wages and working conditions undercut, and while the entire national economy is restructured with an emphasis on the supply of resources (especially energy) to the U.S..
Canada’s manufacturing sector has lost over 300,000 jobs in less than five years and is still reeling from the effects of continental integration efforts under the NAFTA. Additionally, Canada continues to falter on NAFTA-related trade disputes with the United States, such as softwood lumber and beef.
Canadians know full well that any effort to forge a true “continental partnership” must respect each country’s right to self-determination in both economic and social matters and work within those parameters to develop relationships and foster solidarity.
On behalf of the 265,000 members of the Canadian Auto Workers union, I urge you now to remove Canada from the Security and Prosperity Partnership and immediately begin the process of developing a new national trade strategy – one that ensures fair trade, that fosters public transparency and accountability, that protects Canada’s national autonomy and that promotes an economic and social agenda that benefits all Canadians.
Our union is willing and able to participate in developing such a strategy and would like to discuss this issue with you further. I thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Basil “Buzz” Hargrove
President, CAW-Canada
Stop the Security and Prosperity Partnership
August 12, 2007, 9:50 p.m. EST
CAW President Buzz Hargrove wrote the following letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressing his concerns about the Security and Prosperity Partnership, on behalf of working people across the country.
August 13, 2007
Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0A2
Mr. Prime Minister;
I am writing to express my deep concern surrounding the Security and Prosperity Partnership and your government’s willingness to further a “deep integration” agenda across North America.
The SPP involves the merger of many of Canada's social, economic, and security policies and institutions with the United States and Mexico. The harmonization of regulatory standards and national security policy provides little (if any) benefit to Canadians. Further integration will reduce Canadian autonomy, restrict our ability to establish domestic rules and regulations that promote Canadian values, and further damage our national economy.
I am concerned that since its inception in 2005, the SPP has been developed and managed behind closed doors, without any measure of public accountability. From the beginning, this integration agenda has been directed by the business community and, despite the rhetoric, will serve a minority of special interests in Canada, the United States and Mexico.
We recognize that one of the stated goals of the SPP is to improve the efficiency and reliability of cross-border trade between Canada and the U.S., and this is a goal that we share (given the large number of CAW members who work in export-oriented industries).
Inadequate physical and administrative infrastructure on both sides of the border has become a significant friction inhibiting cross-border trade. We strongly support major investments, again on both sides of the border, to improve the functioning of border crossings, with appropriate input from border communities regarding locational and environmental issues. We are quite open to novel initiatives to speed up border traffic, such as pre-clearance areas, fast lanes for regular users, and other improvements.
However, these sensible investments in transportation and border infrastructure in no way require the sacrifice of Canadian sovereignty in areas such as security, citizenship and immigration, and inspection powers. We can work with the U.S. side as equals, to enhance the efficiency of our border facilities, without having to harmonize any of these important policies. In no way do these legitimate and concrete border improvements justify the far-reaching and dangerous features of the SPP initiative.
The SPP is part of a broader, corporate-driven agenda that your government has endorsed that overlooks the interests and protections of workers. It is an agenda that includes wrong-headed trade negotiations with countries like Japan, South Korea and Europe – deals that, if signed, will lead to further job loss in our auto, shipbuilding and other manufacturing industries. As well, it endorses trade negotiations with Columbia, a country that has been repeatedly condemned for its terrible record of human rights abuses.
Mr. Prime Minister, the interests of Canadian citizens are not served should their respective government choose to endorse an agenda that results in the loss of control over natural resources (such as natural gas and fresh water), that deepens ties to U.S. foreign policy and that erodes public decision-making power. Canadians continue to witness the negative impacts of integration under the NAFTA – as workers in our domestic auto, aerospace and other manufacturing industries continue to see wages and working conditions undercut, and while the entire national economy is restructured with an emphasis on the supply of resources (especially energy) to the U.S..
Canada’s manufacturing sector has lost over 300,000 jobs in less than five years and is still reeling from the effects of continental integration efforts under the NAFTA. Additionally, Canada continues to falter on NAFTA-related trade disputes with the United States, such as softwood lumber and beef.
Canadians know full well that any effort to forge a true “continental partnership” must respect each country’s right to self-determination in both economic and social matters and work within those parameters to develop relationships and foster solidarity.
On behalf of the 265,000 members of the Canadian Auto Workers union, I urge you now to remove Canada from the Security and Prosperity Partnership and immediately begin the process of developing a new national trade strategy – one that ensures fair trade, that fosters public transparency and accountability, that protects Canada’s national autonomy and that promotes an economic and social agenda that benefits all Canadians.
Our union is willing and able to participate in developing such a strategy and would like to discuss this issue with you further. I thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Basil “Buzz” Hargrove
President, CAW-Canada
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
The National Post on TILMA
This is a good reply to the National Post's editorial support for TILMA. It is not surprising that the National Post would support TILMA. It is a right wing, free enterprise paper on the whole. However, even many right wingers would not support TILMA if they understood its implications as is shown by the Sask. Party's rejection of it.
Posted by Erin Weir under democracy, TILMA, labour market, transportation.
August 14th, 2007
Comments: none
On Friday, the National Post’s lead editorial suggested that inter-provincial trade barriers are significant enough to validate the Quebec-separatist view that “Canada is not a real country.” The following edited response from yours truly is printed as a “Counterpoint” in today’s edition:
In a recent editorial, the National Post called for all provinces to join the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA), which came into force between Alberta and British Columbia in April (”Let TILMA Grow,” Aug. 10).
According to the Post, TILMA is needed to eliminate inter-provincial trade barriers, “which, in certain sectors, actually make it easier for Canadian firms to trade with the United States than Canadian firms in different provinces.” Yet the Post identifies no sector for which this claim is accurate. From 2000 through 2006, inter-provincial exports grew four times faster than Canada’s international exports.
Canadian courts have consistently struck down provincial attempts to directly interfere with inter-provincial trade. What the Post calls “regulatory non-tariff trade barriers” are merely differences in provincial policy that may or may not have side-effects on inter-provincial commerce. These include occupational certification, procurement and trucking registration. The Post approvingly notes that Alberta and B.C. “are now bound to recognize the other’s occupational standards.” But the effect of this approach will be to turn the lowest standard in any province into the minimum standard for every province.
Prior to TILMA, all provinces except Quebec and B.C. maintained a common set of Red Seal standards for many skilled trades, ensuring inter-provincial mobility for tradespeople. Under TILMA, Alberta employers must accept people trained to lower standards in B.C. A far better approach would be for B.C. to adopt Red Seal standards.
The existing Agreement on Internal Trade prevents provincial governments from favouring local suppliers. TILMA will extend this regime to municipalities, school boards and Crown corporations. This is supposed to generate savings by expanding the pool of available suppliers for any given job. But at the municipal level, the cost of complying with arm’s-length procurement rules is likely to eclipse any potential cost savings.
Registering in multiple provinces undoubtedly creates a small additional cost for trucking companies under current rules. However, the Post’s suggestion that these companies are returning significant numbers of trucks empty to avoid registering in other provinces is unfounded. TILMA would encourage companies to register only in whichever province maintains the lowest standards.
Of course, provinces might reasonably choose to adopt common standards in some areas, but doing so hardly requires TILMA’s legalistic approach. This agreement’s enforcement mechanism allows private interests to sue for up to $5-million based on alleged violations by provincial governments, municipalities and school boards.
Rather than simply preventing measures that are discriminatory against businesses in other provinces, TILMA purports to “eliminate barriers that restrict or impair trade, investment or labour mobility.” The problem is that almost everything that governments do influences investment opportunities and could be challenged. TILMA’s limited, temporary exceptions protect a policy only if the government can prove that there is no conceivable alternative policy.
Commercial tribunals that meet behind closed doors, rather than provincial or federal courts, will interpret the extremely broad language of this 36-page agreement. Uncertainty about potential interpretations is already having a chilling effect on regulators in Alberta and B.C. who fear legal challenges. It makes no sense to sign a comprehensive agreement if there is no guarantee that tribunals will restrict its provisions to instances of genuine trade barriers.
Saskatchewan is the only province to have held public consultations on TILMA. Both the governing NDP and the right-wing Saskatchewan Party rejected the agreement because it severely constrains the capacity of provincial governments, municipalities and school boards to act in the public interest.
All provinces should join Saskatchewan in negotiating specific solutions to any minor inter-provincial barriers that may exist. At a minimum, Alberta, B.C. and any provinces considering joining TILMA should hold public consultations on this sweeping agreement.
Erin Weir is an economist with the Canadian Labour Congress. His presentation to Saskatchewan’s public hearings on joining TILMA is available at www.policyalternatives.ca.
Write a comment
Posted by Erin Weir under democracy, TILMA, labour market, transportation.
August 14th, 2007
Comments: none
On Friday, the National Post’s lead editorial suggested that inter-provincial trade barriers are significant enough to validate the Quebec-separatist view that “Canada is not a real country.” The following edited response from yours truly is printed as a “Counterpoint” in today’s edition:
In a recent editorial, the National Post called for all provinces to join the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA), which came into force between Alberta and British Columbia in April (”Let TILMA Grow,” Aug. 10).
According to the Post, TILMA is needed to eliminate inter-provincial trade barriers, “which, in certain sectors, actually make it easier for Canadian firms to trade with the United States than Canadian firms in different provinces.” Yet the Post identifies no sector for which this claim is accurate. From 2000 through 2006, inter-provincial exports grew four times faster than Canada’s international exports.
Canadian courts have consistently struck down provincial attempts to directly interfere with inter-provincial trade. What the Post calls “regulatory non-tariff trade barriers” are merely differences in provincial policy that may or may not have side-effects on inter-provincial commerce. These include occupational certification, procurement and trucking registration. The Post approvingly notes that Alberta and B.C. “are now bound to recognize the other’s occupational standards.” But the effect of this approach will be to turn the lowest standard in any province into the minimum standard for every province.
Prior to TILMA, all provinces except Quebec and B.C. maintained a common set of Red Seal standards for many skilled trades, ensuring inter-provincial mobility for tradespeople. Under TILMA, Alberta employers must accept people trained to lower standards in B.C. A far better approach would be for B.C. to adopt Red Seal standards.
The existing Agreement on Internal Trade prevents provincial governments from favouring local suppliers. TILMA will extend this regime to municipalities, school boards and Crown corporations. This is supposed to generate savings by expanding the pool of available suppliers for any given job. But at the municipal level, the cost of complying with arm’s-length procurement rules is likely to eclipse any potential cost savings.
Registering in multiple provinces undoubtedly creates a small additional cost for trucking companies under current rules. However, the Post’s suggestion that these companies are returning significant numbers of trucks empty to avoid registering in other provinces is unfounded. TILMA would encourage companies to register only in whichever province maintains the lowest standards.
Of course, provinces might reasonably choose to adopt common standards in some areas, but doing so hardly requires TILMA’s legalistic approach. This agreement’s enforcement mechanism allows private interests to sue for up to $5-million based on alleged violations by provincial governments, municipalities and school boards.
Rather than simply preventing measures that are discriminatory against businesses in other provinces, TILMA purports to “eliminate barriers that restrict or impair trade, investment or labour mobility.” The problem is that almost everything that governments do influences investment opportunities and could be challenged. TILMA’s limited, temporary exceptions protect a policy only if the government can prove that there is no conceivable alternative policy.
Commercial tribunals that meet behind closed doors, rather than provincial or federal courts, will interpret the extremely broad language of this 36-page agreement. Uncertainty about potential interpretations is already having a chilling effect on regulators in Alberta and B.C. who fear legal challenges. It makes no sense to sign a comprehensive agreement if there is no guarantee that tribunals will restrict its provisions to instances of genuine trade barriers.
Saskatchewan is the only province to have held public consultations on TILMA. Both the governing NDP and the right-wing Saskatchewan Party rejected the agreement because it severely constrains the capacity of provincial governments, municipalities and school boards to act in the public interest.
All provinces should join Saskatchewan in negotiating specific solutions to any minor inter-provincial barriers that may exist. At a minimum, Alberta, B.C. and any provinces considering joining TILMA should hold public consultations on this sweeping agreement.
Erin Weir is an economist with the Canadian Labour Congress. His presentation to Saskatchewan’s public hearings on joining TILMA is available at www.policyalternatives.ca.
Write a comment
Two articles on Ignatieff's "apology" for supporting Iraq war.
I doubt that Ignatieff's essay is worth all this spilled ink but both articles point out the obvious flaws and ludicrous aspects to Ignatieff's sort of taking back his support for the Iraq war, while retaining all the assumptions that led to his "mistake" in the first place.
How Michael Ignatieff put the 'I' in Iraq
On Michael Ignatieff's Times essay
>by Heather Mallick
August 13, 2007
My heart aches, and a nizzy dumbness—um, make that drowsy numbness—pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk ...
What? Sorry, I just read Michael Ignatieff's “Getting Iraq Wrong” thingy that ran in last week's New York Times Magazine, and my brain's as dizzy as Alberto Gonzales' fuzzy thinker in that ball thing on top of his neck. Gonzalez enters a fugue state whenever he testifies before a Senate committee, failing to recollect every meeting he ever attended if in fact he was there. The Onion has suggested that Gonzalez is not in fact the Attorney-General. He is a pool salesman from Tucson, Ariz., and he's got to get back there before the in-ground pool season ends, because that's where you get the big commissions. It's plausible.
That's how disoriented I am. I'm Cabana Al. Ignatieff's essay is so full of egotistical self-regard that I can practically see the buttons coming off his dress shirt as he typed it.
Writing a wrong
It starts with the headline, which I do understand is written not by him but by an editor (same thing happens here), but still. The headline should read “I was wrong about Iraq.” Instead, it is written in a tense almost as passive as the classic “Mistakes were made,” which is the one the Republicans use.
The headline begins with a gerund, “Getting Iraq Wrong,” as in “Leaving Las Vegas.” At least Nicolas Cage did in fact leave Las Vegas, by dying there. But Ignatieff does not really admit that he “got” Iraq wrong. Instead he attacks academics who predicted that the Iraqi invasion would be a disaster. They were right, Ignatieff says, but their rightness was based on ideology. Which is worse that rightness based on nobility, like Ignatieff's.
The really correct people were those who predicted a disaster but realized that George W. Bush had pure motives. “They labored, as everyone did, with the same faulty intelligence and lack of knowledge of Iraq's fissured sectarian history.”
Mike? Everyone I respect thought Bush's famously “sexed-up” case for war was as packed with lies as the Tonkin Gulf Incident that led to an overwhelming vote for a full-out American war in Vietnam.
Not a cakewalk
When Colin Powell started talking about “yellowcake” in Iraq, I laughed out loud. Britain had already had a Cake hoax. In 1997, a terrible new drug called Cake was killing Britain's young people. You could make it in your own kitchen! The deaths of these deluded kids looking for a high were tragic and hideous. One poor girl threw up her own pelvis bone, a roped-in celebrity said on TV as he begged British youngsters to say no to Cake. If people give you Cake, “chuck it back in their face and tell them to F@#K OFF!” brayed comedian Bernard Manning.
As it turned out, satirist Chris Morris had made up the whole thing for his show Brass Eye. There was no such drug. No more bandwagons, please, he was saying. But Ignatieff joined the neocon bandwagon. And he had lived in Britain during the Cake campaign. Then again, he does seem to be entirely without humour.
Now he wants off, but only while mocking liberals for being smart and right from the start. He says their motives were practical, while his motive was admiration for the Iraqi Kurds who had been decimated by Saddam Hussein.
So Mike's a Kurdite. But I'm a Marshist. I yield to no one in my admiration for the Marsh Arabs. This noble isolated people lived in the original Garden of Eden, the marshes between the Tigris and the Euphrates drained and burned by Saddam. (Read Gavin Young's Return to the Marshes, for their history). That said, I still thought the invasion was wrong.
A matter of mistakes
Ignatieff says mistakes only matter to politicians, not academics. But if you backed a disastrously inept politician like Bush, you're still partly responsible for the destruction of the Iraqi nation, the hot new torture wave, a trillion dollars wasted and a massive rotting pile of severed limbs and eyeballs that cartoonishly sums up the grotesquerie of human wishes.
Ignatieff is claiming pure motives. Sure, if naivete is pure, he's pure as hand-churned butter. But I can't figure out how such an intellectual squirmer, pretending to confess to error while defending same, came close to winning the Liberal leadership.
As for the matter of Ignatieff baring his shallow soul in the New York Times rather than a Canadian publication, it is strange how much he still clearly grovels for respect from American power. But all this makes him is Brian Mulroney reborn, a stage struck politician for whom Canada is not really the desired audience.
But my sympathy then disappears. For Ignatieff actually wrote this. “As a former denizen of Harvard, I've had to learn that a sense of reality doesn't always flourish in elite institutions. Bus drivers can display a shrewder grasp of what's what than Nobel Prize winners.”
What a patronizing yet groveling Uriah Heep-ish remark. It translates as, “Not everyone at Harvard is as smart as me. Even a prole can figure things out better than my dumb rivals.” The prole and his offspring, of course, are the ones most likely to be sent to fight in Iraq.
He goes on. “The only way any of us can improve our grasp of reality is to confront the world every day and learn.” I think this means he is going to take the bus from now on and learn from the homespun wisdom of the yokel at the wheel. He's going to have to if he ever wants to run Canada. Which is why it won't happen. There was a time when Ignatieff was deeply interested in his fellow humans. You can read it in his earlier, admirable books, which remain in my living room, not exiled to the basement with Amis the Younger and the other mediocre stuff.
But there aren't even many humans quoted in his essay, and no Iraqi place names beyond Abu Ghraib. His nouns are all of the statesmen/wisdom/politician/paradigmatic/benchmarks kind. I can't claim to speak for eyeless orphans in Fallujah or even a criminally undereducated American soldier who now realizes he was sent over as bomb fodder to protect Big Oil. I can't even boast of being right about Iraq from the beginning. It actually depressed the hell out of me. And no opinionated person ever changed a reader's mind.
But I know smug when I see it. Ignatieff's piece is not a retraction. It's a theoretical, hedged amplification of a justification.
And the second article:
Feeling icky about Iggy
>by Rick Salutin
August 10, 2007
For a moment last Sunday, as I opened Michael Ignatieff's alleged mea culpa—Getting Iraq Wrong—in The New York Times Magazine (heralded in advance by The Globe and Mail and lauded by the Times's resident war critic, Frank Rich), I thought he might have learned something. Then I read his piece.
“One thing is clear: The costs of staying will be borne by Americans, while the cost of leaving will be mostly borne by Iraqis.” How obscene. It is Iraq that was shattered. There are two million internal and two million external refugees. Everyone has weapons. No one has dependable power and thus clean water except the occupiers in the increasingly targeted Green Zone. The people of Iraq bore the cost of the U.S. going in and staying, and they will bear the cost when and if it leaves. All U.S. losses are collateral damage.
Or this: The war's opponents “opposed the invasion because they believed ... America is always and in every situation wrong.” Exactly who said that, Michael? Could we have a name? It's a cheap straw man, that's all, to go along with platitudes such as, “Not all good things, after all, can be had together, whether in life or in politics.”
What was the error of the war's backers? That they took “wishes for reality” and supposed, “as President Bush did, that because they believed in the integrity of their own motives everyone else in the region would believe in it, too.” What motives? To build “a free state” in Iraq, defend “human rights and freedom,” etc.
In other words, he accepts at face value all the rhetoric and propaganda used to justify the invasion. In other other words, there were no lies told. That's the stunning moment in his article. We are to believe that governments do not routinely lie about their motives, yet he himself writes in this very piece: “In public life, language is a weapon of war ... All that matters is what you said, not what you meant.” So we're supposed to believe George Bush did say what he meant? Let me catch my breath.
(There.) I admit I feel a bit icky attacking someone while he's trying to apologize, but I'm forcing myself because I think there's a larger issue here. I consider this article part of an effort to salvage a carefully constructed policy of Western interventionism in much of the world that has recently been sullied by the Iraq fiasco.
The policy itself remains. Tony Blair retires as British PM and morphs into a Mideast peace envoy, as if what that wretched region needs is yet more Western meddling. Gordon Brown takes over from him and prepares to depart Iraq but move even more heavily into Afghanistan, which gets typed as the good war, as opposed to the bad one in Iraq. The U.S. Democratic presidential candidates are all interventionists on this model. Yves Engler has presciently noted Canada's modest role in the pattern by policing Haiti, a tragic land that has suffered two centuries of near constant intervention.
The arguments for this course of action were built up by, among others, Michael Ignatieff, during the 1990s, when anti-communism was no longer available to justify Western foreign policy. The new rationales were human rights, failed states, right to protect, etc.
The showcases were Bosnia and Kosovo (though ethnic cleansing in Kosovo occurred after, and due to, the NATO bombing there), which led to Iraq and Afghanistan. It amounts to the same old world order of power politics, in a new dress. The only nations that claim the right to protect are those with the might to protect. The issue not addressed is whether foreign interventionism itself is a problem, complicit in many problems that “we” must then intervene in order to contain.
These policies have helped bring us to a point where almost everyone in the world is irate, terrified or both. It's time for a big rethink. That involves more than saying Oops about the isolated case of Iraq.
Originally published in The Globe and Mail, Rick Salutin's column appears every Friday
How Michael Ignatieff put the 'I' in Iraq
On Michael Ignatieff's Times essay
>by Heather Mallick
August 13, 2007
My heart aches, and a nizzy dumbness—um, make that drowsy numbness—pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk ...
What? Sorry, I just read Michael Ignatieff's “Getting Iraq Wrong” thingy that ran in last week's New York Times Magazine, and my brain's as dizzy as Alberto Gonzales' fuzzy thinker in that ball thing on top of his neck. Gonzalez enters a fugue state whenever he testifies before a Senate committee, failing to recollect every meeting he ever attended if in fact he was there. The Onion has suggested that Gonzalez is not in fact the Attorney-General. He is a pool salesman from Tucson, Ariz., and he's got to get back there before the in-ground pool season ends, because that's where you get the big commissions. It's plausible.
That's how disoriented I am. I'm Cabana Al. Ignatieff's essay is so full of egotistical self-regard that I can practically see the buttons coming off his dress shirt as he typed it.
Writing a wrong
It starts with the headline, which I do understand is written not by him but by an editor (same thing happens here), but still. The headline should read “I was wrong about Iraq.” Instead, it is written in a tense almost as passive as the classic “Mistakes were made,” which is the one the Republicans use.
The headline begins with a gerund, “Getting Iraq Wrong,” as in “Leaving Las Vegas.” At least Nicolas Cage did in fact leave Las Vegas, by dying there. But Ignatieff does not really admit that he “got” Iraq wrong. Instead he attacks academics who predicted that the Iraqi invasion would be a disaster. They were right, Ignatieff says, but their rightness was based on ideology. Which is worse that rightness based on nobility, like Ignatieff's.
The really correct people were those who predicted a disaster but realized that George W. Bush had pure motives. “They labored, as everyone did, with the same faulty intelligence and lack of knowledge of Iraq's fissured sectarian history.”
Mike? Everyone I respect thought Bush's famously “sexed-up” case for war was as packed with lies as the Tonkin Gulf Incident that led to an overwhelming vote for a full-out American war in Vietnam.
Not a cakewalk
When Colin Powell started talking about “yellowcake” in Iraq, I laughed out loud. Britain had already had a Cake hoax. In 1997, a terrible new drug called Cake was killing Britain's young people. You could make it in your own kitchen! The deaths of these deluded kids looking for a high were tragic and hideous. One poor girl threw up her own pelvis bone, a roped-in celebrity said on TV as he begged British youngsters to say no to Cake. If people give you Cake, “chuck it back in their face and tell them to F@#K OFF!” brayed comedian Bernard Manning.
As it turned out, satirist Chris Morris had made up the whole thing for his show Brass Eye. There was no such drug. No more bandwagons, please, he was saying. But Ignatieff joined the neocon bandwagon. And he had lived in Britain during the Cake campaign. Then again, he does seem to be entirely without humour.
Now he wants off, but only while mocking liberals for being smart and right from the start. He says their motives were practical, while his motive was admiration for the Iraqi Kurds who had been decimated by Saddam Hussein.
So Mike's a Kurdite. But I'm a Marshist. I yield to no one in my admiration for the Marsh Arabs. This noble isolated people lived in the original Garden of Eden, the marshes between the Tigris and the Euphrates drained and burned by Saddam. (Read Gavin Young's Return to the Marshes, for their history). That said, I still thought the invasion was wrong.
A matter of mistakes
Ignatieff says mistakes only matter to politicians, not academics. But if you backed a disastrously inept politician like Bush, you're still partly responsible for the destruction of the Iraqi nation, the hot new torture wave, a trillion dollars wasted and a massive rotting pile of severed limbs and eyeballs that cartoonishly sums up the grotesquerie of human wishes.
Ignatieff is claiming pure motives. Sure, if naivete is pure, he's pure as hand-churned butter. But I can't figure out how such an intellectual squirmer, pretending to confess to error while defending same, came close to winning the Liberal leadership.
As for the matter of Ignatieff baring his shallow soul in the New York Times rather than a Canadian publication, it is strange how much he still clearly grovels for respect from American power. But all this makes him is Brian Mulroney reborn, a stage struck politician for whom Canada is not really the desired audience.
But my sympathy then disappears. For Ignatieff actually wrote this. “As a former denizen of Harvard, I've had to learn that a sense of reality doesn't always flourish in elite institutions. Bus drivers can display a shrewder grasp of what's what than Nobel Prize winners.”
What a patronizing yet groveling Uriah Heep-ish remark. It translates as, “Not everyone at Harvard is as smart as me. Even a prole can figure things out better than my dumb rivals.” The prole and his offspring, of course, are the ones most likely to be sent to fight in Iraq.
He goes on. “The only way any of us can improve our grasp of reality is to confront the world every day and learn.” I think this means he is going to take the bus from now on and learn from the homespun wisdom of the yokel at the wheel. He's going to have to if he ever wants to run Canada. Which is why it won't happen. There was a time when Ignatieff was deeply interested in his fellow humans. You can read it in his earlier, admirable books, which remain in my living room, not exiled to the basement with Amis the Younger and the other mediocre stuff.
But there aren't even many humans quoted in his essay, and no Iraqi place names beyond Abu Ghraib. His nouns are all of the statesmen/wisdom/politician/paradigmatic/benchmarks kind. I can't claim to speak for eyeless orphans in Fallujah or even a criminally undereducated American soldier who now realizes he was sent over as bomb fodder to protect Big Oil. I can't even boast of being right about Iraq from the beginning. It actually depressed the hell out of me. And no opinionated person ever changed a reader's mind.
But I know smug when I see it. Ignatieff's piece is not a retraction. It's a theoretical, hedged amplification of a justification.
And the second article:
Feeling icky about Iggy
>by Rick Salutin
August 10, 2007
For a moment last Sunday, as I opened Michael Ignatieff's alleged mea culpa—Getting Iraq Wrong—in The New York Times Magazine (heralded in advance by The Globe and Mail and lauded by the Times's resident war critic, Frank Rich), I thought he might have learned something. Then I read his piece.
“One thing is clear: The costs of staying will be borne by Americans, while the cost of leaving will be mostly borne by Iraqis.” How obscene. It is Iraq that was shattered. There are two million internal and two million external refugees. Everyone has weapons. No one has dependable power and thus clean water except the occupiers in the increasingly targeted Green Zone. The people of Iraq bore the cost of the U.S. going in and staying, and they will bear the cost when and if it leaves. All U.S. losses are collateral damage.
Or this: The war's opponents “opposed the invasion because they believed ... America is always and in every situation wrong.” Exactly who said that, Michael? Could we have a name? It's a cheap straw man, that's all, to go along with platitudes such as, “Not all good things, after all, can be had together, whether in life or in politics.”
What was the error of the war's backers? That they took “wishes for reality” and supposed, “as President Bush did, that because they believed in the integrity of their own motives everyone else in the region would believe in it, too.” What motives? To build “a free state” in Iraq, defend “human rights and freedom,” etc.
In other words, he accepts at face value all the rhetoric and propaganda used to justify the invasion. In other other words, there were no lies told. That's the stunning moment in his article. We are to believe that governments do not routinely lie about their motives, yet he himself writes in this very piece: “In public life, language is a weapon of war ... All that matters is what you said, not what you meant.” So we're supposed to believe George Bush did say what he meant? Let me catch my breath.
(There.) I admit I feel a bit icky attacking someone while he's trying to apologize, but I'm forcing myself because I think there's a larger issue here. I consider this article part of an effort to salvage a carefully constructed policy of Western interventionism in much of the world that has recently been sullied by the Iraq fiasco.
The policy itself remains. Tony Blair retires as British PM and morphs into a Mideast peace envoy, as if what that wretched region needs is yet more Western meddling. Gordon Brown takes over from him and prepares to depart Iraq but move even more heavily into Afghanistan, which gets typed as the good war, as opposed to the bad one in Iraq. The U.S. Democratic presidential candidates are all interventionists on this model. Yves Engler has presciently noted Canada's modest role in the pattern by policing Haiti, a tragic land that has suffered two centuries of near constant intervention.
The arguments for this course of action were built up by, among others, Michael Ignatieff, during the 1990s, when anti-communism was no longer available to justify Western foreign policy. The new rationales were human rights, failed states, right to protect, etc.
The showcases were Bosnia and Kosovo (though ethnic cleansing in Kosovo occurred after, and due to, the NATO bombing there), which led to Iraq and Afghanistan. It amounts to the same old world order of power politics, in a new dress. The only nations that claim the right to protect are those with the might to protect. The issue not addressed is whether foreign interventionism itself is a problem, complicit in many problems that “we” must then intervene in order to contain.
These policies have helped bring us to a point where almost everyone in the world is irate, terrified or both. It's time for a big rethink. That involves more than saying Oops about the isolated case of Iraq.
Originally published in The Globe and Mail, Rick Salutin's column appears every Friday
Northerners divided over proposed Arctic military facilities
It seems the decision was made without consultation with northerners. I just wonder if any environmental studies were done. At least one site will be cleaned up. I guess the former mine owners are long gone. The cleanup is quite expensive.
It seems also that promises have been broken to Cambridge Bay residents. I imagine it is for reasons of geographical location in the very far north that the site was chosen. It will display Canadian activity in that area and strengthen the case for sovereignty. In more settled areas that is not needed.
Northerners divided over proposed Arctic military facilities
Last Updated: Monday, August 13, 2007 | 9:34 AM CT
CBC News
The news of Arctic military facilities coming to Nunavut has raised both hopes and concerns among northerners living near one of the selected sites, while disappointing leaders in communities that were not chosen.
The announced military sites in Resolute and Nanisivik, Nunavut, are located at the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage.
(CBC)
On Friday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the Canadian Forces will build a new army training centre in Resolute Bay, as well as refurbishing an existing deepwater port at a former lead and zinc mining site in Nanisivik.
The Nanisivik site, to be used mostly for docking and refuelling military vessels, is located close to the eastern entrance of the Northwest Passage — thus boosting Canada's sovereignty claim over the passage, Ottawa hopes. The port will also be used for civilian purposes, as a search and rescue facility and distribution centre.
Among those who live in Arctic Bay, located 20 kilometres from the Nanisivik site, reaction to the port news has been mixed.
Resident Johnny Attagutsik told CBC News he hopes the new port will not only create much-needed jobs for people in the hamlet, but also bring in more cruise ships and other vessels — possibly even bringing down the costs of transportation to the community.
"Sometimes we need help for the community, like sealift, aircraft," Attagutsik said Friday, adding he hopes the facility will make sea lift and airfare costs cheaper.
But Canadian Ranger Sgt. Manasie Kilukishak said he is worried about the impact the port could have on wildlife in the area, which provides important hunting grounds for seals and other mammals. Kilukishak also raised concerns about noise pollution all that marine traffic could make.
The federal government will spend up to $100 million to clean up contamination at the Nanisivik site, preparing it for military use. It is expected to be fully operational in the next seven years.
In Resolute Bay, the new army training centre will provide cold-weather training and house up to 100 military personnel. Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor said the Defence Department will start training next year, using existing infrastructure at the site.
"We're going to start initially by using the Natural Resources facilities they have there, and we anticipate that over time we're going to have to put some separate buildings up ourselves for DND," O'Connor said.
Decision upset politicians from Iqaluit, Cambridge Bay
The site of a former mine at Nanisivik, near Arctic Bay, will become fully operational as a military deepwater port in the next seven years.
(Patricia Bell/CBC)
Among those not happy with Harper's announcement was Iqaluit Mayor Elisapee Sheutiapik, who said her city conducted a feasibility study that showed the Nunavut capital was a suitable site for the deep-sea port.
Sheutiapik said basing the port in Iqaluit would have served other communities in addition to its primary roles. As well, she said the local airport should have made the city an ideal choice.
"We have one of the biggest airstrips in Canada," she said. "So I personally thought that the deep-sea port and our airstrip go perfectly hand in hand."
In western Nunavut, Cambridge Bay MLA Keith Peterson said his region has also felt left out by Harper's announcement.
During the last election campaign, Peterson said, the Conservatives had promised Cambridge Bay the military training site that has now gone to Resolute Bay.
"The governing party of Canada, when they make a statement in a key document like that, to me in my mind and many of the people here, it's not a promise. It's almost like a rock-solid guarantee that this is our strategy for the military in Canada," he said.
"So when you get elected and then you suddenly turn around and change your mind, what happened? Why did they change their mind?"
Peterson said he has not received a good explanation from the Conservatives as to why Cambridge Bay was not selected.
Premiers absent from PM's announcements
Harper's visits to Resolute Bay and Nanisivik capped a three-day northern tour. Earlier last week, he announced expanded boundaries to Nahanni National Park in the Northwest Territories.
Neither Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik nor N.W.T. Premier Joe Handley were in their respective territories last week for Harper's announcements. Both were in Moncton, N.B., for Council of the Federation meetings with their fellow premiers.
Harper deflected criticism from some leaders that he had failed to consult with northerners about his arctic sovereignty and security plans, or even about his plans to come north to announce those plans.
"Obviously military decisions have to be made on a military basis," Harper said Friday.
"But in terms of decisions we announced on Resolute and on Nanisivik, they're obviously going to benefit local people, they'll be involved in construction, hopefully employment as well."
It seems also that promises have been broken to Cambridge Bay residents. I imagine it is for reasons of geographical location in the very far north that the site was chosen. It will display Canadian activity in that area and strengthen the case for sovereignty. In more settled areas that is not needed.
Northerners divided over proposed Arctic military facilities
Last Updated: Monday, August 13, 2007 | 9:34 AM CT
CBC News
The news of Arctic military facilities coming to Nunavut has raised both hopes and concerns among northerners living near one of the selected sites, while disappointing leaders in communities that were not chosen.
The announced military sites in Resolute and Nanisivik, Nunavut, are located at the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage.
(CBC)
On Friday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the Canadian Forces will build a new army training centre in Resolute Bay, as well as refurbishing an existing deepwater port at a former lead and zinc mining site in Nanisivik.
The Nanisivik site, to be used mostly for docking and refuelling military vessels, is located close to the eastern entrance of the Northwest Passage — thus boosting Canada's sovereignty claim over the passage, Ottawa hopes. The port will also be used for civilian purposes, as a search and rescue facility and distribution centre.
Among those who live in Arctic Bay, located 20 kilometres from the Nanisivik site, reaction to the port news has been mixed.
Resident Johnny Attagutsik told CBC News he hopes the new port will not only create much-needed jobs for people in the hamlet, but also bring in more cruise ships and other vessels — possibly even bringing down the costs of transportation to the community.
"Sometimes we need help for the community, like sealift, aircraft," Attagutsik said Friday, adding he hopes the facility will make sea lift and airfare costs cheaper.
But Canadian Ranger Sgt. Manasie Kilukishak said he is worried about the impact the port could have on wildlife in the area, which provides important hunting grounds for seals and other mammals. Kilukishak also raised concerns about noise pollution all that marine traffic could make.
The federal government will spend up to $100 million to clean up contamination at the Nanisivik site, preparing it for military use. It is expected to be fully operational in the next seven years.
In Resolute Bay, the new army training centre will provide cold-weather training and house up to 100 military personnel. Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor said the Defence Department will start training next year, using existing infrastructure at the site.
"We're going to start initially by using the Natural Resources facilities they have there, and we anticipate that over time we're going to have to put some separate buildings up ourselves for DND," O'Connor said.
Decision upset politicians from Iqaluit, Cambridge Bay
The site of a former mine at Nanisivik, near Arctic Bay, will become fully operational as a military deepwater port in the next seven years.
(Patricia Bell/CBC)
Among those not happy with Harper's announcement was Iqaluit Mayor Elisapee Sheutiapik, who said her city conducted a feasibility study that showed the Nunavut capital was a suitable site for the deep-sea port.
Sheutiapik said basing the port in Iqaluit would have served other communities in addition to its primary roles. As well, she said the local airport should have made the city an ideal choice.
"We have one of the biggest airstrips in Canada," she said. "So I personally thought that the deep-sea port and our airstrip go perfectly hand in hand."
In western Nunavut, Cambridge Bay MLA Keith Peterson said his region has also felt left out by Harper's announcement.
During the last election campaign, Peterson said, the Conservatives had promised Cambridge Bay the military training site that has now gone to Resolute Bay.
"The governing party of Canada, when they make a statement in a key document like that, to me in my mind and many of the people here, it's not a promise. It's almost like a rock-solid guarantee that this is our strategy for the military in Canada," he said.
"So when you get elected and then you suddenly turn around and change your mind, what happened? Why did they change their mind?"
Peterson said he has not received a good explanation from the Conservatives as to why Cambridge Bay was not selected.
Premiers absent from PM's announcements
Harper's visits to Resolute Bay and Nanisivik capped a three-day northern tour. Earlier last week, he announced expanded boundaries to Nahanni National Park in the Northwest Territories.
Neither Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik nor N.W.T. Premier Joe Handley were in their respective territories last week for Harper's announcements. Both were in Moncton, N.B., for Council of the Federation meetings with their fellow premiers.
Harper deflected criticism from some leaders that he had failed to consult with northerners about his arctic sovereignty and security plans, or even about his plans to come north to announce those plans.
"Obviously military decisions have to be made on a military basis," Harper said Friday.
"But in terms of decisions we announced on Resolute and on Nanisivik, they're obviously going to benefit local people, they'll be involved in construction, hopefully employment as well."
Monday, August 13, 2007
RCMP defends its actions in Arar affair
The RCMP knew very well that the information from El Maati was probably the result of torture but used it any way. If the RCMP did not want to reveal its sources then it should not have used the information since it knew it might very well be tainted.
The RCMP and CSIS did nothing to alert the government about their suspicions that Arar was being rendered. They did nothing to help the government get Arar released either. In fact there were mysterious leakings of classified documents concerning Arar's confessions that made Arar look to be a terrorist. Very convenient.
RCMP defends its actions in the Arar affair
Updated Sun. Aug. 12 2007 12:10 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
The RCMP is brushing aside suggestions it was wrong to rely on questionable intelligence obtained from abroad to support search and wiretap warrant applications in the case of Maher Arar and another Canadian of Arab origin held in Syria.
A Sept. 2006 report by Justice Dennis O'Connor said the RCMP wrongly labelled Arar a terrorist and passed that information to U.S. authorities, who then arrested Arar and deported him to Syria on Oct. 8, 2002.
On Thursday, newly-released documentary evidence compiled by a public inquiry showed Canada's spy agency suspected -- within two days of Arar's deportation -- that the United States was to ship Arar somewhere in the Middle East to face possible torture.
Canada was unaware at the time that Arar had already been "rendered" to Syria, where he was tortured into false confessions of links to al Qaeda.
O'Connor concluded, in a section of his report that had also been secret until now, that the RCMP used information from an unnamed country to help obtain search warrants against several individuals in January 2002 -- as part of a wider anti-terrorist investigation known as Project A-O Canada.
Those details came out Thursday in the final disclosure of roughly 1,000 blacked-out words from the original 2006 report -- words which government lawyers argued would compromise national security, international relations or the defence of Canada if released.
Assistant RCMP Commissioner Mike McDonnell says Canada was keeping its word in keeping secret and acting upon intelligence information obtained relating to Arar.
"I think it's safe to say that all information comes with a caveat: that it's for our use and our use only and we protect the source," McDonnell said in an interview aired Sunday on CTV's Question Period, explaining the RCMP's view on why the information wasn't released.
"That's a common international practice, it's a common domestic practice on criminal intelligence -- that you need the other person's permission to act on that intelligence. The third party rule, it's called. So when we give our word to another agency that the information is for our use and our use alone, we prefer to protect that and keep our word."
But Marlys Edwardh, one of Arar's lawyers, blasted the Mounties for relying on intelligence obtained abroad -- possibly under torture -- to support search and wiretap warrant applications within Canada.
She told CTV's Question Period that obtaining a search warrant in Canada requires, under the Criminal Code, that a party swears to that information, and a judicial officer assesses whether or not it justifies a search.
But the information the RCMP used to obtain a warrant, said Edwardh, "was either entirely unevaluated or indeed was information that came directly from torture. And the RCMP in characterizing that information and putting it before a judge had really mischaracterized the strength of their case, mischaracterized the kind of inferences that were available.
"And quite frankly that undermines our administration of criminal justice in this country."
The O'Connor report found the RCMP included suspect evidence in an application for a wiretap warrant in September 2002. This time the information came from a purported confession by Ahmad El Maati, another Arab-Canadian who was interrogated in Damascus but later repudiated the statements he made there and said they were extracted under torture.
The RCMP acknowledged, in their affidavit, that El Maati had changed his story but suggested he could be lying in his claims of mistreatment as part of a "damage control'' effort. They also insisted that, whatever the circumstances of the original confession, they had obtained evidence to corroborate what the Syrians had passed to them.
A separate inquiry is currently under way, under former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, into the cases of El Maati and two other men: Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All three deny any terrorist links and suspect the RCMP and CSIS collaborated in their detention and torture abroad.
McDonnell would not answer questions as to why the RCMP wasn't more forthcoming before the judge about Syria's poor human rights record or possible use of torture in extracting information.
"Justice Iacobucci has an inquiry into those events, and I wouldn't want to pre-empt his work in any manner," he told Question Period.
McDonnell said since the Arar affair, the RCMP has made substantial changes to its policy and procedures regarding information handling and sharing.
"This includes the creation of a Sensitive Document Handling Unit at RCMP headquarters, which will ensure criminal intelligence is properly vetted and controlled."
When asked why such a system wasn't already in place before the Arar affair, McDonnell replied that police and intelligence agencies in the West just weren't prepared for the terrorist events that were to happen in 2001.
"I think the whole Western world was taken aback by the events of 9/11 and I don't know any of our allies that were prepared for this event, any police agency or intelligence agency that was prepared for such an event," he said.
"I think to be fair we have to look at the context of the times. We just suffered a horrendous attack and everyone was working to stop another one."
O'Connor's report did not find that CSIS, which hasn't yet commented on the new report, alerted the government at the time it suspected Arar would be deported. Critics say this oversight suggests collusion between Canadian and U.S. security authorities in the ordeal Arar ultimately faced in Syria.
Edwardh told Question Period the fact CSIS did nothing with the information they had suggests "rendering" was something the agency supported.
"They did not come forward to any political person in Ottawa, they didn't' seek access or give information to cabinet. Certainly we didn't see anything like that and one can only conclude that knowing what they knew and doing nothing served their interests and supported the U.S."
With files from The Canadian Press
The RCMP and CSIS did nothing to alert the government about their suspicions that Arar was being rendered. They did nothing to help the government get Arar released either. In fact there were mysterious leakings of classified documents concerning Arar's confessions that made Arar look to be a terrorist. Very convenient.
RCMP defends its actions in the Arar affair
Updated Sun. Aug. 12 2007 12:10 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
The RCMP is brushing aside suggestions it was wrong to rely on questionable intelligence obtained from abroad to support search and wiretap warrant applications in the case of Maher Arar and another Canadian of Arab origin held in Syria.
A Sept. 2006 report by Justice Dennis O'Connor said the RCMP wrongly labelled Arar a terrorist and passed that information to U.S. authorities, who then arrested Arar and deported him to Syria on Oct. 8, 2002.
On Thursday, newly-released documentary evidence compiled by a public inquiry showed Canada's spy agency suspected -- within two days of Arar's deportation -- that the United States was to ship Arar somewhere in the Middle East to face possible torture.
Canada was unaware at the time that Arar had already been "rendered" to Syria, where he was tortured into false confessions of links to al Qaeda.
O'Connor concluded, in a section of his report that had also been secret until now, that the RCMP used information from an unnamed country to help obtain search warrants against several individuals in January 2002 -- as part of a wider anti-terrorist investigation known as Project A-O Canada.
Those details came out Thursday in the final disclosure of roughly 1,000 blacked-out words from the original 2006 report -- words which government lawyers argued would compromise national security, international relations or the defence of Canada if released.
Assistant RCMP Commissioner Mike McDonnell says Canada was keeping its word in keeping secret and acting upon intelligence information obtained relating to Arar.
"I think it's safe to say that all information comes with a caveat: that it's for our use and our use only and we protect the source," McDonnell said in an interview aired Sunday on CTV's Question Period, explaining the RCMP's view on why the information wasn't released.
"That's a common international practice, it's a common domestic practice on criminal intelligence -- that you need the other person's permission to act on that intelligence. The third party rule, it's called. So when we give our word to another agency that the information is for our use and our use alone, we prefer to protect that and keep our word."
But Marlys Edwardh, one of Arar's lawyers, blasted the Mounties for relying on intelligence obtained abroad -- possibly under torture -- to support search and wiretap warrant applications within Canada.
She told CTV's Question Period that obtaining a search warrant in Canada requires, under the Criminal Code, that a party swears to that information, and a judicial officer assesses whether or not it justifies a search.
But the information the RCMP used to obtain a warrant, said Edwardh, "was either entirely unevaluated or indeed was information that came directly from torture. And the RCMP in characterizing that information and putting it before a judge had really mischaracterized the strength of their case, mischaracterized the kind of inferences that were available.
"And quite frankly that undermines our administration of criminal justice in this country."
The O'Connor report found the RCMP included suspect evidence in an application for a wiretap warrant in September 2002. This time the information came from a purported confession by Ahmad El Maati, another Arab-Canadian who was interrogated in Damascus but later repudiated the statements he made there and said they were extracted under torture.
The RCMP acknowledged, in their affidavit, that El Maati had changed his story but suggested he could be lying in his claims of mistreatment as part of a "damage control'' effort. They also insisted that, whatever the circumstances of the original confession, they had obtained evidence to corroborate what the Syrians had passed to them.
A separate inquiry is currently under way, under former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, into the cases of El Maati and two other men: Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All three deny any terrorist links and suspect the RCMP and CSIS collaborated in their detention and torture abroad.
McDonnell would not answer questions as to why the RCMP wasn't more forthcoming before the judge about Syria's poor human rights record or possible use of torture in extracting information.
"Justice Iacobucci has an inquiry into those events, and I wouldn't want to pre-empt his work in any manner," he told Question Period.
McDonnell said since the Arar affair, the RCMP has made substantial changes to its policy and procedures regarding information handling and sharing.
"This includes the creation of a Sensitive Document Handling Unit at RCMP headquarters, which will ensure criminal intelligence is properly vetted and controlled."
When asked why such a system wasn't already in place before the Arar affair, McDonnell replied that police and intelligence agencies in the West just weren't prepared for the terrorist events that were to happen in 2001.
"I think the whole Western world was taken aback by the events of 9/11 and I don't know any of our allies that were prepared for this event, any police agency or intelligence agency that was prepared for such an event," he said.
"I think to be fair we have to look at the context of the times. We just suffered a horrendous attack and everyone was working to stop another one."
O'Connor's report did not find that CSIS, which hasn't yet commented on the new report, alerted the government at the time it suspected Arar would be deported. Critics say this oversight suggests collusion between Canadian and U.S. security authorities in the ordeal Arar ultimately faced in Syria.
Edwardh told Question Period the fact CSIS did nothing with the information they had suggests "rendering" was something the agency supported.
"They did not come forward to any political person in Ottawa, they didn't' seek access or give information to cabinet. Certainly we didn't see anything like that and one can only conclude that knowing what they knew and doing nothing served their interests and supported the U.S."
With files from The Canadian Press
Khadr Plea
It is unlikely that Harper will do much about this. He does not want to ruffle US feathers especially if it is likely to do no good. Khadr is accused of killing a US special forces Sgt. in Afghanistan. Khadr was only fifteen at the time. He has been jailed for 5 years now without trial. The US no doubt wants vengeance and would probably fear domestic reaction if it released Khadr to Canada. The whole affair of holding a juvenile for five years without charge is a travesty of justice but that is not likely to influence any outcome. Guantanamo processes themselves are a travesty of justice and it goes on and on run by the hegemon that stands for freedom, justice, and the rule of law.
Khadr Plea
Aug 13, 2007 08:25 AM
Tracey Tyler
LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER
CALGARY–Canada's largest legal organization is demanding Prime Minister Stephen Harper begin negotiating with the United States government to have 20-year-old Canadian terror suspect Omar Khadr freed from a military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and returned to face justice at home.
It is not enough, the Canadian Bar Association says, for the federal government to accept the Bush administration's assurances that due process is being followed at the U.S. naval base, described by Khadr's own military lawyer as a "modern-day Devil's Island."
In a letter sent to Harper yesterday, outgoing bar association president Parker MacCarthy is asking that Khadr be released "into the custody of Canadian law enforcement officials" and returned to Canada to face due process under Canadian law.
With the possibility that Khadr could face a military trial next month, there's no time to waste, said MacCarthy, who drew a standing ovation after breaking into previously scheduled business at the association's annual meeting here to read from the letter.
It was written just hours after Khadr's American lawyer, Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, came to the conference to appeal for the organization's help in pressuring for his client's release.
The military defence lawyer encouraged the group to follow the example of legal organizations in the United Kingdom and Australia, whose lobbying efforts helped lead to the repatriation of citizens, in at least one case under a plea arrangement negotiated with the U.S.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Kuebler called the letter "very encouraging" and "a strong step in the right direction."
"If the (Bush) administration is sincere that it doesn't want to be the world's jailer, you would think it would want to have Omar released," he said.
Describing Khadr as chained to the floor during their most recent meeting and in a state of rapid mental decline, Kuebler said his client – captured at age 15 and accused of killing a U.S. Special Forces officer during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan – is certainly not a war criminal but, at most, a "child soldier" brainwashed by his father, Ahmed, described as an affiliate of Osama bin Laden.
In his letter, MacCarthy said Khadr's status as a minor at the time of his capture only heightens the need for Canadian government intervention.
Having signed on to an international treaty on the rights of children recruited for armed combat, which stresses the need for rehabilitation as opposed to prosecution and imprisonment, Canada has "an obligation," MacCarthy said, to ensure it follows those principles when it comes to Khadr – the only Canadian and lone Westerner remaining in an Guantanamo prison.
Although Khadr has been locked up for five years and the bar association has in the past spoken out in the past against conditions at Guantanamo, the letter is the first the first time the group has taken up Khadr's case. MacCarthy frankly acknowledged that he was moved to action by the vigour of Kuebler's defence.
"When I see lawyers who take on very unpopular cases and when I see Lt. Commander Kuebler standing up to not only the highest levels of government in his country, but the military establishment, I'm moved by the courage of that man," he said in an interview.
The U.S. government alleges Khadr threw a grenade that killed special forces Sgt. Christopher Speer.
There is evidence that Speer was killed while engaging in "an assault" but the U.S. government has taken the position that anyone who resisted the American invasion in Afghanistan was guilty of a war crime, Kuebler said.
A military judge dismissed charges against Khadr in June, ruling that military commissions set up by the U.S. government to try alleged war crimes did not have the jurisdiction to hear the case.
The Pentagon's appeal of that decision is scheduled for Aug. 24. Kuebler said if the appeal is allowed, Khadr could be put on trial as early as next month before a tribunal that operates according to rules that would be considered illegal in other Western courts of law.
It's worth noting that only foreign nationals can come before the tribunals and that America does not subject its own citizens to the process, he said.
While the bar association's response to Khadr's situation is in keeping with a recent Angus Reid poll showing a slim majority of Canadians now want the federal government to intervene on his behalf, yesterday's letter is still only "a start," said Kuebler.
While MacCarthy said he didn't want to overstate what the bar association might be able to do for Khadr, he was optimistic yesterday that securing his release will become a priority.
MacCarthy said he expects bar association officials will be speaking soon with law society members in England and Australia to learn more about their lobbying campaigns. The association is also consulting with Toronto lawyer Lorne Waldman, who represented Maher Arar, who was tortured in a Syrian prison after being wrongly suspected of terrorism by the U.S.
Waldman told reporters on Saturday there are some parallels between the Khadr and Arar cases.
"I can't tell you how disappointed I personally am, as a Canadian, in our government's complete abdication of responsibility to a Canadian child who's being detained in horrible conditions and being denied due process," he said.
Khadr Plea
Aug 13, 2007 08:25 AM
Tracey Tyler
LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER
CALGARY–Canada's largest legal organization is demanding Prime Minister Stephen Harper begin negotiating with the United States government to have 20-year-old Canadian terror suspect Omar Khadr freed from a military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and returned to face justice at home.
It is not enough, the Canadian Bar Association says, for the federal government to accept the Bush administration's assurances that due process is being followed at the U.S. naval base, described by Khadr's own military lawyer as a "modern-day Devil's Island."
In a letter sent to Harper yesterday, outgoing bar association president Parker MacCarthy is asking that Khadr be released "into the custody of Canadian law enforcement officials" and returned to Canada to face due process under Canadian law.
With the possibility that Khadr could face a military trial next month, there's no time to waste, said MacCarthy, who drew a standing ovation after breaking into previously scheduled business at the association's annual meeting here to read from the letter.
It was written just hours after Khadr's American lawyer, Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, came to the conference to appeal for the organization's help in pressuring for his client's release.
The military defence lawyer encouraged the group to follow the example of legal organizations in the United Kingdom and Australia, whose lobbying efforts helped lead to the repatriation of citizens, in at least one case under a plea arrangement negotiated with the U.S.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Kuebler called the letter "very encouraging" and "a strong step in the right direction."
"If the (Bush) administration is sincere that it doesn't want to be the world's jailer, you would think it would want to have Omar released," he said.
Describing Khadr as chained to the floor during their most recent meeting and in a state of rapid mental decline, Kuebler said his client – captured at age 15 and accused of killing a U.S. Special Forces officer during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan – is certainly not a war criminal but, at most, a "child soldier" brainwashed by his father, Ahmed, described as an affiliate of Osama bin Laden.
In his letter, MacCarthy said Khadr's status as a minor at the time of his capture only heightens the need for Canadian government intervention.
Having signed on to an international treaty on the rights of children recruited for armed combat, which stresses the need for rehabilitation as opposed to prosecution and imprisonment, Canada has "an obligation," MacCarthy said, to ensure it follows those principles when it comes to Khadr – the only Canadian and lone Westerner remaining in an Guantanamo prison.
Although Khadr has been locked up for five years and the bar association has in the past spoken out in the past against conditions at Guantanamo, the letter is the first the first time the group has taken up Khadr's case. MacCarthy frankly acknowledged that he was moved to action by the vigour of Kuebler's defence.
"When I see lawyers who take on very unpopular cases and when I see Lt. Commander Kuebler standing up to not only the highest levels of government in his country, but the military establishment, I'm moved by the courage of that man," he said in an interview.
The U.S. government alleges Khadr threw a grenade that killed special forces Sgt. Christopher Speer.
There is evidence that Speer was killed while engaging in "an assault" but the U.S. government has taken the position that anyone who resisted the American invasion in Afghanistan was guilty of a war crime, Kuebler said.
A military judge dismissed charges against Khadr in June, ruling that military commissions set up by the U.S. government to try alleged war crimes did not have the jurisdiction to hear the case.
The Pentagon's appeal of that decision is scheduled for Aug. 24. Kuebler said if the appeal is allowed, Khadr could be put on trial as early as next month before a tribunal that operates according to rules that would be considered illegal in other Western courts of law.
It's worth noting that only foreign nationals can come before the tribunals and that America does not subject its own citizens to the process, he said.
While the bar association's response to Khadr's situation is in keeping with a recent Angus Reid poll showing a slim majority of Canadians now want the federal government to intervene on his behalf, yesterday's letter is still only "a start," said Kuebler.
While MacCarthy said he didn't want to overstate what the bar association might be able to do for Khadr, he was optimistic yesterday that securing his release will become a priority.
MacCarthy said he expects bar association officials will be speaking soon with law society members in England and Australia to learn more about their lobbying campaigns. The association is also consulting with Toronto lawyer Lorne Waldman, who represented Maher Arar, who was tortured in a Syrian prison after being wrongly suspected of terrorism by the U.S.
Waldman told reporters on Saturday there are some parallels between the Khadr and Arar cases.
"I can't tell you how disappointed I personally am, as a Canadian, in our government's complete abdication of responsibility to a Canadian child who's being detained in horrible conditions and being denied due process," he said.
CEO's not buying Harper cabinet.
I find this poll a bit surprising. Except for the trusts taxation turnabout I thought that the Harper government was in general pro-business. Perhaps it is simply that governments are never pro-business enough for business leaders! I wonder what it is they expect from the Conservatives that would make them so much different from the Liberals. Both are pro-business in general as far as I can see. In a democracy you can't expect government to simply ignore other interests all the time! In fact you can't expect that in any government.
Hmm. A strange headline. Is the Harper cabinet for sale to business?
CEOs not buying Harper cabinet
Business leaders weary of 'new' government in Financial Post-BDO Dunwoody poll
David Pett
Financial Post
Sunday, August 12, 2007
The honeymoon is over for Stephen Harper's Cabinet, according to Canadian business leaders who believe the current government has done little to differentiate itself from its Liberal predecessor.
That's the conclusion of a Web-based COMPAS poll conducted in conjunction with BDO Dunwoody LLP for the Financial Post, which asked a panel of CEOs and business leaders to assess the Prime Minister and key ministers in Cabinet. The poll was conducted after media speculation about a Cabinet shuffle, expected as early as Monday.
In their assessment of key ministers governing the country, the panelists spared no one, as performance scores for every minister fell since the last, similar poll in February, 2006. That includes the Prime Minister, who saw his score drop from 74 to 66 on a 100-point school report-type scale. Mr. Harper still continues to outperform his ministers, however, and his performance score also remains higher than previous Liberal prime ministers Paul Martin and Jean Chrtien, who rarely scored higher than 55.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's score dropped 17 points to 64. That's good enough to rank among the highest-performing ministers, alongside Peter McKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, who scored 65, and Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, who scored 60.
In October last year, Mr. Flaherty reversed a Conservative election promise not to tinker with government tax policy regarding income trusts, by announcing that income trusts would no longer benefit from "unfavourable tax incentives" come 2011.
The panelists regard taxation as the most important priority affecting their evaluation of the Conservative government. "Tax policy is a joke and undermines the confidence of business in relying on an understanding government, which it is not," one respondent said. "There seems to be too little thinking about repercussions about tax changes and more bowing down to policy wonks. They are not living in the real world."
Also noteworthy is the fall in ratings of Environment Minister John Baird. His score dropped 18 points to 57, following recent environmental announcements on greenhouse gas emissions that one panelist called "unachievable, unfair and the opposite of what the government had promised."
Taken together, the decisions made on tax policy and the environment reflect a general disappointment among respondents, who believe these decisions are symptomatic of a government unwilling to set an agenda that is distinct from Liberal leadership of the past.
"The overall feeling is this is a Liberal government in Conservative clothing," COMPAS founder Conrad Winn said. "That came in pretty loud and clear."
The 118 respondents to the survey conducted from Aug. 8 to 10 were hand-picked, with a higher representation of small and medium-sized firms. The study is considered more accurate than similarly sized public surveys because of the small population of CEOs and business leaders from which the sample was drawn.
Hmm. A strange headline. Is the Harper cabinet for sale to business?
CEOs not buying Harper cabinet
Business leaders weary of 'new' government in Financial Post-BDO Dunwoody poll
David Pett
Financial Post
Sunday, August 12, 2007
The honeymoon is over for Stephen Harper's Cabinet, according to Canadian business leaders who believe the current government has done little to differentiate itself from its Liberal predecessor.
That's the conclusion of a Web-based COMPAS poll conducted in conjunction with BDO Dunwoody LLP for the Financial Post, which asked a panel of CEOs and business leaders to assess the Prime Minister and key ministers in Cabinet. The poll was conducted after media speculation about a Cabinet shuffle, expected as early as Monday.
In their assessment of key ministers governing the country, the panelists spared no one, as performance scores for every minister fell since the last, similar poll in February, 2006. That includes the Prime Minister, who saw his score drop from 74 to 66 on a 100-point school report-type scale. Mr. Harper still continues to outperform his ministers, however, and his performance score also remains higher than previous Liberal prime ministers Paul Martin and Jean Chrtien, who rarely scored higher than 55.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's score dropped 17 points to 64. That's good enough to rank among the highest-performing ministers, alongside Peter McKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, who scored 65, and Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, who scored 60.
In October last year, Mr. Flaherty reversed a Conservative election promise not to tinker with government tax policy regarding income trusts, by announcing that income trusts would no longer benefit from "unfavourable tax incentives" come 2011.
The panelists regard taxation as the most important priority affecting their evaluation of the Conservative government. "Tax policy is a joke and undermines the confidence of business in relying on an understanding government, which it is not," one respondent said. "There seems to be too little thinking about repercussions about tax changes and more bowing down to policy wonks. They are not living in the real world."
Also noteworthy is the fall in ratings of Environment Minister John Baird. His score dropped 18 points to 57, following recent environmental announcements on greenhouse gas emissions that one panelist called "unachievable, unfair and the opposite of what the government had promised."
Taken together, the decisions made on tax policy and the environment reflect a general disappointment among respondents, who believe these decisions are symptomatic of a government unwilling to set an agenda that is distinct from Liberal leadership of the past.
"The overall feeling is this is a Liberal government in Conservative clothing," COMPAS founder Conrad Winn said. "That came in pretty loud and clear."
The 118 respondents to the survey conducted from Aug. 8 to 10 were hand-picked, with a higher representation of small and medium-sized firms. The study is considered more accurate than similarly sized public surveys because of the small population of CEOs and business leaders from which the sample was drawn.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Iacobucci Inquiry: Lessons not learned
Actually the lessons have been well learned. Releasing any embarassing "secret" can be dangerous. Therefore make sure that almost everything in the Iacobucci Inquiry is kept secret. Also, if El Maati, Nureddin, and Almalki are allowed to clear their name even more compensation might be order. Therefore ensure they have no opportunity to do that and release absolutely nothing that might further their cases.
I read a few of the comments on this article. Some are mind-boggling. One person suggests that the Arar case shows we should stop all immigration from the Middle East and that mixing cultures has been shown a failure.
Lessons not learned
Adam Radwanski, August 10, 2007 at 2:57 PM EDT
I'm back about a day late to add much of value to the Maher Arar fallout; it's been well-covered by others, including my colleagues on the editorial board. But if we're going to look ahead a little (while still looking back), it's probably about the right time to ask whether we should be asking a bit more of this.
Granted, none of the three gentlemen at the centre of the Iacobucci inquiry cut quite the sympathetic figure that Arar did. They're not as telegenic or articulate, and their innocence might not be quite as clear-cut. But bottom line is, we've got an inquiry into very familiar allegations - that Canadian citizens were imprisoned and tortured in Syria (and Egypt) with some degree of Canadian complicity - and nobody much seems to care.
More to the point, we're not being given much opportunity to care. To their credit, the Conservatives showed they took the allegations of Muayyed Nureddin, Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad El Maati seriously by appointing a retired Supreme Court justice to look into them. But then they instructed said retired Supreme Court justice to keep the inquiry "internal," by which they apparently meant secretive.
Some measure of secrecy is reasonable when national security matters are in play, but Iaccobucci seems to be taking it beyond even what the Tories had implied. The inquiry is so clandestine that even Nureddin, Almalki and El Maati aren't getting to find out much about what led to the apparent abuses they endured.
To make matters worse, he seems hell-bent on limiting the number of witnesses appearing before him. In part, it's been suggested to me, that's because he's dead-set against going past the January 2008 deadline the Tories set for his report - giving him very little time to get through three separate cases.
If the inquiry flies under the radar as it proceeds, that might not be the end of the world. But if it produces a half-assed result, we're all going to be the poorer for it. You'd think what we found out this week about the perils of secrecy would have Canadians (not least opposition politicians) crying foul. Instead, we seem to have determined that one Maher Arar is enough for us - a noble sentiment if it means preventing further cases like his, but not if it's ignoring past ones.
I read a few of the comments on this article. Some are mind-boggling. One person suggests that the Arar case shows we should stop all immigration from the Middle East and that mixing cultures has been shown a failure.
Lessons not learned
Adam Radwanski, August 10, 2007 at 2:57 PM EDT
I'm back about a day late to add much of value to the Maher Arar fallout; it's been well-covered by others, including my colleagues on the editorial board. But if we're going to look ahead a little (while still looking back), it's probably about the right time to ask whether we should be asking a bit more of this.
Granted, none of the three gentlemen at the centre of the Iacobucci inquiry cut quite the sympathetic figure that Arar did. They're not as telegenic or articulate, and their innocence might not be quite as clear-cut. But bottom line is, we've got an inquiry into very familiar allegations - that Canadian citizens were imprisoned and tortured in Syria (and Egypt) with some degree of Canadian complicity - and nobody much seems to care.
More to the point, we're not being given much opportunity to care. To their credit, the Conservatives showed they took the allegations of Muayyed Nureddin, Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad El Maati seriously by appointing a retired Supreme Court justice to look into them. But then they instructed said retired Supreme Court justice to keep the inquiry "internal," by which they apparently meant secretive.
Some measure of secrecy is reasonable when national security matters are in play, but Iaccobucci seems to be taking it beyond even what the Tories had implied. The inquiry is so clandestine that even Nureddin, Almalki and El Maati aren't getting to find out much about what led to the apparent abuses they endured.
To make matters worse, he seems hell-bent on limiting the number of witnesses appearing before him. In part, it's been suggested to me, that's because he's dead-set against going past the January 2008 deadline the Tories set for his report - giving him very little time to get through three separate cases.
If the inquiry flies under the radar as it proceeds, that might not be the end of the world. But if it produces a half-assed result, we're all going to be the poorer for it. You'd think what we found out this week about the perils of secrecy would have Canadians (not least opposition politicians) crying foul. Instead, we seem to have determined that one Maher Arar is enough for us - a noble sentiment if it means preventing further cases like his, but not if it's ignoring past ones.
Arar Inquiry: Recommendations
Noteworthy is that O'Connor declines to recommend disciplinary proceedings. This is a clear copout. No disciplinary proceedings were instituted in spite of the egregious errors and offensive false information collected and passed on to US authorities etc. etc. Some persons involved were promoted however.
We now know as well that wiretapping warrants were applied for and received on the
basis of information provided on El Maati, that was probably extracted through torture. The judge was not informed of the circumstances. We will see what Iacobucci does with that! Don't hold your breath. At most he will tut tut--of course in more flowery language.
"Finally, I have been asked to recommend that appropriate disciplinary proceedings be instituted with respect to Canadian officials involved in the Arar case. However, I have not assessed the evidence with that in mind. Those responsible for discipline will have my report. They can take my findings and decide what steps, if any, need to be taken."
With respect to some issues Canada is even more secretive than the US:
Unlike the U.S. State Department, DFAIT treats its reports(about countries with poor human rights records) as confidential and, in the past, has not even made them available to other agencies of the Canadian government.
The Canadian government does want to let other countries know they are on our list. Maybe the US government is on it! It should be but of course it will not be.
Sometimes the O'Connor report feels constrained to point out the obvious, a telling condemnation of the lack of an elementary degree of objectivity in some persons in the service.
The fact that an investigation is guided by strategic intelligence about al-Qaeda or another threat to national security does not necessarily mean that every person of interest to that investigation must be associated with al-Qaeda or terrorism
In some intelligence reports Arar is represented as part of an Al Qaeda cell because of his association with others who in turn were only suspected because they had association with actual Al Qaeda operatives of some type. Arar and his wife are said to be Muslim extremists without evidence being presented. One gets the picture that some in the service saw a great conspiracy and an Al Qaeda cell built up in their imagination through guilt by association.
Maher Arar
The Arar inquiry: recommendations and documents
Last Updated August 9, 2007
CBC News
UPDATE
Previously blacked-out portions of the Maher Arar report state that Canadian security officials believed the United States might send the Syrian-born Canadian to a foreign country to be questioned under torture.
The blacked-out portions of the Arar inquiry's report were released on the July order of a Federal Court judge.
Report sections released by court order (PDF)
Original 362-page report: http://www.ararcommission.ca/eng/26.htm
In his report, dated Sept. 18, 2006, on Canada's involvement in the extraordinary rendition and torture in a Syrian jail of Canadian engineer Maher Arar, Judge Dennis O'Connor makes 23 recommendations, grouped into eight broad categories.
THE RCMP AND NATIONAL SECURITY
Recommendation 1
The RCMP should ensure it stays within its mandate as a police force to prevent and prosecute crime. Above all, it should ensure that it respects the distinct role of CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, in collecting and analyzing information and intelligence relating to threats to Canadian security.
This recommendation is aimed at reinforcing the division of functions between gathering security information and policing, as was outlined more than 20 years ago in the McDonald Commission report into the RCMP, O'Conner said.
Justice Dennis O'Connor, who led the public inquiry into the Maher Arar case, displays his report after a news conference in Ottawa Monday. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press) "I am convinced that Canadians will be best served if the RCMP and CSIS both operate within their distinct mandates and expertise, while sharing information when appropriate and working together in a co-operative and integrated manner."
This does not mean that the RCMP should wait until an act of terrorism has occurred before taking action. The RCMP’s mandate includes preventing crime, not just investigating after the fact. The Anti-terrorism Act has expanded both offences and the powers available to the RCMP. But it also imposes a variety of special safeguards, such as prior approvals by attorneys general and the courts. And the fact remains that, as has long been the tradition, police in a democracy should be concerned primarily with law enforcement, even in the national security context.
Recommendation 2
The RCMP should continue to engage in integrated and co-operative operations in national security investigations, but agreements or arrangements in this respect should be set out in writing.
Submissions to the inquiry stressed the dangers of police getting caught up in "investigative silos." Both Justice Fred Kaufman’s report on the Guy Paul Morin case and Justice Archie Campbell’s review of the Bernardo investigations revealed the dangers inherent in police forces not working together or sharing information.
O'Connor noted that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act (CSIS Act) does not contemplate a wall or watertight compartments to separate CSIS and the RCMP. CSIS may disclose to the RCMP and other police forces information that “may be used in the investigation or prosecution of an alleged contravention of any law of Canada or a province.” What's more, he says, the expansion of criminal law in relation to terrorism, combined with the urgency of the police’s preventive mandate with respect to terrorism, may actually require CSIS to provide more information to the RCMP than was the case in the past.
However, it is imperative that a special effort be made by all personnel in each institution to develop a better understanding and appreciation of the mandate and role of the other.
Recommendation 3
The RCMP should ensure that those involved in national security investigations are properly trained in the particular features of such investigations. National security investigations involve subject matter not within the expertise or experience of normal criminal investigators.
National security investigators must also understand the subject matter of global terrorism, the nature of and distinctions between tactical and strategic intelligence, the processes for information sharing and the need to be alert to human rights concerns when dealing with governments with questionable human rights records.
The fact that an investigation is guided by strategic intelligence about al-Qaeda or another threat to national security does not necessarily mean that every person of interest to that investigation must be associated with al-Qaeda or terrorism.
Recommendation 4
The RCMP should maintain its current approach to centralized oversight of national security investigations. O'Connor noted that he uses the term oversight here deliberately because it denotes involvement in investigations as they are being conducted, as opposed to the independent review that is the subject of his earlier Policy Review report.
Oversight implies being informed and having powers of co-ordination and, where appropriate, control and direction that a review body will not have. Those with the power of oversight also become accountable for the decisions made by the people they oversee. Indeed, centralized oversight of national security investigations is designed in large part to heighten the responsibility and accountability of the commissioner of the RCMP as well as the minister for national security.
Recommendation 5
The minister responsible for the RCMP should continue to issue ministerial directives to provide policy guidance to the RCMP in national security investigations, given the potential implications of such investigations.
National security investigations have several features that make them different from other criminal investigations. There is a greater need for integration with other agencies, both domestic and foreign; there is more information sharing, often involving sensitive material; there is a greater need for centralized oversight with the RCMP and there are increased concerns about individual liberties.
Ministerial directives are a useful tool in ensuring that the way the RCMP manages its national security investigations is consistent with ministerial accountability.
O'Connor also urged that ministerial directives be readily accessible to the public, subject to valid national security confidentiality concerns. For example, he said, the November 2003 ministerial direction concerning the need for care and prior high-level approval before investigations may be conducted in regard to sensitive sectors such as academia, religion, politics or trade unions is a matter of public interest. In fact, public awareness about this ministerial direction could inspire greater public confidence in RCMP investigations potentially involving these sensitive areas.
Recommendation 6
The RCMP should maintain its policy of sharing information obtained in the course of national security investigations with other agencies and police departments, both domestic and foreign, in accordance with the principles discussed in these recommendations.
Two recent reports have stressed the importance of information sharing. Bob Rae’s report on the terrorist bombing of Air India Flight 182 and the U.S. 9/11 Commission’s report both speak of the need for all agencies involved in national security investigations to co-operate and share information with one another.
Information sharing is vital, but it must take place in a reliable and responsible fashion. The need for information sharing does not mean that information should be shared without controls. Nor does it mean exchanging information without regard to its relevance, reliability or accuracy or without regard to laws protecting personal information or human rights.
Recommendation 7
The RCMP’s Criminal Intelligence Directorate (CID) or another centralized unit with expertise in national security investigations should have responsibility for oversight of information sharing related to national security with other domestic and foreign departments and agencies.
An important part of centralized oversight of RCMP national security investigations will be oversight of practices pertaining to information sharing, including both the provision and receipt of information. In the Arar case, the RCMP shared information with American agencies without adequate oversight or control by headquarters, the inquiry found.
Centralization of information-sharing decisions should assist in addressing subsequent requests from recipients of information for amendments to caveats. Centralizing this function within CID can also serve as a useful management tool, allowing for co-ordination of investigations and ensuring consistency in the information to be shared.
Recommendation 8
The RCMP should ensure that, whenever it provides information to other departments and agencies, whether foreign and domestic, it does so in accordance with clearly established policies respecting screening for relevance, reliability and accuracy and with relevant laws respecting personal information and human rights. The 9/11 Commission in the United States concluded that, after 9/11, the largest impediment to “a greater likelihood of connecting the dots is the human or systemic resistance to sharing information” and criticized the “need-to-know” principle on the basis that it assumes it is possible to know, in advance, who will need to use the information. Such a system implicitly assumes that the risk of inadvertent disclosure outweighs the benefits of wider sharing. Those Cold War assumptions are no longer appropriate.
Recommendation 9
The RCMP should never share information in a national security investigation without attaching written caveats in accordance with existing policy. One of the significant flaws in the Arar investigation was the failure to place caveats on information that the RCMP shared with American agencies. Failure to attach caveats is unacceptable because it increases the risk that information will be distributed by the recipient to unanticipated institutions and that it will be used for unintended and possibly unacceptable purposes.
Recommendation 10
The RCMP’s information-sharing practices and arrangements should be subject to review by an independent, arms-length review body.
INFORMATION SHARING AND SAFEGUARDS
Recommendation 11
Canadian agencies other than the RCMP that share information relating to national security should review these recommendations to ensure their information-sharing policies conform, to the appropriate extent, with the approaches being recommended for the RCMP.
Recommendation 12
Where Canadian agencies become aware that foreign agencies have made improper use of information provided by a Canadian agency, a formal objection should be made to the foreign agency and the foreign minister of the recipient country. Where appropriate, objections should be sent not only to the foreign agency, but to the foreign minister responsible for that agency. Such objections are necessary to prevail upon foreign agencies to comply with caveats.
COUNTRIES WITH QUESTIONABLE RECORDS
Recommendation 13
The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) should provide its annual reports assessing the human rights records of various countries to the RCMP, CSIS and other Canadian government departments or agencies that may interact with such countries in connection with investigations.
Each year, DFAIT prepares an assessment of the human rights records of countries with which the RCMP, CSIS and possibly other investigative agencies of the Canadian government may interact. Some of those countries may have poor or questionable human rights records. Unlike the U.S. State Department, DFAIT treats its reports as confidential and, in the past, has not even made them available to other agencies of the Canadian government.
Leaving aside the issue of whether the reports should be made public, it is important, as a minimum, that DFAIT provide Canadian investigative agencies with the reports in order to establish a common and hopefully accurate basis upon which those agencies may make decisions.
Recommendation 14
The RCMP and CSIS should review their policies governing the circumstances in which they supply information to foreign governments with questionable human rights records. Information should never be provided to a foreign country where there is a credible risk that it will cause or contribute to the use of torture. Policies should include specific directions aimed at eliminating any possible Canadian complicity in torture, avoiding the risk of other human rights abuses and ensuring accountability.
The current RCMP policy is inadequate. It provides that the RCMP will not become involved or appear to become involved in any activity that might be considered a violation of the rights of an individual unless there is a need to comply with one of five specified international conventions that Canada has signed in relation to various forms of terrorism. In addition, the policy states:
The disclosure of information to an agency of a foreign government that does not share Canada’s respect for democratic or human rights may be considered if it is justified because of Canadian security or law-enforcement interests; can be controlled by specific terms and conditions and does not have a negative human rights connotation.
Recommendation 15
Canadian agencies should accept information from countries with questionable human rights records only after proper consideration of human rights implications. Information received from countries with questionable human rights records should be identified as such and proper steps should be taken to assess its reliability.
Decisions to receive information from countries with questionable human rights records should be reviewed by the appropriate review body such as SIRC for CSIS and the review agency O'Connor is proposing for the RCMP.
CANADIANS DETAINED ABROAD
Recommendation 16
The Government of Canada should develop a protocol to provide for co-ordination and coherence across government in addressing issues that arise when a Canadian is detained in another country in connection with terrorism-related activity. Essential features of this protocol should include consultation among relevant Canadian agencies, a coherent and unified approach in addressing the issues and political accountability for the course of action adopted.
Recommendation 17
Canadian consular officials posted to countries that have a reputation for abusing human rights should receive training on conducting interviews in prison settings to be able to make the best possible determination of whether torture or harsh treatment has occurred.
In some countries, consular officials are not permitted private visits with Canadian detainees. Because the detainee may not be able to speak freely, it is important that consular officials responsible for managing a detainee’s case know how to detect signs of abuse or torture, to the extent possible.
Recommendation 18
Consular officials should clearly advise detainees in foreign countries of the circumstances under which information obtained from the detainees may be shared with others outside the Consular Affairs Bureau before any such information is obtained.
In Arar’s case, consular officials disclosed information obtained from Arar to the RCMP and CSIS based in part on perceived consent and in part on one of the exceptions to the prohibition against disclosure in the Privacy Act.
PROFILING
Recommendation 19
Canadian agencies conducting national security investigations, including CSIS, the RCMP and the CBSA, should have clear written policies stating that such investigations must not be based on racial, religious or ethnic profiling.
Although the RCMP has a policy of bias-free policing, concerns about racial profiling were raised by many of the interveners in the inquiry. Several senior officers of the RCMP who testified at the inquiry made it clear that racial, ethnic or religious profiling is not permitted. This recommendation adopts that approach.
Recommendation 20
Canadian agencies involved in anti-terrorism investigations, particularly the RCMP, CSIS and the CBSA, should continue and expand on the training given to members and staff on issues of racial, religious and ethnic profiling and on interaction with Canada’s Muslim and Arab communities.
There is a wide scope for involving members of Canada’s Arab and Muslim communities in training programs aimed at informing investigators of their culture, values and history. Some interveners in the inquiry suggested that a coherent training program could be developed in partnership with Canadian Muslim and Arab communities.
Recommendation 21
The RCMP and CSIS should develop guidelines governing the circumstances in which "border lookouts," alerts to customs and immigration officers at ports of entry, may be requested both in Canada and in other countries.
Border lookouts can be a useful investigative tool and may be very helpful in national security investigations. They are not the most intrusive type of investigative technique; however, since they do involve some invasion of an individual’s privacy, they should only be requested when there is some basis for believing that information that may be obtained will advance an investigation.
"Arar was properly a person of interest in the relevant RCMP investigation, as he was associated with suspects who were being investigated," O'Connor said. "Although the RCMP did not consider Arar a suspect, they had a legitimate interest in knowing more about him because of those associations. However, there was no information linking Arar’s wife, Monia Mazigh, to any suspect or activities being investigated. Thus, there was no basis to request a lookout for her."
In addition, when a border lookout is requested in another country, it is important to consider the implications of such a request for the liberty and rights of the individual targeted. It should not be assumed, the inquiry found, that all other countries will treat a lookout request as merely an information-gathering exercise. In the post-9/11 environment, with the increased concern about threats of terrorism, some other countries may react to information connected with terrorist investigations in a far more aggressive manner than Canadian authorities might intend.
Recommendation 22
The Government of Canada should register a formal objection with the governments of the United States and Syria concerning their treatment of Maher Arar and Canadian officials involved with his case.
The American authorities who handled Arar’s case treated him in a most regrettable fashion, O'Connor wrote. They removed him to Syria against his wishes and in the face of his statements that he would be tortured if sent there. Moreover, they dealt with Canadian officials involved with Arar’s case in a less than forthcoming manner.
The inquiry concluded American officials were not candid, either with the RCMP officers with whom they had been working jointly on the investigation that involved Arar, or with Canadian consular officials seeking to assist Arar, about their intentions or about the process that led to his removal.
The act of objecting will be more symbolic than anything else, O'Connor concedes. Unquestionably, he says, Canada should continue to co-operate fully with American authorities in the global fight against terror.
COMPENSATION
Recommendation 23
The Government of Canada should assess Arar’s claim for compensation in the light of the findings in this report and respond accordingly.
"I have been asked to recommend that the Government of Canada compensate Arar for damages for his ordeal," O'Connor said. However, he noted, he is specifically precluded from making any findings or even assessments as to whether the Government of Canada would be civilly liable to Arar.
"I wish to make two comments about Arar’s claim for compensation," O'Connor wrote. "First, in addressing the issue of compensation, the Government of Canada should avoid applying a strictly legal assessment to its potential liability. It should recognize the suffering that Arar has experienced, even since his return to Canada.
"Among other things, after his return, he was subjected to several very improper and unfair leaks of information that damaged his reputation, caused him enormous personal suffering and may have contributed to the difficulties this well-educated Canadian man has experienced in finding employment in his chosen field of computer engineering.
"Arar’s inability to obtain employment has had a devastating economic and psychological impact on both him and his family. In addition, as the inquiry has proceeded, some of the mental suffering that Arar experienced in Syria has re-surfaced. Based on the assumption that holding a public inquiry has served the public interest, Arar’s role in it and the additional suffering he has experienced because of it should be recognized as a relevant factor in deciding whether compensation is warranted.
"Finally, I have been asked to recommend that appropriate disciplinary proceedings be instituted with respect to Canadian officials involved in the Arar case. However, I have not assessed the evidence with that in mind. Those responsible for discipline will have my report. They can take my findings and decide what steps, if any, need to be taken."
We now know as well that wiretapping warrants were applied for and received on the
basis of information provided on El Maati, that was probably extracted through torture. The judge was not informed of the circumstances. We will see what Iacobucci does with that! Don't hold your breath. At most he will tut tut--of course in more flowery language.
"Finally, I have been asked to recommend that appropriate disciplinary proceedings be instituted with respect to Canadian officials involved in the Arar case. However, I have not assessed the evidence with that in mind. Those responsible for discipline will have my report. They can take my findings and decide what steps, if any, need to be taken."
With respect to some issues Canada is even more secretive than the US:
Unlike the U.S. State Department, DFAIT treats its reports(about countries with poor human rights records) as confidential and, in the past, has not even made them available to other agencies of the Canadian government.
The Canadian government does want to let other countries know they are on our list. Maybe the US government is on it! It should be but of course it will not be.
Sometimes the O'Connor report feels constrained to point out the obvious, a telling condemnation of the lack of an elementary degree of objectivity in some persons in the service.
The fact that an investigation is guided by strategic intelligence about al-Qaeda or another threat to national security does not necessarily mean that every person of interest to that investigation must be associated with al-Qaeda or terrorism
In some intelligence reports Arar is represented as part of an Al Qaeda cell because of his association with others who in turn were only suspected because they had association with actual Al Qaeda operatives of some type. Arar and his wife are said to be Muslim extremists without evidence being presented. One gets the picture that some in the service saw a great conspiracy and an Al Qaeda cell built up in their imagination through guilt by association.
Maher Arar
The Arar inquiry: recommendations and documents
Last Updated August 9, 2007
CBC News
UPDATE
Previously blacked-out portions of the Maher Arar report state that Canadian security officials believed the United States might send the Syrian-born Canadian to a foreign country to be questioned under torture.
The blacked-out portions of the Arar inquiry's report were released on the July order of a Federal Court judge.
Report sections released by court order (PDF)
Original 362-page report: http://www.ararcommission.ca/eng/26.htm
In his report, dated Sept. 18, 2006, on Canada's involvement in the extraordinary rendition and torture in a Syrian jail of Canadian engineer Maher Arar, Judge Dennis O'Connor makes 23 recommendations, grouped into eight broad categories.
THE RCMP AND NATIONAL SECURITY
Recommendation 1
The RCMP should ensure it stays within its mandate as a police force to prevent and prosecute crime. Above all, it should ensure that it respects the distinct role of CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, in collecting and analyzing information and intelligence relating to threats to Canadian security.
This recommendation is aimed at reinforcing the division of functions between gathering security information and policing, as was outlined more than 20 years ago in the McDonald Commission report into the RCMP, O'Conner said.
Justice Dennis O'Connor, who led the public inquiry into the Maher Arar case, displays his report after a news conference in Ottawa Monday. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press) "I am convinced that Canadians will be best served if the RCMP and CSIS both operate within their distinct mandates and expertise, while sharing information when appropriate and working together in a co-operative and integrated manner."
This does not mean that the RCMP should wait until an act of terrorism has occurred before taking action. The RCMP’s mandate includes preventing crime, not just investigating after the fact. The Anti-terrorism Act has expanded both offences and the powers available to the RCMP. But it also imposes a variety of special safeguards, such as prior approvals by attorneys general and the courts. And the fact remains that, as has long been the tradition, police in a democracy should be concerned primarily with law enforcement, even in the national security context.
Recommendation 2
The RCMP should continue to engage in integrated and co-operative operations in national security investigations, but agreements or arrangements in this respect should be set out in writing.
Submissions to the inquiry stressed the dangers of police getting caught up in "investigative silos." Both Justice Fred Kaufman’s report on the Guy Paul Morin case and Justice Archie Campbell’s review of the Bernardo investigations revealed the dangers inherent in police forces not working together or sharing information.
O'Connor noted that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act (CSIS Act) does not contemplate a wall or watertight compartments to separate CSIS and the RCMP. CSIS may disclose to the RCMP and other police forces information that “may be used in the investigation or prosecution of an alleged contravention of any law of Canada or a province.” What's more, he says, the expansion of criminal law in relation to terrorism, combined with the urgency of the police’s preventive mandate with respect to terrorism, may actually require CSIS to provide more information to the RCMP than was the case in the past.
However, it is imperative that a special effort be made by all personnel in each institution to develop a better understanding and appreciation of the mandate and role of the other.
Recommendation 3
The RCMP should ensure that those involved in national security investigations are properly trained in the particular features of such investigations. National security investigations involve subject matter not within the expertise or experience of normal criminal investigators.
National security investigators must also understand the subject matter of global terrorism, the nature of and distinctions between tactical and strategic intelligence, the processes for information sharing and the need to be alert to human rights concerns when dealing with governments with questionable human rights records.
The fact that an investigation is guided by strategic intelligence about al-Qaeda or another threat to national security does not necessarily mean that every person of interest to that investigation must be associated with al-Qaeda or terrorism.
Recommendation 4
The RCMP should maintain its current approach to centralized oversight of national security investigations. O'Connor noted that he uses the term oversight here deliberately because it denotes involvement in investigations as they are being conducted, as opposed to the independent review that is the subject of his earlier Policy Review report.
Oversight implies being informed and having powers of co-ordination and, where appropriate, control and direction that a review body will not have. Those with the power of oversight also become accountable for the decisions made by the people they oversee. Indeed, centralized oversight of national security investigations is designed in large part to heighten the responsibility and accountability of the commissioner of the RCMP as well as the minister for national security.
Recommendation 5
The minister responsible for the RCMP should continue to issue ministerial directives to provide policy guidance to the RCMP in national security investigations, given the potential implications of such investigations.
National security investigations have several features that make them different from other criminal investigations. There is a greater need for integration with other agencies, both domestic and foreign; there is more information sharing, often involving sensitive material; there is a greater need for centralized oversight with the RCMP and there are increased concerns about individual liberties.
Ministerial directives are a useful tool in ensuring that the way the RCMP manages its national security investigations is consistent with ministerial accountability.
O'Connor also urged that ministerial directives be readily accessible to the public, subject to valid national security confidentiality concerns. For example, he said, the November 2003 ministerial direction concerning the need for care and prior high-level approval before investigations may be conducted in regard to sensitive sectors such as academia, religion, politics or trade unions is a matter of public interest. In fact, public awareness about this ministerial direction could inspire greater public confidence in RCMP investigations potentially involving these sensitive areas.
Recommendation 6
The RCMP should maintain its policy of sharing information obtained in the course of national security investigations with other agencies and police departments, both domestic and foreign, in accordance with the principles discussed in these recommendations.
Two recent reports have stressed the importance of information sharing. Bob Rae’s report on the terrorist bombing of Air India Flight 182 and the U.S. 9/11 Commission’s report both speak of the need for all agencies involved in national security investigations to co-operate and share information with one another.
Information sharing is vital, but it must take place in a reliable and responsible fashion. The need for information sharing does not mean that information should be shared without controls. Nor does it mean exchanging information without regard to its relevance, reliability or accuracy or without regard to laws protecting personal information or human rights.
Recommendation 7
The RCMP’s Criminal Intelligence Directorate (CID) or another centralized unit with expertise in national security investigations should have responsibility for oversight of information sharing related to national security with other domestic and foreign departments and agencies.
An important part of centralized oversight of RCMP national security investigations will be oversight of practices pertaining to information sharing, including both the provision and receipt of information. In the Arar case, the RCMP shared information with American agencies without adequate oversight or control by headquarters, the inquiry found.
Centralization of information-sharing decisions should assist in addressing subsequent requests from recipients of information for amendments to caveats. Centralizing this function within CID can also serve as a useful management tool, allowing for co-ordination of investigations and ensuring consistency in the information to be shared.
Recommendation 8
The RCMP should ensure that, whenever it provides information to other departments and agencies, whether foreign and domestic, it does so in accordance with clearly established policies respecting screening for relevance, reliability and accuracy and with relevant laws respecting personal information and human rights. The 9/11 Commission in the United States concluded that, after 9/11, the largest impediment to “a greater likelihood of connecting the dots is the human or systemic resistance to sharing information” and criticized the “need-to-know” principle on the basis that it assumes it is possible to know, in advance, who will need to use the information. Such a system implicitly assumes that the risk of inadvertent disclosure outweighs the benefits of wider sharing. Those Cold War assumptions are no longer appropriate.
Recommendation 9
The RCMP should never share information in a national security investigation without attaching written caveats in accordance with existing policy. One of the significant flaws in the Arar investigation was the failure to place caveats on information that the RCMP shared with American agencies. Failure to attach caveats is unacceptable because it increases the risk that information will be distributed by the recipient to unanticipated institutions and that it will be used for unintended and possibly unacceptable purposes.
Recommendation 10
The RCMP’s information-sharing practices and arrangements should be subject to review by an independent, arms-length review body.
INFORMATION SHARING AND SAFEGUARDS
Recommendation 11
Canadian agencies other than the RCMP that share information relating to national security should review these recommendations to ensure their information-sharing policies conform, to the appropriate extent, with the approaches being recommended for the RCMP.
Recommendation 12
Where Canadian agencies become aware that foreign agencies have made improper use of information provided by a Canadian agency, a formal objection should be made to the foreign agency and the foreign minister of the recipient country. Where appropriate, objections should be sent not only to the foreign agency, but to the foreign minister responsible for that agency. Such objections are necessary to prevail upon foreign agencies to comply with caveats.
COUNTRIES WITH QUESTIONABLE RECORDS
Recommendation 13
The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) should provide its annual reports assessing the human rights records of various countries to the RCMP, CSIS and other Canadian government departments or agencies that may interact with such countries in connection with investigations.
Each year, DFAIT prepares an assessment of the human rights records of countries with which the RCMP, CSIS and possibly other investigative agencies of the Canadian government may interact. Some of those countries may have poor or questionable human rights records. Unlike the U.S. State Department, DFAIT treats its reports as confidential and, in the past, has not even made them available to other agencies of the Canadian government.
Leaving aside the issue of whether the reports should be made public, it is important, as a minimum, that DFAIT provide Canadian investigative agencies with the reports in order to establish a common and hopefully accurate basis upon which those agencies may make decisions.
Recommendation 14
The RCMP and CSIS should review their policies governing the circumstances in which they supply information to foreign governments with questionable human rights records. Information should never be provided to a foreign country where there is a credible risk that it will cause or contribute to the use of torture. Policies should include specific directions aimed at eliminating any possible Canadian complicity in torture, avoiding the risk of other human rights abuses and ensuring accountability.
The current RCMP policy is inadequate. It provides that the RCMP will not become involved or appear to become involved in any activity that might be considered a violation of the rights of an individual unless there is a need to comply with one of five specified international conventions that Canada has signed in relation to various forms of terrorism. In addition, the policy states:
The disclosure of information to an agency of a foreign government that does not share Canada’s respect for democratic or human rights may be considered if it is justified because of Canadian security or law-enforcement interests; can be controlled by specific terms and conditions and does not have a negative human rights connotation.
Recommendation 15
Canadian agencies should accept information from countries with questionable human rights records only after proper consideration of human rights implications. Information received from countries with questionable human rights records should be identified as such and proper steps should be taken to assess its reliability.
Decisions to receive information from countries with questionable human rights records should be reviewed by the appropriate review body such as SIRC for CSIS and the review agency O'Connor is proposing for the RCMP.
CANADIANS DETAINED ABROAD
Recommendation 16
The Government of Canada should develop a protocol to provide for co-ordination and coherence across government in addressing issues that arise when a Canadian is detained in another country in connection with terrorism-related activity. Essential features of this protocol should include consultation among relevant Canadian agencies, a coherent and unified approach in addressing the issues and political accountability for the course of action adopted.
Recommendation 17
Canadian consular officials posted to countries that have a reputation for abusing human rights should receive training on conducting interviews in prison settings to be able to make the best possible determination of whether torture or harsh treatment has occurred.
In some countries, consular officials are not permitted private visits with Canadian detainees. Because the detainee may not be able to speak freely, it is important that consular officials responsible for managing a detainee’s case know how to detect signs of abuse or torture, to the extent possible.
Recommendation 18
Consular officials should clearly advise detainees in foreign countries of the circumstances under which information obtained from the detainees may be shared with others outside the Consular Affairs Bureau before any such information is obtained.
In Arar’s case, consular officials disclosed information obtained from Arar to the RCMP and CSIS based in part on perceived consent and in part on one of the exceptions to the prohibition against disclosure in the Privacy Act.
PROFILING
Recommendation 19
Canadian agencies conducting national security investigations, including CSIS, the RCMP and the CBSA, should have clear written policies stating that such investigations must not be based on racial, religious or ethnic profiling.
Although the RCMP has a policy of bias-free policing, concerns about racial profiling were raised by many of the interveners in the inquiry. Several senior officers of the RCMP who testified at the inquiry made it clear that racial, ethnic or religious profiling is not permitted. This recommendation adopts that approach.
Recommendation 20
Canadian agencies involved in anti-terrorism investigations, particularly the RCMP, CSIS and the CBSA, should continue and expand on the training given to members and staff on issues of racial, religious and ethnic profiling and on interaction with Canada’s Muslim and Arab communities.
There is a wide scope for involving members of Canada’s Arab and Muslim communities in training programs aimed at informing investigators of their culture, values and history. Some interveners in the inquiry suggested that a coherent training program could be developed in partnership with Canadian Muslim and Arab communities.
Recommendation 21
The RCMP and CSIS should develop guidelines governing the circumstances in which "border lookouts," alerts to customs and immigration officers at ports of entry, may be requested both in Canada and in other countries.
Border lookouts can be a useful investigative tool and may be very helpful in national security investigations. They are not the most intrusive type of investigative technique; however, since they do involve some invasion of an individual’s privacy, they should only be requested when there is some basis for believing that information that may be obtained will advance an investigation.
"Arar was properly a person of interest in the relevant RCMP investigation, as he was associated with suspects who were being investigated," O'Connor said. "Although the RCMP did not consider Arar a suspect, they had a legitimate interest in knowing more about him because of those associations. However, there was no information linking Arar’s wife, Monia Mazigh, to any suspect or activities being investigated. Thus, there was no basis to request a lookout for her."
In addition, when a border lookout is requested in another country, it is important to consider the implications of such a request for the liberty and rights of the individual targeted. It should not be assumed, the inquiry found, that all other countries will treat a lookout request as merely an information-gathering exercise. In the post-9/11 environment, with the increased concern about threats of terrorism, some other countries may react to information connected with terrorist investigations in a far more aggressive manner than Canadian authorities might intend.
Recommendation 22
The Government of Canada should register a formal objection with the governments of the United States and Syria concerning their treatment of Maher Arar and Canadian officials involved with his case.
The American authorities who handled Arar’s case treated him in a most regrettable fashion, O'Connor wrote. They removed him to Syria against his wishes and in the face of his statements that he would be tortured if sent there. Moreover, they dealt with Canadian officials involved with Arar’s case in a less than forthcoming manner.
The inquiry concluded American officials were not candid, either with the RCMP officers with whom they had been working jointly on the investigation that involved Arar, or with Canadian consular officials seeking to assist Arar, about their intentions or about the process that led to his removal.
The act of objecting will be more symbolic than anything else, O'Connor concedes. Unquestionably, he says, Canada should continue to co-operate fully with American authorities in the global fight against terror.
COMPENSATION
Recommendation 23
The Government of Canada should assess Arar’s claim for compensation in the light of the findings in this report and respond accordingly.
"I have been asked to recommend that the Government of Canada compensate Arar for damages for his ordeal," O'Connor said. However, he noted, he is specifically precluded from making any findings or even assessments as to whether the Government of Canada would be civilly liable to Arar.
"I wish to make two comments about Arar’s claim for compensation," O'Connor wrote. "First, in addressing the issue of compensation, the Government of Canada should avoid applying a strictly legal assessment to its potential liability. It should recognize the suffering that Arar has experienced, even since his return to Canada.
"Among other things, after his return, he was subjected to several very improper and unfair leaks of information that damaged his reputation, caused him enormous personal suffering and may have contributed to the difficulties this well-educated Canadian man has experienced in finding employment in his chosen field of computer engineering.
"Arar’s inability to obtain employment has had a devastating economic and psychological impact on both him and his family. In addition, as the inquiry has proceeded, some of the mental suffering that Arar experienced in Syria has re-surfaced. Based on the assumption that holding a public inquiry has served the public interest, Arar’s role in it and the additional suffering he has experienced because of it should be recognized as a relevant factor in deciding whether compensation is warranted.
"Finally, I have been asked to recommend that appropriate disciplinary proceedings be instituted with respect to Canadian officials involved in the Arar case. However, I have not assessed the evidence with that in mind. Those responsible for discipline will have my report. They can take my findings and decide what steps, if any, need to be taken."
Saturday, August 11, 2007
"Progress" of the Iacobucci Inquiry
I just checked the inquiry website and found the following:
Last entry under What's New: April 12, 2007
Last entry under Rulings: May 31, 2007
Last press release: April 16.
For over two months the inquiry has been holding secret interviews but there is nothing to let the public know what is going on. Even the lawyers for the three for whom the inquiry is named do not know who all the witnesses are. This is hardly a public inquiry. The public is not to inquire what is happening it seems. The public website just sits there like an abandoned blog.
Last entry under What's New: April 12, 2007
Last entry under Rulings: May 31, 2007
Last press release: April 16.
For over two months the inquiry has been holding secret interviews but there is nothing to let the public know what is going on. Even the lawyers for the three for whom the inquiry is named do not know who all the witnesses are. This is hardly a public inquiry. The public is not to inquire what is happening it seems. The public website just sits there like an abandoned blog.
The Iacobucci Internal Farce
Nothing seems to be released on the Iacobucci website to show what is happening in the inquiry. Now it seems even the lawyers for the three men do not know what is going on and cannot even find out if such a key witness as Zaccardelli will even be questioned or the officer who applied for search warrants using information probably obtained by torture of El Maati.
The terms of reference of the inquiry were obviously drawn up so that nothing will be transparent. This will be a very expensive farce. The three men will have no chance to clear their names. The public will never know what went on. Only members of the elite from Torys LLP will be in the know and also those in our intelligence agencies and government who want the public to remain in the dark.
Iacobucci inquiry faces challenge
Three men imprisoned in Middle East question secretive process of probe
CAMPBELL CLARK
August 10, 2007
OTTAWA -- The three men who were imprisoned in the Middle East in circumstances similar to Maher Arar say they cannot get assurances that key witnesses such as former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli will be questioned at an inquiry into their treatment.
Lawyers for the three, who say they were tortured, have gone to the Federal Court of Canada seeking an order to open up the secretive process set by retired Supreme Court judge Frank Iacobucci. They say they are concerned that the inquiry will not be credible.
Although Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor's inquiry into Mr. Arar's case found last year that Canadian officials fed misleading information to the United States that probably led to his deportation and torture in Syria, it had no mandate to investigate the three other cases.
Mr. Iacobucci was appointed in December to conduct an "internal" inquiry into the actions of Canadian officials in the cases of Muayyed Nureddin, Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad Abou El Maati - a probe that is proceeding almost entirely behind closed doors.
Questions have lingered over whether Canadian officials provided information to officials in Syria and received information obtained from their interrogations there.
Yesterday, censored portions of Mr. O'Connor's report, released under a Federal Court order, showed that the RCMP applied for search warrants in 2002 using information that the Syrians obtained by interrogating Mr. El Maati, who was being detained there.
But his lawyers have been unable to obtain assurances that the RCMP officer who applied for the warrants, Sergeant Randy Walsh, will be questioned by the Iacobucci inquiry.
"If Justice Iacobucci wasn't aware of this issue before, then there's problems going on with the Iacobucci inquiry," said Barbara Jackman, a lawyer for Mr. El Maati.
In the first phase of the inquiry, commission lawyers are interviewing officials and others in private, and Mr. Iacobucci may adopt their findings as his own.
Commission counsel John Laskin said in a recent interview that he cannot say whether Mr. Zaccardelli will be questioned.
"That hasn't been finally determined yet, but a number of the others on their proposed list, we are indeed interviewing," Mr. Laskin told The Globe and Mail. "I'm not going to say that we're necessarily going to interview everybody they say we should interview, because at the end of the day, it's our judgment."
In correspondence filed with the Federal Court, Jasminka Kalajdzic, a lawyer for Mr. Almalki, asked why lists of interviewees did not include Mr. Zaccardelli, MP Dan McTeague, who was parliamentary secretary for consular cases when Paul Martin was prime minister, and RCMP counterterrorism officers Sgt. Walsh and Michel Cabana.
The commission's lawyers wrote back to say the lists were not necessarily complete, and that Mr. Cabana would be interviewed - but made no mention of the others.
Mr. Zaccardelli resigned his post as RCMP commissioner in December under fire for conflicting testimony about the force's actions in Mr. Arar's case.
"It's the chain-of-command issues. Zaccardelli was the head of the RCMP. If he wasn't aware of what was going on, why wasn't he? And if he was aware, what did he do about it?" said Ms. Jackman, who represents both Mr. Nureddin and Mr. El Maati.
"We don't even know who all the people are that they're interviewing. We know some of them. And in terms of whether or not they're getting at all the issues, it's blind faith."
Ms. Jackman said they are concerned that the government imposed a restrictive mandate on the inquiry because it fears the three cases would demonstrate a pattern of Canadian complicity in having third countries that use torture interrogate suspects to advance investigations.
"I have no confidence, to be honest with you. Because I don't know what's going on," Mr. Nureddin, 40, a geologist who was imprisoned in Syria for a month in 2003, said in a recent interview.
Mr. Laskin noted that the government called for a private inquiry when it set the terms of reference, and selected sections can be held in public only when Mr. Iacobucci deems it essential.
Mr. Iacobucci issued rules of procedure for the inquiry in a May 31 decision, indicating that in general, lawyers for the three men would not be present at interviews and hearings. Instead, they can suggest "questions and lines of inquiry" to the commission counsel, he ruled.
That ruling is now being challenged by the three men and several groups, including the Canadian Arab Federation and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, which argue Mr. Iacobucci was too restrictive in interpreting his mandate and is not making the inquiry public enough to instill confidence
The terms of reference of the inquiry were obviously drawn up so that nothing will be transparent. This will be a very expensive farce. The three men will have no chance to clear their names. The public will never know what went on. Only members of the elite from Torys LLP will be in the know and also those in our intelligence agencies and government who want the public to remain in the dark.
Iacobucci inquiry faces challenge
Three men imprisoned in Middle East question secretive process of probe
CAMPBELL CLARK
August 10, 2007
OTTAWA -- The three men who were imprisoned in the Middle East in circumstances similar to Maher Arar say they cannot get assurances that key witnesses such as former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli will be questioned at an inquiry into their treatment.
Lawyers for the three, who say they were tortured, have gone to the Federal Court of Canada seeking an order to open up the secretive process set by retired Supreme Court judge Frank Iacobucci. They say they are concerned that the inquiry will not be credible.
Although Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor's inquiry into Mr. Arar's case found last year that Canadian officials fed misleading information to the United States that probably led to his deportation and torture in Syria, it had no mandate to investigate the three other cases.
Mr. Iacobucci was appointed in December to conduct an "internal" inquiry into the actions of Canadian officials in the cases of Muayyed Nureddin, Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad Abou El Maati - a probe that is proceeding almost entirely behind closed doors.
Questions have lingered over whether Canadian officials provided information to officials in Syria and received information obtained from their interrogations there.
Yesterday, censored portions of Mr. O'Connor's report, released under a Federal Court order, showed that the RCMP applied for search warrants in 2002 using information that the Syrians obtained by interrogating Mr. El Maati, who was being detained there.
But his lawyers have been unable to obtain assurances that the RCMP officer who applied for the warrants, Sergeant Randy Walsh, will be questioned by the Iacobucci inquiry.
"If Justice Iacobucci wasn't aware of this issue before, then there's problems going on with the Iacobucci inquiry," said Barbara Jackman, a lawyer for Mr. El Maati.
In the first phase of the inquiry, commission lawyers are interviewing officials and others in private, and Mr. Iacobucci may adopt their findings as his own.
Commission counsel John Laskin said in a recent interview that he cannot say whether Mr. Zaccardelli will be questioned.
"That hasn't been finally determined yet, but a number of the others on their proposed list, we are indeed interviewing," Mr. Laskin told The Globe and Mail. "I'm not going to say that we're necessarily going to interview everybody they say we should interview, because at the end of the day, it's our judgment."
In correspondence filed with the Federal Court, Jasminka Kalajdzic, a lawyer for Mr. Almalki, asked why lists of interviewees did not include Mr. Zaccardelli, MP Dan McTeague, who was parliamentary secretary for consular cases when Paul Martin was prime minister, and RCMP counterterrorism officers Sgt. Walsh and Michel Cabana.
The commission's lawyers wrote back to say the lists were not necessarily complete, and that Mr. Cabana would be interviewed - but made no mention of the others.
Mr. Zaccardelli resigned his post as RCMP commissioner in December under fire for conflicting testimony about the force's actions in Mr. Arar's case.
"It's the chain-of-command issues. Zaccardelli was the head of the RCMP. If he wasn't aware of what was going on, why wasn't he? And if he was aware, what did he do about it?" said Ms. Jackman, who represents both Mr. Nureddin and Mr. El Maati.
"We don't even know who all the people are that they're interviewing. We know some of them. And in terms of whether or not they're getting at all the issues, it's blind faith."
Ms. Jackman said they are concerned that the government imposed a restrictive mandate on the inquiry because it fears the three cases would demonstrate a pattern of Canadian complicity in having third countries that use torture interrogate suspects to advance investigations.
"I have no confidence, to be honest with you. Because I don't know what's going on," Mr. Nureddin, 40, a geologist who was imprisoned in Syria for a month in 2003, said in a recent interview.
Mr. Laskin noted that the government called for a private inquiry when it set the terms of reference, and selected sections can be held in public only when Mr. Iacobucci deems it essential.
Mr. Iacobucci issued rules of procedure for the inquiry in a May 31 decision, indicating that in general, lawyers for the three men would not be present at interviews and hearings. Instead, they can suggest "questions and lines of inquiry" to the commission counsel, he ruled.
That ruling is now being challenged by the three men and several groups, including the Canadian Arab Federation and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, which argue Mr. Iacobucci was too restrictive in interpreting his mandate and is not making the inquiry public enough to instill confidence
Giant hail in Dauphin
Well the opposition has not blamed Harper for this at least! We are actually fortunate not too have experienced the severe weather in other parts of the world such as the disastrous floods in Asia and Europe and even Newfoundland.
In our area the hail was only pea size. I left my old car out hoping that it might get written off for hail damage but with no luck! At least no one seems to have been hurt. I notice that under the spruce trees there are large piles of dead needles torrents of rain must have washed them up in piles.
Baseball-sized hail destroys windows, cars, crops in southern Manitoba
Pilot forced to land plane in severe weather; power out for thousands
Last Updated: Friday, August 10, 2007 | 8:31 AM CT
CBC News
A punishing thunderstorm pulverized areas of southern Manitoba on Thursday night, with heavy rain, baseball-sized hail and screaming winds wreaking havoc on cars, homes and trees.
A major cleanup effort is underway in Dauphin, where giant hailstones fell for half an hour. Environment Canada says in addition to the hail, about 56 millimetres of rain fell in about an hour, while winds gusted to 98 kilometres an hour.
Hailstones measuring as large as 10 centimetres in diameter fell on Dauphin, Man., during the late-evening storm.
(Bev Birss)
Brock Birss, who owns greenhouses southwest of Dauphin, said the hail was more than 10 centimetres in diameter.
"One of the pieces that I picked up that went through the roofs, we measured it. We got it in the freezer. I measured to over four inches," he said.
"It's all jagged and half-rounded, and then on the back side, it was perfectly flat."
Birss may have one of the largest messes to clean up in the area.
His greenhouses are not glass, but the hail punched large holes through their inflated plastic sides, leaving an estimated $20,000 in damage.
'Dents the size of your head' in truck
In the city of Dauphin, windows were cracked and metal dented on every cruiser car in the RCMP's fleet in the western Manitoba town, Const. Kenneth Pinsent told CBC News.
Hail damage to the windshield of a Ford F250 truck parked outside Brock Birss's greenhouse near Dauphin, Man., during the storm.
(Bev Birss)
"I would say every one of them had at least a crack in the windshield to the point where it's split in the line of vision," he said.
"We had a couple of cruisers where the back window was smashed completely, and of course light bars and things that were broken on top of roofs, as well as several hundred dents."
The Mounties in Dauphin had to call out the fire department to block streets because they had so much water on them.
Lyle Stokotelny, Dauphin's general foreman, said most streets were flooded.
'It hit so hard on the roof of the truck, it knocked the interior light out of the roof.'
—Lyle Stokotelny"Last night, I had guys out until 1 a.m., just keeping the streets' catch basins clear so the water could drain," he said.
"We had a significant amount of flooding happening on the streets because the water couldn't get into the catch basins because of all the leaves, and branches and so forth that had plugged the drains."
Stokotelny saw the ferocity of the storm demonstrated in his own backyard: "I have a new city truck parked in my yard, and there's dents in it the size of your head," he said.
"It hit so hard on the roof of the truck, it knocked the interior light out of the roof."
Farmers' fields in the area also took a beating. Alvin Dykun, who farms in Gilbert Plains, west of Dauphin, said some of his crops were levelled.
"Some were chest-high, like four feet tall, and it's unbelievable. There's nothing left at all in places," he said.
"The grass in the ditches is gone. There's no leaves on the trees. It looks like a golf course out here, actually."
Pilot forced to land small plane
Severe thunderstorms also lit up the sky at Delta Beach, north of Portage la Prairie, and in Winnipeg, bringing winds blowing harder than 100 kilometres an hour.
The storm forced a pilot to make an emergency landing in a canola field south of Portage la Prairie just after midnight.
Residents of Dauphin, Man., described hailstones like these and others the size of baseballs and grapefruits pulverizing their homes, vehicles and crops.
(Justin Tokarchuk)
The man had been flying a Cessna from Winnipeg to Brandon.
Emergency crews were led to the scene by the pilot himself, who had managed to find his cellphone after the landing.
The pilot landed the plane upright. He was assessed by paramedics and was not injured.
North of Winnipeg, several trees in Birds Hill Park were badly damaged or brought down by the storm on roads and in camping areas.
Stunned campers in the park described the wind as "unbelievable" or "like a freight train." Many abandoned their tents to wait out the storm in their cars or washroom facilities, while others simply fled the park altogether.
Power out for thousands in Winnipeg
The rough weather hit the Winnipeg area between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. CT.
Hailstones punched holes in this heavy plastic patio tabletop during the storm. The hail left fist-sized holes in countless windows at homes, stores, vehicles and even the 'golden arches' outside the local McDonald's restaurant.
(Bev Birss)
City police said many trees were blown down, mostly in the northeast area of Winnipeg.
Falling trees and branches also downed power lines, leaving about 7,000 people without electricity. Manitoba Hydro crews were hard at work Friday morning to repair damage.
A number of traffic lights, mainly in the Transcona and Elmwood areas, were still out in the morning.
Environment Canada officials said Winnipeg was hit with hail ranging from the size of a nickel to a toonie.
Residents in damaged areas across the province said they expected it will take several days to clean up all the debris.
It will take longer than that to deal with the thousands of insurance claims that are sure to pour in after the wake of the storm.
In our area the hail was only pea size. I left my old car out hoping that it might get written off for hail damage but with no luck! At least no one seems to have been hurt. I notice that under the spruce trees there are large piles of dead needles torrents of rain must have washed them up in piles.
Baseball-sized hail destroys windows, cars, crops in southern Manitoba
Pilot forced to land plane in severe weather; power out for thousands
Last Updated: Friday, August 10, 2007 | 8:31 AM CT
CBC News
A punishing thunderstorm pulverized areas of southern Manitoba on Thursday night, with heavy rain, baseball-sized hail and screaming winds wreaking havoc on cars, homes and trees.
A major cleanup effort is underway in Dauphin, where giant hailstones fell for half an hour. Environment Canada says in addition to the hail, about 56 millimetres of rain fell in about an hour, while winds gusted to 98 kilometres an hour.
Hailstones measuring as large as 10 centimetres in diameter fell on Dauphin, Man., during the late-evening storm.
(Bev Birss)
Brock Birss, who owns greenhouses southwest of Dauphin, said the hail was more than 10 centimetres in diameter.
"One of the pieces that I picked up that went through the roofs, we measured it. We got it in the freezer. I measured to over four inches," he said.
"It's all jagged and half-rounded, and then on the back side, it was perfectly flat."
Birss may have one of the largest messes to clean up in the area.
His greenhouses are not glass, but the hail punched large holes through their inflated plastic sides, leaving an estimated $20,000 in damage.
'Dents the size of your head' in truck
In the city of Dauphin, windows were cracked and metal dented on every cruiser car in the RCMP's fleet in the western Manitoba town, Const. Kenneth Pinsent told CBC News.
Hail damage to the windshield of a Ford F250 truck parked outside Brock Birss's greenhouse near Dauphin, Man., during the storm.
(Bev Birss)
"I would say every one of them had at least a crack in the windshield to the point where it's split in the line of vision," he said.
"We had a couple of cruisers where the back window was smashed completely, and of course light bars and things that were broken on top of roofs, as well as several hundred dents."
The Mounties in Dauphin had to call out the fire department to block streets because they had so much water on them.
Lyle Stokotelny, Dauphin's general foreman, said most streets were flooded.
'It hit so hard on the roof of the truck, it knocked the interior light out of the roof.'
—Lyle Stokotelny"Last night, I had guys out until 1 a.m., just keeping the streets' catch basins clear so the water could drain," he said.
"We had a significant amount of flooding happening on the streets because the water couldn't get into the catch basins because of all the leaves, and branches and so forth that had plugged the drains."
Stokotelny saw the ferocity of the storm demonstrated in his own backyard: "I have a new city truck parked in my yard, and there's dents in it the size of your head," he said.
"It hit so hard on the roof of the truck, it knocked the interior light out of the roof."
Farmers' fields in the area also took a beating. Alvin Dykun, who farms in Gilbert Plains, west of Dauphin, said some of his crops were levelled.
"Some were chest-high, like four feet tall, and it's unbelievable. There's nothing left at all in places," he said.
"The grass in the ditches is gone. There's no leaves on the trees. It looks like a golf course out here, actually."
Pilot forced to land small plane
Severe thunderstorms also lit up the sky at Delta Beach, north of Portage la Prairie, and in Winnipeg, bringing winds blowing harder than 100 kilometres an hour.
The storm forced a pilot to make an emergency landing in a canola field south of Portage la Prairie just after midnight.
Residents of Dauphin, Man., described hailstones like these and others the size of baseballs and grapefruits pulverizing their homes, vehicles and crops.
(Justin Tokarchuk)
The man had been flying a Cessna from Winnipeg to Brandon.
Emergency crews were led to the scene by the pilot himself, who had managed to find his cellphone after the landing.
The pilot landed the plane upright. He was assessed by paramedics and was not injured.
North of Winnipeg, several trees in Birds Hill Park were badly damaged or brought down by the storm on roads and in camping areas.
Stunned campers in the park described the wind as "unbelievable" or "like a freight train." Many abandoned their tents to wait out the storm in their cars or washroom facilities, while others simply fled the park altogether.
Power out for thousands in Winnipeg
The rough weather hit the Winnipeg area between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. CT.
Hailstones punched holes in this heavy plastic patio tabletop during the storm. The hail left fist-sized holes in countless windows at homes, stores, vehicles and even the 'golden arches' outside the local McDonald's restaurant.
(Bev Birss)
City police said many trees were blown down, mostly in the northeast area of Winnipeg.
Falling trees and branches also downed power lines, leaving about 7,000 people without electricity. Manitoba Hydro crews were hard at work Friday morning to repair damage.
A number of traffic lights, mainly in the Transcona and Elmwood areas, were still out in the morning.
Environment Canada officials said Winnipeg was hit with hail ranging from the size of a nickel to a toonie.
Residents in damaged areas across the province said they expected it will take several days to clean up all the debris.
It will take longer than that to deal with the thousands of insurance claims that are sure to pour in after the wake of the storm.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Ottawa sacrificed Arar to save face with US, Syria
Ibbitson puts it all quite succinctly:National security my ass. Foreign Affairs, CSIS and especially the RCMP were simply trying to keep hidden their incompetent, duplicitous, disgraceful handling of the Arar file. And they're still at it.
The are still at it in the Iacobucci inquiry and they are still denying others such as Benatta any possibility of justice. All the while some Canadians are busy on the Great Wall protesting Chinese violations of Tibetan rights. Fine but why ignore what is going on here in our own backyard.
THE ARAR REPORT: BEHIND THE COURT ORDER
Ottawa sacrificed Arar to save face with U.S., Syria
JOHN IBBITSON
August 10, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The federal government fought like blazes to keep the fact that the CIA sent Maher Arar to Syria from you - they fought so hard that it took a court order for you to hear it - because Ottawa doesn't want to lose face with the Americans, or the Syrians for that matter.
To preserve their trust, our government was prepared to sacrifice the trust of its own citizens. What are we to make of such a thing?
The blacked-out lines of Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor's report that are now available for all to see offer little that should surprise.
Of course the Central Intelligence Agency was at the heart of the decision to deport Mr. Arar to Syria. That
The are still at it in the Iacobucci inquiry and they are still denying others such as Benatta any possibility of justice. All the while some Canadians are busy on the Great Wall protesting Chinese violations of Tibetan rights. Fine but why ignore what is going on here in our own backyard.
THE ARAR REPORT: BEHIND THE COURT ORDER
Ottawa sacrificed Arar to save face with U.S., Syria
JOHN IBBITSON
August 10, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The federal government fought like blazes to keep the fact that the CIA sent Maher Arar to Syria from you - they fought so hard that it took a court order for you to hear it - because Ottawa doesn't want to lose face with the Americans, or the Syrians for that matter.
To preserve their trust, our government was prepared to sacrifice the trust of its own citizens. What are we to make of such a thing?
The blacked-out lines of Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor's report that are now available for all to see offer little that should surprise.
Of course the Central Intelligence Agency was at the heart of the decision to deport Mr. Arar to Syria. That