Ottawa Watch

Election blog

2011-04-18T18:43:00.003-05:00

Ottawa Magazine is hosting my blog through the election.

You can read it at www.ottawamagazine.com

Blog - Day 3 of the Run of the Rodents

2011-03-28T12:58:00.000-05:00

Sir Robert Borden is burning in Hell.

He must be. After all, he’s the only Prime Minister of Canada ever to lead a coalition government. Sir Bob, as good a Conservative as ever drew breath, wanted to draft Canadian boys to fight in the trenches of Flanders in World War I. So he made a deal with the dev…, er, Liberal MPs from English Canada, and cobbled together a Union Government.

Now, I do understand that Stephen Harper would rather be caught by a CBC camera crew in a Hull motel room with Leanna VIP than head anything with “Union” in the title, but I wouldn’t rule out a Harper-led coalition.

And if he did put one together after this election, hey, that’s how the system works.

Yes, Steve Madely, (who was flayed by Paul Dewar and David McGuinty on CFRA this morning when he tried to re-write the constitution in an exercise in mental gymnastics that became sad and painful to listen to), you read that right. That’s how the system works. The Westminister parliamentary system. Not the U.S. presidential system, though, as Al Gore learned the hard way, he who has the most votes does not always win there, either.

In most elections, the vast bulk of Canadian voters actually cast their ballots for candidates of parties that do not win. A political party can come to power with a majority having won about 42% of the vote. That gives almost unbridled control over the mechanism of state to parties that won about two out of every five votes cast.

(Adolf Hitler came to power under the same circumstances, never winning anything near a clear majority. Having taken power in a coalition government, Hitler tossed his opposition into concentration camps, burned down the parliament building and tore up the constitution. I hope I am not giving anyone ideas here.)

In 1985, Frank Miller, a Progressive Conservative, won the most seats in an Ontario provincial election. He named a cabinet, recalled the legislature, and brought in an amazing budget that did every nice thing, short of giving everyone free Molly Maid service. The Liberals and NDP worked out a deal – what they called an “accord” – published it, and made it clear they would vote Miller down in the legislature.

Now, this is where it gets interesting. Frank Miller did not go bawling onto your TV screen. He did not call his opponents thieves or traitors. Despite his taste for plaid suits, acquired during his years selling cars in Muskoka, Frank Miller had some class.

Miller went to the Lieutenant Governor, told him the PCs did not have the confidence of the legislature, and asked the Lieut. Gov. to call on Liberal leader David Peterson to form a government. Peterson did so, governed for two years, then won a solid majority.

And that’s the way the system works. We elect Members of Parliament. We do not elect Prime Ministers. And the person who has the support of a majority of MPs gets to govern.

Stephen Harper knows this. His first two budgets were supported by the Bloc. He’s used the votes of separatist MPs, socialist MPs and even of Stephan Dion himself to stay in power. When the rules suited him, he was eager and ready to play by them.

How do I know this?

Got it right from the horse’s mouth. Here’s Harper explaining it all to the strangely-coifed Paula Todd on TVOntario in 2004: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDTmpXj9vyM&feature=player_embedded

New Ottawa magazine blog post

2011-03-26T14:07:00.000-05:00

Ottawa magazine Blog-Day 1

Back in the early 1970s, psychiatrists at what was then called the Ontario Hospital for the Criminally Insane came up with a great idea to cure psychopaths and serial killers. They would crowd them into a small room, prevent them from leaving, and force them to learn co-operation and empathy.

For 100 days, they would be cut off from visitors, mail, radio, TV, newspapers. They were not allowed to smoke cigarettes. The lack of physical space was supposed cause them to make small concessions to each other. They would learn empathy.

But the Hundred Day Hate-In was a failure. Rather than communicate with each other and change their ways, the inmates spent their time in isolation looking out the window, watching groundhogs frolic in the green fields of Penetanguishene.

Imagine being locked for 37 days in a steel tube with Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff or Jack Layton, plus their handlers and a bunch of reporters. Certainly, there’s a psychiatry thesis in there somewhere. It may not be 100 days, but the potential for crazy-making must be about the same.

And, as most of us know, there are no groundhogs at 40,000 feet.

That’s why anything can happen in a campaign. Canadians always say they don’t want an election. Unfortunately, we cannot export our ballots to Egyptians and Yemenis, who have faced tanks to win the right to vote. Nor, yet, have we outsourced our politics to Calcutta or Xinjiang.

So we are stuck with elections and the strangeness they create. Serious issues will be reduced to slogans. The workings of a $250 billion-a-year government will be explained in platitudes. Strangers will come to your door. People in very expensive suits will say how worried they are about your job.

None of them will take your kid to the dentist, although Jack Layton would probably do it if his hip didn’t hurt so much. As for your laundry, you’d probably have to explain the workings of the machine to Michael Ignatieff. You could count on Stephen Harper to feed your cat, when he’s in town. The guy loading your garden shed onto a flatbed truck with Quebec plates is Gilles Duceppe.

But to get an honest answer about how the books will be balanced without big hits to the Ottawa magazine readership, about Canada’s ongoing military adventures abroad, the real cost of new fighters, about real reforms to make government open and democratic, would take more than a Hundred Day Hate-In, let alone just 37 days of entrapment in buses and planes.

There are lots of uncertainties. Will Demerol make Jack Layton an interesting speaker? Will Michael Ignatieff be caught wandering the darkened streets of Whitby seeking a meal of human blood? Will Stephen Harper’s hair be caught in the wind, hurling it into flesh of a fresh young Tory campaign worker, a member of the rally prop guild?

Will Gilles Duceppe’s addiction to crumpets, marmalade and boiled sausage be exposed? Or will someone find a secret PCB dump behind Elizabeth May’s house?

As certain as Peter Mansbridge’s head will shine tomorrow morning, something unexpected will happen in this campaign.

After the Hundred Day Hate-In, one murderer said “I’ll shine people’s shoes, but I can’t love them.” Politicians may feel the same way about us. And, in their efforts to shower us with money, flowers, compliments – anything but real love – we should find some reason to either dance with the one that brung us, or seek out some new action with the strange dude with a coffin in the basement.

For Kady

2011-01-29T11:10:00.001-05:00

Halifax, VE Day: A Censor Describes a Riot
H. Bruce Jefferson

Jefferson, a long-time journalist in Nova Scotia, was the government’s press censor in Halifax during World War II. Jefferson was a packrat who, from his room on the top floor of Halifax’s Lord Nelson Hotel, acted more like a spy than a censor. He photographed convoys and warships as they came and left the city, kept tabs on all of the U-boat attacks in the northwestern Atlantic, was wired into Halifax’s busy gossip grapevine, and, months before the Halifax Riot, predicted there would be trouble at war’s end. During the riot of soldiers and sailors that followed the announcement of V-E Day, Jefferson wandered the city looking for material to send to his superiors and colleagues in Ottawa. Jefferson blamed the riots on the snobbery of Halifax business owners and residents who, he believed, had no qualms about fleecing soldiers and sailors stationed in Halifax while, at the same time, snubbing them. The riot ruined Adm. Murray’s career.

Because the weather forecasters predicted rain for tomorrow, the Halifax committee had decided not to await Churchill's announcement of VE day, but to shoot their fireworks ex George's Island this evening.
The display began about 2100 hours, and Citadel Hill was absolutely jammed with thousands of people watching the affair, which lasted for nearly two hours.
As soon as it was over the crowd began to come down from the hill, serious rioting broke out on downtown street. First I saw of it was a dull glare over Barrington street, where they had set fire to two street cars, and upset a police patrol car, letting the burning gas run over the pavement.
Through the open window we could hear the crash of glass as window after window went in, and soon over the roofs we could see the crowd breaking into the Sackville street liquor store.
About 2 a.m., I got a car and toured the devastated area, which did not look too bad at that time, broken glass being the main item. Three of the liquor stores bad been looted, and about 250 RCN shore patrolmen were gathered around the fourth, on Agricola Street in the North End.
This had not been touched.
By this time the rioters had gone home, and nothing more happened Monday night.
During the late evening I passed stories for Dennis, Ken Chisholm (Globe & Mail) and several others, all somewhat lurid and placing the damage at $1,000,000.

May 8, 1945.

This morning had several enquiries from locals and wire services about coverage of last night's riots, which I assured them were wide open, as no security was
involved.
In the afternoon I attended a short garrison drum-head service of prayer and thanksgiving on the Garrison Grounds, back of the Citadel, and just west of the old Atlantic Command HQ.
There was quite a large turnout of troops of all branches (Navy, Army, Air Force and women auxiliaries) but they did not show any particular enthusiasm over the business-- as it turned out, their thoughts must have been with their brethren down town.
Coming down Sackville Street, near the corner of Barrington, our ears were greeted with the now familiar sound of falling plate glass. I spent some time observing the scene from various angles, and it kept getting worse and worse as the afternoon advanced. When most of the plate glass had been smashed, people climbed into the windows and kicked in the glass or thin wood backs of the show windows, and entered the stores. In some cases goods were thrown from upper windows to the crowd below, in others the stuff was merely carried out.
Generally speaking, the service men, principally navy although there were lots of Army and Air Force boys, too, took the physical and other risks of breaking and entering, while the civilians cheered them on and carried off the loot.
There was absolutely no interference with them by city or service police or RCMP. There was so much going on that it was like a 43 ring circus, and no one person could begin to follow all of it. For example, one Barrington street crowd broke into Eaton's store, and for a time it looked as if nothing was being taken, but in the meantime another crowd had obtained entrance through Granville Street, and were carrying goods away by the ton through rear doors and windows.
It was the same everywhere.
As we passed the corner of Granville and Sackville, some people were looting the best shoe store in town. A man would appear at a window up two or three flights, with half a dozen shoe boxes in his hands, and throw them down to pals below. On the way down the boxes would open and the shoes get scattered, and then one fellow with a number seven worth $15 a pair would be hunting for somebody else who had the mate and vice versa.
There were all kinds of comic incidents, such as the old lady who must have been 75 or 80, with her dress covered with old war medals, who came up the
car tracks arm in arm with a young airman, each drinking from bottles of beer and singing lustily. Later they did a sort of square dance in the intersection of Sackville and Barrington, and one of the locals took and printed a picture of it. In some ways it reminded me of a scene from the French revolution movies.
I forgot to mention that when I came out of the hotel shortly after noon on my way to the Garrison Grounds, I noticed a number of beer parties beginning on the lawn around the Cornwallis statue across the drive from the Nova Scotian. Other sailors kept arriving with cases on their shoulders, and I vaguely wondered how they had been able to save it from the night before. It turned out that they were even then looting Keith's Brewery, and as we went up South street more sailors kept arriving, and a standard salutation was "Well, I see the liquor store is open today, after all."
At one point a civilian came dashing down the line to warn the sailors that RCN patrol trucks were touring the city snatching cases back from sailors, and that they had better get rid of the boxes at once. This proved to be a racket. When the sailors would rush to hide their boxes under verandahs, etc., other civvies would call them away on one pretext or another, while still others made off with the cached beer.
One man told me he was looking for hard liquor but was unable to locate any. Some friends invited him into have a drink of beer. While they were chatting,
a policeman who knew him came in and said: "What are you doing here?" He said: "Having a drink of beer." The cop said: "O.K. but let me have that box of brandy you're sitting on."
One of the last places attacked was Birks' store, and they made quite a mess of it. While watching the crowd go through Birks, I ran across A.D. MacNeill, former owner of the Glace Bay Gazette who sold that sheet to the U.M.W. when he had to retire on account of ill health, and learned for the first time that A.D. has been living since October at 129 Spring Garden Road.
It was at this time (about 1855 hours) that I heard a horn car coming through the crowd, and a voice which I recognized as that Admiral Murray commanding the service people to go home to their barracks. For a moment I thought that he must have made a record of the kind sometimes used in these cars, but in a few seconds, I heard an impromptu remark from the horn which showed me that the Admiral himself was on board, and when the car came past I recognized him in the front seat.
The gist of his remarks were:
"This is the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Murray, in person. The mayor of Halifax has declared a curfew effective at 8 p.m. Any service personnel found on the street after that hour will be subject to the full penalties of the law."
Some sailor must have interjected a wisecrack as the car went by, as the Admiral said: "This is the Commander-in-Chief speaking -- and that’s not funny at all." I did not hear the statement attributed to him by the Chronicle and Star and others to the effect that "You don’t want to get caught with loot, do you?" or words to that effect. From the general tenor of his remarks, I would gather that if he did make such a remark it was only ambiguously worded, and meant that they would not want to expose themselves, etc. for staying after 8 P.M.
The Admiral came around several times, completely circling the district, and there were slight variations in his remarks each time. For example, someone must have asked if this applied only to service people, because on his second circuit he took pains to specify civilians as well as personnel were subject to the order. (Which, incidentally, I am informed by one of the brightest legal minds in Cape Breton is all baloney and has no standing in law whatever.)
However, the bluff, or whatever it was, worked. As soon as the Admiral came around the first time, all service people on the spectator side of the street
began to move away toward barracks, etc. and within a short time even the rioters departed, except for a few in the stores who possibly could not hear the horn or had not taken in what it said.
To my mind this indicates that if similar action had been taken earlier, the whole business could have been avoided. It was the slowness of action that permitted the chief destruction to occur.
I have been told that while there was some desultory activity in other parts of the city, on Gottingen Street and elsewhere, no damage of importance took place after the admiral made his rounds. Thousands were still AWOL but were parked with beer cases in such dark spots as Point Pleasant Park, Camp Hill Cemetery, etc.
The job was a very thorough one, and cleaned out the various business areas completely. Barrington was smashed and looted on both sides from the Convoy cafe (which is between the Nova Scotian park and Morris Street, for a distance of two miles to the end of the store district above the Dockyard. Gottingen is smashed from Cogswell to Stadacona. The East-West streets like Spring Garden Road and Quinpool Road escaped attention altogether. But all the hill-side streets lying between Brunswick and Water street in the old city were cleaned out in toto.
Woods’ -- the place Jacques was asking about -- was the only downtown store to escape glass damage or looting. Why, Lord only knows as their clothing prices were terrible. They took no chances on a second visitation and boarded them up right away. Everything else along there was smashed.
The crowd also smashed some of the windows in the Mounties barracks (old Halifax Hotel) not the plate glass lobby windows, but smaller panes in the adjoining Julien section. There were all kinds of queer sights, such as looters using the RCMP verandah to lay out their dresses, stockings, etc. and pack them into neater bundles for carrying. Cash registers lay all over the streets with their keys bent and twisted.
(I picked up a brand new quarter on the curb in front of the little Ideal store, where some fellow was busy bagging up sugar for himself out of a bin beneath the counter.)
When we went home to dinner, a sailor's dream was being enacted on the front steps of the Nova Scotian. A captain (four striper) was standing in stiff dignity waiting for a taxi, with a sailor in a jersey haranguing him and the crowd on the Navy and what he thought of it. In front of the captain in civvies, was an old jovial veteran of the last war, with one leg and crutches. Both the veteran and the sailor were pretty drunk, and behind the captain was an open mouthed audience of retired duchesses from the hotel hanging on every word. The sailor, however, was good-natured and polite, although drunk, and refrained from any really naughty language. The conversation as I came up was going something like this:
Old Vet: "Now, me lad, you shouldn't be carrying on like this. Remember you are a member of the Silent Service."
Sailor: "To hell with the Silent Service. I wasted three years and a half in it, and they can take their silent service and put it you know where."
Old Vet: "Tut, tut. That's no way to be talking in front of your captain."
Sailor: "He ain't my captain and you can put him you know where."
Old Vet: "You wouldn't talk like that to him if you were on the quarter deck."
Sailor: "I ain't on the quarter deck, and neither is he, and you can take your quarter deck and put it you know where."
Old Vet: "Have you no respect for your superiors in rank? Don't they teach you any discipline in the Navy?"
Sailor: "They ain't my superiors except in rank, and I've seen all the captains and admirals I want to see for the rest of my life, and you can take your captains and admirals and you can put them you know where."
The sailor carried an open bottle of rum in his left hand and never lost his polite leer and this went on and on until the skipper's taxi finally arrived and he left in a cloud of dust much to the chagrin of the aforesaid dowagers and duchesses who apparently were getting quite a kick our of it. Similar scenes were going on all over town, although there were no attacks on officers with the exception of Commander Smith, who was found on King's campus with his head bashed in, but there is some uncertainty whether this was an accident or someone settling up old scores.
Although I did not see it myself, I understand that some of the Cwacs and Wrens also distinguished themselves in the "Battle of Halifax," which was a long while getting here but turned out to be a lulu when it finally arrived.
I heard one yarn about two Wrens who were fighting half a dozen sailors in a vacant lot bounded by a board fence, lined with spectators who applauded lustily as one side or the other scored a particularly telling point.
The harbor side of Citadel Hill staged the biggest beer picnics in the history of the city, and there are some almost incredibly, but apparently yell authenticated yarns about genuine "orgies" which went on in such public places as Grafton Park and Cornwallis Park (in front of the NSH).
One of the features on the Commons was a nude dance put on by members of several of the services. Apparently old Robespierre and the boys would have felt right at home in the Warden of the Honor of the North on May 7-8/45.
A lot of this stuff no doubt will come out at the official hearings.
We had very few submissions on this event, in fact mostly enquiries, from the newspapers and services. The wire censors (as old soldiers mostly) were shocked beyond words, and frequently referred the flamboyant stuff that was being sent, out in query and story form by various local feature writers at last free to give full rein to their natural instincts in the matter of exaggeration.
I passed everything, telling the boys that there is no censorship on this. I had a particularly strong kick about Eric Dennis including rape as one of the features of the day, and I think this is a fake, or at least based on very slight grounds, as no such charge has appeared since in local courts. All accounts of the day's activities agree that this would have been a work of supererogation.
Neither of the locals had intended to publish today, but on account of unusual circumstances, both Mail and Star put out extras replete with editorials, stories and pictures.
The Mail blew rather hot and cold, one front page editorial deploring the incident and demanding vengeance and recompense, while another took pains to point out that the whole Navy should not be blamed for the actions of a comparatively small number.
The Star rather stole the show with a front page editorial actually naming Admiral Murray as the person responsible for the whole business by reason of his alleged failure to take prompt and vigorous action to stop the rioting before it got started again on the second day.
In the evening, over CHNS, Admiral Murrary made a short statement in which he maintained that naval personnel were only a small part of the shock troops and that civilians were primarily to blame for both breaking and looting.
He was followed at 1900 hours by Mayor Butler, who followed the Star lead in naming Admiral Murray as the chief cause of the trouble, demanded compensation, and added the charge that many of those (provosts) sent to quell the rioting had in fact deserted to the rioters.
(Mr. Pickering, an old soldier who works upstairs, had predicted this very result if small pickets were used against the rioters, saying that the same thing happened in 1900 when Halifax troops sent on a similar errand hid their rifles behind fences and joined in the disturbances. He was through Boer War troop riots in Newcastle and Durban, South Africa, in 1899, Halifax: riots in 1900, and additional local riots in 1917, 1918 and 1919, and qualifies as something of an expert on the subject.)

May 10, 1945.

Last night Bob Rankin (managing editor of the Halifax Herald) told me that they were going to give Murray the ride of his life. I said: "I thought he was a pal of yours"? Bob said: "Like Hell he is. He hates my guts and I hate his and I am going after him in good style."
Today they did assail the Admiral but still not as outspokenly as the Star did yesterday.
In reply to Mr. Isley's appointment of Cousins, Port Administrator, to investigate the riots, the Star ran another front page editorial "Cousins Won't do," and concurrently Cousins notified the acting premier that he felt this should be handled by a judicial rather than an administrative officer.
This about brings the developments up to date, and I add a few comments of my own, based upon local observation:
1. Apparently the Admiral did not realize the extent of the damage until he made his first round in the horn car at 6.55 p.m. Up to that time he had been relying on reports from subordinates, a bad feature of the Navy and also rampant in the RN. Even as good an officer as Bonham Carter sometimes would not know of the presence of an important ship until three or four days after she arrived.
2. There seems to be a tendency to jump on the Admiral now that they think they have him down. Stories even were circulated that he had left town when he heard about the murder or whatever it was of Commander Smith. I am also skeptical about the reports that the chief of police couldn't get him at 11 p.m. One surprising thing about Murray, for a conservative brass hat he certainly is, that he answers the phone himself at both office and home, instead of straining calls through servants, secretaries and so forth as is the usual custom of higher officers.
3. From the prompt response to his first order to get out of the devastated area, I think there would have been no afternoon riots on the 8th if this had been done during the progress of the one the night before. After all, although there were thousands and thousands of people on Barrington and adjoining streets, not a tenth of them were active rioters. The rest were merely spectators. Even the actual heavy civilian looters were confined mostly to men, women and children from the poor relief and red light districts on the streets immediately below the citadel.
At the same time there were thousands of what I might call "incidental" minor looters, such as well dressed people of all ranks who obtained small souvenirs of one kind and another, or picked up packages of cigarettes sown broadcast by celebrating sailors from tobacco stores, etc.
4. It was the best natured riot I ever attended. There were a few comedy fights between sailors and other rioters, but absolutely no friction between rioters and civilians. In fact it was not unusual for some fellow staggering toward a window with a club to bump a civvie and stop and say "Excuse it, please," only to resume his crashing the next minute. In fact the rioters seemed to enjoy their audience and were stimulated to new exertions by it.
5. There are said to be three main reasons for the riot, and no doubt dozens of minor motives. But in various parts of the disturbance I heard a number of scattered sailors giving reasons like these:
(a) They felt that their time in the Navy has been wasted. Presumably they expected to be sent to sea and instead were kept ashore on piffling jobs which they felt could have been carried on by any kid, thereby missing the promotion they might have had in their own trades.
(b) They felt that they have been rooked and robbed by Halifax landlords and profiteers. I heard many men make statements to that effect during the riots, and many civilians who were not rioters remarked that they had a just grievance there, although this was not an effective solution.
(c) They resented the actions of retailers who have made fortunes out of them during the war, barricading their places as against criminals. Particularly
they resented the closing of the liquor stores several days before VE Day.
Innumerable remarks were overheard to the effect that "this is one time the ratings as well as the messes will have their liquor."
(I am informed that in the Navy each officer is allowed a monthly quota of six bottles of rum or whiskey, which he is able to purchase for about $1 each, while the men have to come down town and pay full prices (averaging $5.) at the public stores.) Although I am not a liquor store or beer parlor fan, seems to me that better judgment was shown by old Enos Collins and the pioneer profiteers of 1812-14. Their custom on VE Day was to put a hogshead of rum in the public square and let all hands go to it. When that one was gone, hey put out another until all hands were dead drunk and there was no further danger to premises. It was cheap insurance and apparently worked.)
6. While the streets looked as if a V-bomb had hit them during the actual riot and shortly afterward, and a returned officer told me that it looked as bad as some the captured towns in Italy, actually the substantial damage is not so very great.
With the streets swept of glass, and the store fronts boarded up until new plate arrives, buildings show no other signs of exterior damage. Nor is the interior damage much, except to breakables like show cases and china.
For example, right after the riot I went in to see the damage at the Casino Cafe, just across the square from the NSH. The windows had been smashed, some of the pictures and silk fittings torn down and so forth, and the place was dirty and looked like the wreck of the Hesperus. Proprietor said "You buy bonds, you help the war, and look at this. Even the Germans wouldn't have done worse if they bad come."
However, I notice today that he had resumed business and the interior shows little signs of damage. Most other restaurants are making a similar comeback with the exception of a couple of notorious gyppers who were given the works. Norman had a close call, but showed great t presence of mind in meeting them at the door and lining them up at the counter for cigarettes, coffee, muffins and so forth. They left with three cheers, but later his windows were broken by another mob, but this did not damage the interior of his place.
As far as the general run of store-keepers is concerned, I think the situation is this: Actually the rioters have done them a favor by cleaning out the old war worn fixtures and junk. They will now get full compensation from the government and be in a better position than ever.
Col. Powers, who himself is highly indignant over the business, told me today that he had been talking to his Montreal of Ottawa HQ and had found that the reaction in Upper Canada was: "Served them right for profiteering. The Halifax store-keepers had it coming to them.” One bad feature of the affair was that owing to the large number of participants, no discrimination was made between those who had rooked the sailor and those who had treated them fairly. Local papers are compiling a list to show that some of those looted were war veterans, or had sons or daughters in the armed forces. This, however, in Halifax, means little or nothing, as I am told that some of the worst profiteers are war vets themselves. Since the place was founded in 1749, it has been noted for war profiteering, and for the unusual fact that profiteer families invariably have been heavily represented in the actual fighting forces.
7. Complete breakdown of police protection. There was absolutely no police attempt to interfere with breaking and entering, looting, etc. Some truckloads of naval police arrived at various times, and after standing uncertainly for awhile, disappeared just as the worst atrocities were being committed.
In Sydney, where rioting of the same general character occurred about the same time, city, service and RCMP combined forces and easily drove the rioters out of the business district. I think the same thing might have succeeded here. Instead the police adopted a policy of non-intervention and watchful waiting, meanwhile taking the names of all they could identify. These people are now being locked up and raided. A few already have pleaded guilty and been sent to the pen.
One comic aspect of the raids was that in many cases police searching for goods stolen from stores on the eighth, turned up big caches of United States Army rations, tinned fruits, candy, cigarettes, etc, from the wreck of the Martin van Buren (January) referred to by me in previous rulings. In one instance they unearthed a truck with the original January load still in it.
8. It appeared to me that most of the service MPs or shore patrols had no police experience. They drove up in their trucks and then stoop about uncertainly.
An example: When I visited Agricola Street at 2 a. m. Tuesday, there were about 240 shore patrolmen grouped about it, and no successful attack was possible. For some reason these men were withdrawn and only two Mounties remained inside. A few hours later the place was attacked by a large mob and the Mounties, unable to resist such a crowd opened the doors themselves, I am told, to avoid unnecessary damage to the building.

The end of a week from hell...

2011-01-05T13:56:00.004-05:00

Update: Turns out Canadian publishing is a much classier business than I thought. The support from media such as Quill and Quire, the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, Publishers Weekly, the CBC and many bloggers has been heartening. As well, my dealings lately with Jordan Fenn have shown me that, in my anger and shock, I was uncharitable. I feel for him and the situation he is in, and for the publishing business in general. Right now, it is hell out there.
It's also rough for writers. Fewer Canadian books will come out. There will be many people who, like me, are eager to tell stories and may not get the chance. If we are lucky, there will be a rebound -- both from a stronger economy and from a settling-down of the marketplace as everyone adapts to new technologies and people find ways to be properly compensated for their work.
My book has a publisher. It will be issued this fall by Douglas & McIntyre, a great house. Four other publishers expressed serious interest in the project, and all of them were very supportive, keen and would have done a good job with this book. I have accepted Douglas & McIntyre's offer because of their track record of publishing and promoting some of the best Canadian non-fiction and fiction.

Canadian publishing: don't mistake it for a classy business. This book was supposed to be published Jan. 25. This arrived today:

Mark,

It was communicated to me today that you had called our publicity department to query the status of your title, THE FOG of WAR, and to learn the anticipated release date of same.

It would seem that a significant breakdown in communication has occurred in that you were not notified of the hold status placed on this publication. It would seem that several members of our team were all thinking that the other had spoken with you, while in reality none of us had. This is regrettable. This is embarrassing and I suspect this is incredibly upsetting, frustrating, angering and disappointing for you.

I am available to speak with you today, or this week, at your convenience, to discuss this situation. Key Porter Books has recognized the necessity to restructure our business in light of the current market conditions and the challenges and considerable impact that this has had on our operations. The publishing industry is going through difficult times and we as a result have made drastic changes to our house in order to adjust and strengthen our position.

Again Mark, it is with sincere regret that we find ourselves in this position and even greater regret that this was not properly communicated to you.

I will look forward to speaking with you at your convenience.

Sincerely,

Jordan Fenn

The rent is too damned high!!!

2010-10-19T09:47:00.001-05:00

If things don't work out for this guy in Albany, let's bring him to Ottawa.

How China Sees Us

2010-10-11T18:15:00.002-05:00

Here's a story I wrote for the Chinese news service Xinhua on the move to bring civility to Question Period. While still maintaining an authoritarian and very centralized regime, the Chinese do value politeness:

Canadian politicians vote to bring civility back to political debate

Mark Bourrie

OTTAWA, (Oct. 8), Xinhua—Canadian politicians, frustrated with the decline in manners in their House of Commons, have passed a motion requiring members of parliament to find ways of improving the quality of debate in the Canadian legislature.
Much of the criticism of parliamentary debate focuses on “Question Period,” a 45-minute session in which members of opposition parties ask government ministers about the administration of their departments. Through the national media, millions of Canadians follow Question Period each day, and the debates make up the bulk of Canadian political coverage.
In recent years, Question Period has, critics say, become nothing more than political grandstanding, with opposition MPs asking politically-loaded questions and ministers replying with answers that rarely address important issues. During the session, the debate is often drowned out by heckling and shouting by MPs.
A recent survey conducted for the Public Policy Forum, a private organization that seeks ways of improving government, found two-thirds of Canadians believe Question Period is a forum for MPs to "grandstand" for the media and score "cheap political points."
The poll also found a majority of Canadians think less of this country's system of government because of what they see and hear in the daily session.
Earlier this week, a motion to reform Question Period, moved by Michael Chong, a member of the governing Conservative Party, was passed in the House of Commons by a vote of 235 to 44. The motion orders a parliamentary committee to study various options and propose changes to reform Question Period, and to complete this task within six months.
According to a recent public opinion poll, Canadians overwhelmingly disapprove of the behavior of government and opposition MPs during Question Period.
“During the election, I promised to reconnect Canadians with the democratic institutions that belong to us all,” Chong told reporters. He added, “Question Period reform is a first, but important, step toward the reform of Parliament.”
“This motion proves that you can build bi-partisan consensus and get things done for all Canadians,” he said.
Glen Pearson an opposition Liberal MP, seconded Chong’s motion, calling Question Period the “most shameful 45 minutes in any parliamentary day.”
Chong’s motion calls for giving the Speaker, who chairs debate in the House of Commons, more powers to discipline disruptive MPs. The time limit for questions and answers would be expanded from 35 seconds so that the exchanges could be more substantive.
And the Prime Minister, who usually attends the session four days a week and answers, on average, six questions, would only be expected to be present one day a week, where he would take questions during the entire 45 minute session.
The motion had the support of MPs from three parties: the governing Conservatives, and opposition Liberals and New Democrats. It was opposed by the Bloc Quebecois, a party that advocates the separation of the province of Quebec from Canada.
"This is a victory for Canadian democracy," Chong said after the vote. "Canadians have indicated they want to see reforms to Parliament. This is the first step, a small but important step toward parliamentary reform. So I'm thrilled."
Chong said he believes the Canadian people have lost faith in parliament because of the spectacle of MPs shouting and insulting each other every day. He says only about half of Canadian adults bother to vote because they have lost faith in the system.
"I think the reason for that is the behavior and the dysfunctionality that they see in the House of Commons is not something that they approve of. So they want us to fix this dysfunctionality."

Good news (for me, at least)

2010-10-11T18:07:00.002-05:00

My book will be published after all.
Key Porter let me know late last week. That means six months of work (on top of the research and writing time used to write and research this material when it was a thesis) will not go to waste after all.
I have another manuscript finished and waiting for a green light. It's a look at Canadian war correspondence from the very beginning to the present. I decided to write it when I tried to look up some stuff on Canadian front-line reporters World War II and found there was no book on them and their work. Hopefully, in a year or so, no one will have that problem.

Key Porter

2010-10-06T18:25:00.005-05:00

My book, the Fog of War, is scheduled to be published by Key Porter Books on January 25, 2011. Right now, the publisher is in a state of flux. Most of the staff has been let go and the survivors have been moved out of their office and into the distribution facility on Bolton, north of Toronto. Some very talented people have lost their jobs and a very important Canadian cultural institution is in jeopardy. Despite the millions and millions of taxpayers' dollars that have been poured into Canadian book publishing, Key Porter was the last big Canadian company left. All of the rest, including McClelland and Stewart, which still calls itself "the Canadian Publisher" are now foreign-owned.
Key Porter published about 100 books a year. They published some fiction, kids' books, history, military books, political stuff, cook books and hockey titles. Farley Mowat, Jean Chretien, Margaret Atwood, Joan Barfoot and many other top-tier Canadian authors published with them.
My book is done. All the editing, typesetting, proof-reading, the dust jacket (with blurbs by Peter C. Newman, Steve Maher of the Halifax Herald, and Jeff Keshen, who did the definitive book on WWI censorship). It just needs to be printed.
Needless to say, I am sticking close to the phone. There are five years of my life invested in the book, and I know people are going to find it interesting.
I am told I may hear something by Friday.
So hope for the best. Even better, pre-order it now from Chapters-Indigo if you were planning to buy it. Normally, i'd be lobbying for people to buy it from an independent book seller, but in this case I think a big Chapters order might save the book. Plus they're selling it for about $20, which is a good deal.

We're now featured on Metromarks

2010-10-06T18:23:00.001-05:00

This blog has been picked up by Metromarks, You can see their pages here. This is great news, and I thank them.

The Conservatives and the Establishment: The fight to be Ottawa's "New Men"

2010-09-26T08:26:00.002-05:00

These days, I spend quite a bit of time explaining Canada's political system to Chinese journalists who find the whole process more than a little strange. And the fact that Canada's political system, along with its players, is in a constant state of morph does not make things more comprehensible to them or easy for me.
Take the Conservatives. I grew up believing the Conservative Party was the linear descendant of the Family Compact and the Chateau Clique, the closed group of Tory blue-bloods who controlled the patronage machine of Upper and Lower Canada until we got something resembling democratic, responsible government in the 1840s.
Tory politicians were either scions of wealth or were, themselves, well-connected new money, earned, like R.B. Bennett's, from blue-chip corporations like the CPR. The Tories did not welcome people who didn't come from Rosedale, British Properties or Westmount, except as door-knockers and stamp-lickers. Catholics were not welcome, nor were people with a lot of vowels in their names.
Liberals were middle-class and upper-middle class people: small-town lawyers, school teachers, academics. They had a big tent that held ethnic minorities, Jews and Catholics. That, in any case, was the pitch, and it was reinforced by Mackenzie King, who could honestly say he was the grandson of a genuine leftist hell-raiser.
But things have changed. These days, the Conservatives are far from being members of the Canadian Establishment. Any toe-hold they have in it is tenuous and probably transitory. Unlike Brian Mulroney, Stephen Harper did not cultivate Westmount money and American business leaders before going into politics. He is a professional politician from the very fringes of the Canadian Conservative tradition, an outsider, and he acts like one.
Harper is trying hard to gain control of the levers of power and respectability. he's hobbled by the fact that his staff and advisors are also outsiders, people who learned about power and government from books and media articles. Part of their problem lies in the fact that reality does not fit what they've read over the years. Their reaction is to develop rigidity and defensiveness, rather than open their eyes and ears.
It enrages them that the Liberals are the true Establishment party of Canada. No amount of power and perks can, for the Tories, change the fact that the top Liberals were born to power and see themselves that way.
So many are sons of power.
Michael Ignatieff is the son of George Ignatieff, one if the most connected bureaucrats and diplomats in Canada. His mother was a member of the Grant family, solid members of the establishment that sees Queens University as a breeding ground of leaders. The Grants practically created Queens and the clique that grew from it.
Ignatieff was brought to Ottawa by Ian Davey, whose father was the campaign brain of the Trudeau regime
His main challenger, Bob Rae, is the son of diplomat Saul Rae, who moved among the Pearsonian elite in the days when the Department of Foreign Affairs was Canada's most interesting and glamorous ministry. Rae held sway in the years when Canada was shifting its focus from the British to the American empire, and young Bob Rae, like Ignatieff, was dispatched to private schools and good universities. Eventually, he went to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship.
The previous Liberal leader, Stephane Dion, was son of Leon Dion, a man not particularly well-known in English Canada. He was a tough, sometimes ruthless politician who negotiated constitutional issues on behalf of Quebec and is credited with developing the "knife to the throat" tactics that have served Quebec so well in the past 45 years.
The younger Dion surrounded himself with other establishment Liberals with famous last names, including Mick Gzowski, who was saddled with the debacle of Dion's disastrous TV speech during the 2009 coalition attempt.
Of course, to the Tories, Justin Trudeau is the most infuriating "name" Liberal. Trudeau 2.0 has hardly had a stellar career inside or outside of politics. His education is minimal, his work experience before he was elected was unfocused and rather uninspiring. As an MP, he has said nothing of substance. Many Liberals see him as a contender in the next decade, but no one can say what he stands for.
All of these people, and many more senior Liberals, are socially and intellectually hard-wired into the media and the bureaucracy. Old, established Ottawa believes the Harper regime will disappear soon and be forgotten as a sort of quirky anomaly, like E.C. Drury's United Farmers of Ontario provincial government of the early 1920s.
The Harper control freak system, along with the Conservative outreach to rural and new Canadians, is a reaction to that, an attempt to cobble together a coalition big enough to win a majority government that will be taken seriously by Canada's elites. They might be able to pull it off, though I'm really not sure the political talent or the intellectual depth is there.
But certainly the motivation exists. The Tories will either govern long enough to create a new country, in many ways similar to Reagan's America, or they will will be cast aside as a sort of political palate-cleansing.
The next election will probably be the watershed.

Canada's Greatest Freeloaders

2010-09-23T21:36:00.003-05:00

I notice the Queen's spending on palaces and staff -- Buckingham Palace, Windsor and Hollyrood (Sandringham and Balmoral are her own property) barely outstrips the cost of our GG's salary, staffing and upkeep of Rideau Hall:

Here's the squawk in the British press:

Here's what Canada's GG costs:

And the Brits get the full tourism draw of the monarchy, while we get Order of Canada ceremonies.

OK. Now for the "crisis."

2010-09-23T07:19:00.002-05:00

It's coming, just like the storms of fall.
The economy is tanking again, the Afghanistan pull-out is on the horizon, and Stephen Harper pledged to the G-20 that he would make big spending cuts this spring. Plus stimulus spending ends at the end of March. All-in-all, 2011 is already shaping up to be a hard year.
Plus Ignatieff is shaking off the mantle of Stephane Dion. And the country is warming to the idea that Harper is a control freak.
So, yes, look for the crisis that vapour-locks Parliament and "forces" an election. Will it be a crime bill? The pending mini-budget?
Trust me. It will be something.

New Sponsor: Ottawa's Best Golf Course

2010-09-21T14:35:00.005-05:00

Thanks to Loch March, one of our new sponsors, we have a monetary incentive to keep the blog going. Thanks, Loch March!
Take a good look at their web site. It's a beautiful course with a gorgeous Tudor-style club house.

Messin' with the Deity

2010-09-03T05:45:00.001-05:00

You'd think this guy would realize that he's already pissed off God enough. Likely the Almighty bought A Brief History of Time and, like the rest of us, found it to be unreadable.

Adventures in disfunction

2010-08-30T11:00:00.005-05:00

I went to a press conference this morning to hear Peter van Loan, who had just come back from a visit to Central and South America, talk about extending free trade into that region. It's an important topic that Canadians should talk about. First, is it a good idea? What's in it for Canada? Will we lose jobs or gain them? What do we get from them and what do they want from us? Will it open the door to more immigration from the region, which is a source of a large migration of unskilled workers from farm regions to cities in Latin America and the US. People's jobs are on the line, and jobs are not that easy to get these days.
So the minister walks up to a podium set up in front of the House of Commons. He reads a rather long statement in French. Then he does the same in English. This has eaten up about 15 minutes. His flacks say there's time for two questions in French, two in English. (This, of course, is not enough for a serious session on trade.)
The first question, in English, is about the trade stuff. Julie van Dusen of the CBC asks the second question. It's about the gun registry. I decide the "two questions" rule really should relate to the subject of trade. I ask how many deals we are going after, and whether NAFTA could be extended deeper into Central America and into South America.
The rest of the questions are about the gun registry, which is obviously the story du jour. Van Loan, who used to be Public Safety minister, doesn't have the good sense to say that's not his department anymore, and if people want to talk to the public safety minister, they should find Vic Toews.
So we have some trade deals cooking with some pleasant and unpleasant states in South and Central America, and with some Caribbean states. Details of the deals? Forget it. No time. Are there going to be human rights links? Wish I could say. Security links? Dunno.
But we do know that Peter van Loan, who is no longer public safety minister, is like the rest of the Harper cabinet and doesn't like the long gun registry. And in Ottawa, today, that's important. That's news. In fact, it's more important than trade and the economy, or your job.

A Day in the Life of Your Tax Dollars

2010-08-11T08:32:00.009-05:00

Media Advisory: Government of Canada Invests in Quebec's Hops Industry

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Aug. 11, 2010) - The Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, on behalf of the Honorable Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture) will be in Ile-du-Grand-Calumet, Quebec on Thursday, August 12th to announce an investment in support of Quebec's Hops industry.

Government of Canada Invests in Community Environmental Projects in Regina and Central Saskatchewan

REGINA, SASKATCHEWAN--( Aug. 11, 2010) - Andrew Scheer, Member of Parliament for Regina-Qu'Appelle, on behalf of Canada's Environment Minister, the Honourable Jim Prentice, today announced funding from the EcoAction Community Funding Program for three new environmental projects in Regina and central Saskatchewan. In total, $52,826 in federal funding will support local action to reduce pollution, improve air and water quality, and protect wildlife and natural habita

Media Advisory: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

FREDERICTON, NEW BRUNSWICK--( Aug. 11, 2010) - The Honourable Keith Ashfield, Minister of National Revenue, Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Minister for the Atlantic Gateway and Member of Parliament for Fredericton, on behalf of the Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, will announce funding to the University of New Brunswick to help combat homelessness.

Minister Ashfield will be available for a photo op and to answer questions from the media following the announcement.

GOVERNMENTS OF CANADA AND NEW BRUNSWICK
INVEST IN THREE EDMUNDSTON-AREA COMPANIES

EDMUNDSTON (NB) – August 11, 2010 – Federal and provincial representatives joined company officials from Fraser Specialty Products Ltd., Beaulieu Plumbing and Mechanical Inc., and IPL Inc. today to announce funding that will help these companies purchase new equipment, expand their operations and create jobs.

The Honourable Keith Ashfield, Minister of National Revenue, Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway; and the Honourable Donald Arseneault, Minister of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour, announced investments totaling close to $2 million toward these projects.

GOVERNMENT OF CANADA INVESTS IN CAPE JOURIMAIN NATURE CENTRE

BAYFIELD (NB) – August 11, 2010 – The Cape Jourimain Nature Centre will soon offer improved services to its visitors, thanks to an investment of more than $48,000 from the Government of Canada. The Honourable Carolyn Stewart Olsen, Senator for New Brunswick, on behalf of the Honourable Keith Ashfield, Minister of National Revenue, Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway, today announced funding for the renovation and improvement project.

ATLANTIC INTERNTIONAL AIR SHOW
COMING TO SLEMON PARK IN SUMMER 2011

Summerside, (PE) August 11, 2010 – ACOA is supporting the Air Show with $35,000 through its’ (sic) Business Development Program. The Government of Prince Edward Island will contribute $35,000 through Innovation PEI, and Summerside will contribute $10,000 towards the 2011 event.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Saint-Léonard, NB – August 10, 2010 – As the Honourable Keith Ashfield, Minister of National Revenue, Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway, continues his working tour of Northern New Brunswick, members of the media are invited to attend an announcement in
Saint-Léonard on August 11.

Town of Saint-Léonard / Club Skirakdoo

Date : August 11, 2010

Time: 3:30 p.m.

Location: 189 Diamond Road, Saint-Léonard, NB

Minister Ashfield will announce funding for a project under the Recreational Infrastructure Canada Fund (RInC) – a key component of Canada’s Economic Action Plan.

GOVERNMENTS OF CANADA AND NEW BRUNSWICK
INVEST IN PNEUS ABC TIRES INC.

ATHOLVILLE (NB) – August 11, 2010 – Federal and provincial representatives joined company officials at Pneus ABC Tires Inc. today to announce funding to help the company purchase specialty equipment to expand its product line and create up to 15 new jobs.

The Honourable Keith Ashfield, Minister of National Revenue, Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway; and Roy Boudreau, MLA for Campbellton-Restigouche Centre, announced investments of more than $1,000,000 toward the equipment purchase.

“Our Government’s investment in Pneus ABC Tires will help the company purchase critical and specialized fabrication equipment,” said Minister Ashfield. “This investment will help enhance the company’s production capacity, positioning it to better compete in markets, create jobs and increase its sales.”

Media Advisory: New Affordable Housing in Halton Region

BURLINGTON, ONTARIO--( Aug. 10, 2010) - The federal, provincial and municipal governments will celebrate two affordable housing projects in Burlington.
Media are invited to join the Honourable Lisa Raitt, Minister of Labour and Member of Parliament for Halton, on behalf of the Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and Minister Responsible for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC); Jim Bradley, Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing; Gary Carr, Halton Regional Chair, and Cam Jackson, Mayor of the City of Burlington for the announcements.

ANNOUNCEMENT

The Honourable Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety, will join Mr. Curtis Ross, President and CEO of the Thompson Airport, to make an important announcement regarding the Thompson Airport.

Date: Wednesday, August 11, 2010

G-20 violence

2010-06-28T08:40:00.005-05:00

If you build it, they will come.
The outcome was as predictable as a math equation: use the G-20 leaders as bait in the center of the country's largest city, deploy thousands of excited cops, many of them completely unfamiliar with the city -- or any large city -- in riot gear after psyching them up for months. Then the usual crowd of lawful protesters, lawless anarchists, shit disturbers, bored people will, of course, show up. Toss in lots of live TV coverage, with panting, delighted commentators, to ensure that everyone plays their part.
It happens at summits all the time. That's why we should have known it would happen in Toronto.
Leaders from countries that don't have Canada's civil rights must get an interesting lesson. Democracy, they are told through the actions of the government, is a veneer. When the chips are down -- and not by much -- democracies like Canada must suspend civil rights, crack down on public dissent, and keep leaders away from the people.
I'm not sure that's the lesson we really wanted to give the Saudis, the Indonesians and Chinese, but actions speak louder than words. We just showed them that democratic states are not "weak," but we also told them that Canada sees mass arrests, riot cops and rubber bullets as "go to" tactics at a relatively low level of provocation.
The events this weekend were part of the polarization of Canada into "ins" and "outs". Toronto, the great Tory whipping boy, known in every cornfield and duckburg as a great center of decadence filled with sketchy people and bad attitude, was thoroughly scourged this weekend. I found it symbolic that the worst trouble was at Queen and Spadina, Toronto's trendiest neighbourhood, the epicenter of the city's arts and media culture.
Anyone with any knowledge of how these things work would have, must have, seen it coming. So, in effect, this is what they wanted.
Stephen Harper left Toronto with a deal that frames his plans to cut the federal budget into a plan by the major countries of the world to cut their deficits. When he brings down tough restraint budget next spring and sparks an election, he will be able to go to the people saying the cuts are mandated by the G-20.
Meanwhile, the people of Canada learned that all the nice trappings of the state -- Question Period silliness, Canada Day pap, royal visits, HST rebate cheques -- are the velvet gloves of modern governments.
This weekend, we saw the fist.

Ici on parle Francaise

2010-06-17T13:49:00.004-05:00

From the Senate Committee on Official Languages. It seems Francophones are doing OK when it comes to Senate committee memberships and flak jobs:

“Some federal institutions have been slow to act because they do not fully understand the scope of their duties. We would like to emphasize that the entire federal government is responsible for taking positive measures and that a failure to comply with this obligation can now be taken to a court. Our former colleague Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier, now deceased, fought tirelessly to bring a change in attitude within federal institutions. That is why he laboured to amend the Act in 2005,” stated Senator Maria Chaput, committee chair.

For her part, the committee’s deputy chair, Senator Andrée Champagne, added: “While some institutions showed initiative and originality in implementing Part VII, it is our view that the government must provide more guidance to federal institutions, and must do so in a way that makes Parliament’s intent clear. Our observations and recommendations have one purpose alone: to honour the commitment made by the Parliament of Canada in November 2005.”
The report is entitled “Implementation of Part VII of the Official Languages Act: We can still do better” and is based on evidence gathered since May 28, 2007. The committee held 34 meetings and heard from 53 witnesses over the course of this study.
Members of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages include the Honourable Senators Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu (La Salle – Québec), Andrée Champagne, P.C. (Grandville – Québec), Maria Chaput (Manitoba), Pierre De Bané, P.C. (De la Vallière – Québec), Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis (Rougemont – Québec), Rose-Marie Losier-Cool (Tracadie – New Brunswick), Michel Rivard (Les Laurentides – Québec), Judith Seidman (De la Durantaye – Québec), and Claudette Tardif (Alberta).

The full report including recommendations is available on the committee’s website at: http://senate-senat.ca/ol-lo-e.asp.
- 30 -

For information please contact:
Francine Pressault
Media Relations
613-944-4075 or 1-800-267-7362 or 613-299-5359
pressf@sen.parl.gc.ca
Danielle Labonté
Committee Clerk
613-949-4379 or 1-800-267-7362
labond@sen.parl.gc.ca

Changes...

2010-06-13T08:26:00.002-05:00

I'm juggling a couple of job prospects, plus doing the last edits to The Fog of War. I have to match material in the book to the end notes.
Marion was called to the bar Wednesday. That brought in family and friends from out of town. Next week, I'll be on the Hill. Its expected the House will adjourn Thursday and won't be back until the fall. There may even be an election in between, but I wouldn't bet the farm on that.

Just Livin' The Dream

2010-05-05T06:02:00.002-05:00

Of course Adrienne Clarkson and John Ralston Saul have a little farm in Provence. Doesn't every pretentious twit in Canada?

Canada's evolving military censorship

2010-04-30T17:04:00.001-05:00

On September 4, 1942, Canada’s most famous war correspondent, Ross Munro, told a packed rally at the Montreal Forum that Allied commandoes had murdered 150 German prisoners at the height of the Dieppe raid just a few weeks before.
Speaking on a government-sponsored propaganda tour, Munro said Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat’s British commando unit captured a German coastal battery in one of the few successful moments of the raid. “Some of the Germans had been killed in the skirmish but many of them were left,” Munro said told the Montrealers. “Then,” Munro continued, “in an aristocratic tone Lord Lovat said to the remainder, ‘I’m sorry, but we will have to erase you’ and erase them they did.’”
This was murder, even in wartime. Why did Munro, only 28 years old but still one of the sharpest minds among the Canadian reporters stationed in Britain – he was to have scoop after scoop until the last days of the war and went on to a distinguished peacetime career – make the allegation? Killing 150 POWs in cold blood would, if true, be a war crime.
It could have been a defining moment of Canada’s participation in the war, like the modern debate on alleged abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan. Instead, Canada’s press censors and journalists covered up the allegation.
Munro was in a position to know what happened. He had gone into Dieppe and managed to survive the raid, then spent days interviewing the soldiers who had managed to get back to England.
The day after the Forum rally, Canadian military intelligence agents scrambled to shut down coverage of Munro’s claim. Munro later said he could not remember making the statement, which seems rather bizarre considering the details of the Gazette’s quote. Newspapers across the country were warned not to use anything about Lovat’s supposed actions. The editors obeyed, but the Montreal Gazette story was already on the streets of Canada’s largest city and nothing could be done to take it back.
So the Canadian government had good reason to fear German retaliation against the Canadians captured at Dieppe. It came quickly: the Nazis ordered Canadian POWs captured at Dieppe to be chained or handcuffed in retaliation for alleged mistreatment of German POWs. Then Germans held in Canada were chained up in retaliation, sparking a riot at the Bowmanville POW camp west of Toronto that was hit by a news blackout by Canada’s censors.
Canada’s wartime editors were hardly free press crusaders, although, for various reasons, many of them partisan, the Globe and Mail, Winnipeg Tribune, the Montreal Gazette and Montreal’s Le Devoir stood up to Canada’s wartime censors. The rest maintained Canada’s long tradition of talking a good fight about freedom of speech.
Still, the World War II censorship system was benign compared to the one imposed during World War I.
Any second-rate police state would have approved of the Canadian press censorship system in World War I. At first, it was branch operation of the British censorship system, which strangled all real debate about the war and tried to warp public opinion to believe the war was a glorious crusade, not a murderous slaughter of young men led by incompetents.
Canada’s Postmaster General, acting as a deputy of the British Chief Press Censor, could ban any publication that questioned the government’s version of the military situation or suggested the Allies were in any way responsible for causing the war. Nothing could be written that undermined recruiting or might dissuade the Americans from joining the Allies.
The maximum penalty for writing, publishing, circulating or possessing anything banned by the Postmaster General was a fine of $5,000 (about $600,000 in today’s money) and/or five years imprisonment. The owners of the print shop where the material was published faced the same fines and jail terms, and the presses could be seized.
These rules were enshrined in the War Measures Act, passed on August 22, 1914 but made retroactive to August 4, the day that Britain had declared war. Editors of the country’s larger newspapers went to Ottawa to help write the censorship rules. These were printed in a pamphlet and mailed to newspaper offices, publishing firms, advertising and public relations agencies, government departments, police departments, military intelligence officers, and to allied governments.
The censors dealt mainly with two types of news: domestic stories from Canada and pro-German articles from the United States, which was neutral for nearly three years. The government had no worries about coverage from the front. There wasn’t any. The British and French controlled all access to the fighting zone and threatened to shoot any journalists who went near the trenches.
“War correspondence” from France came mostly from Britain’s official “eyewitness” who was, through most of the war, Canadian Max Aiken (Lord Beaverbrook). Aiken was eyewitness to very little. He rarely went near the front, and simply re-wrote press releases drafted by army officers who likely hadn’t seen much action, either.
Censors spent most of their time killing stories that might change public opinion. The war could not be won unless the public gave its full support, and, as the streets filled with crippled men, the newspapers carried pages of casualty lists and the great breakthroughs announced by the army never seemed to change the lines on the map, that support weakened. Enlistment plunged and bond money dried up.
As the disaster dragged on, the Canadian censorship system became increasingly invasive and powerful. An Order in Council (a Canadian cabinet order) passed September 12, 1914, banned any news about troop movements, and, two months later, Cabinet outlawed publications “calculated to be, or that might be, directly or indirectly useful to the enemy, or containing articles bearing on the war and not in accordance with the facts.”
In the spring of 1915, Canada got its own Chief Censor, Ernest J. Chambers, an old Fleet Street reporter and militia officer who served as Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod of the Canadian Senate (the upper house’s head of security). His previous war work involved wiretapping overseas telegraph cables.
Month after month, Chambers tightened the censorship screws. Films and plays fell under censorship. In the last months of the war, the censors began poking through record stores. Just a few weeks before the end of the war, the government banned all printed material in the languages of the enemy powers, which included newspapers in Polish, Ukrainian, and the many other minority languages of Germany’s main ally, the Austrian empire.
No Canadian could publicly criticize the way the army and navy did their work. They, like the people in Britain, were not allowed to advocate a negotiated peace. it. The government, along with most newspaper and magazine owners, flooded propaganda into the marketplace of ideas. Censorship created the illusion that these official ideas were the only version of reality.
People might have expected the censorship to end when the Germans quit. But the Russian Revolution had created a whole new set of villains, and the Communists had some supporters in Canada. At the first post-war cabinet meeting, held on November 13, 1918, federal ministers tried to outlaw seditious talk. They criminalized the printing of anything advocating socialist revolution or criticizing capitalism. It was the only time in Canadian history that the media was officially censored for political ideas in peacetime.
The system survived, with a few tweaks, until December 20, 1919, when all of the Orders in Council dealing with press censorship were repealed.
Chambers didn’t spend his workdays breaking up print shops. Press censorship in World War I operated as a voluntary system, with editors and publishers engaged in self-censorship. Except for the Victoria Week, the Sault Ste. Marie Express, Le Bulletin of Montreal and Quebec City’s La Croix, all of which were banned, editors of commercial newspapers toed the line. They chose to ignore the obvious futility of the war and did not, like the banned Sault Ste. Marie paper, question the sanity of sending more Canadian soldiers to the front.
The government was more subtle in World War II, deliberately seeking out respected journalists to run the press censorship stories. He wanted a voluntary censorship system, based on a very clear set of rules. And he feared the rise of a powerful propagandist, knowing he lacked the charisma to be that person.
Still, when the Allies seemed to be losing the war, military officers and some senior politicians wanted a much tighter censorship system. “In the twilight war everyone had been reasonable and tolerant; as the bad news poured in and the foundations of life were shaken, reason gave way to passion and tolerance to blind fury,” Chief English Press Censor Wilfrid Eggleston, a former Toronto Star reporter, wrote in his memoirs.
The top mandarins, used to life under pressure, hung tough. O. D. Skelton, senior bureaucrat at External Affairs, Ernest Lapointe, the Justice minister, and Mackenzie King, himself a former reporter, backed the censors and rejected demands from lesser ministers and from military officers for tighter censorship of Canadian newspapers and the banning of Isolationist U.S. publications like the Chicago Tribune and The Saturday Evening Post .
Canada could not escape the war. Much more of it arrived on our shores than we learn in the paltry bits of history taught in school. About 300 people drowned, burned or froze to death in submarine attacks within sight of the Canadian (and Newfoundland) shore. Japanese balloon bombs drifted over the West carrying God-knew-what. As hundreds of thousands of Canadian men went off to war, thousands of German POWs were brought into the country and had to be guarded and put to work. Sometimes these prisoners rebelled, although the public never knew.
In Quebec, the French-speaking majority was at odds over whether the war was Canada’s business at all, and many people on both sides of the debate took to the streets to make their views clear to the government. Le Devoir and other nationalists papers opposed Canadian participation in the war, and Quebec City’s L’Evenement Journal carried, in the first weeks of the war, semi-satirical “letters from Adolf Hitler” pleading with Quebeckers to abandon Britain and France.
The federal government used a combination of censorship and judicial review to cover up the military’s failures at Hong Kong. In early 1942, Sir Lyman Duff was appointed a one-man Royal Commission to look into the lack of training and shortage of weapons among the troops that surrendered to the Japanese on Christmas day, 1941. King and Duff were close friends, and King extended his term on the court.
Ontario Conservative leader George Drew was “opposition” counsel on the Duff Commission. He denounced Duff’s secret hearings and the judge’s decision not to force senior generals to testify. When Duff’s report came out, Drew righty criticized it as a whitewash. To circumvent Duff’s powers to jail him for contempt of court, Drew asked King to table in the House of Commons Drew’s 32-page response to the Duff Report. King refused, newspaper editors were warned not to touch Drew’s letter, and the Hong Kong veterans were left to fight for years to put the truth on the record.
After the war, the government decided overt press censorship would no longer work. Instead, it used secrecy and subversion laws against journalists. In World War II, the federal government did not jail any reporters or editors for breaking the censorship or secrecy laws, but in 1970 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa had 17 journalists arrested under the War Measures Act.
And in 1978, the Trudeau government charged Toronto Sun editor Peter Worthington under the Official Secrets Act for publishing the names of 16 Canadians recruited as spies by the KGB, the Soviet Union’s secret police and spy agency.
The federal government has, in fact, chosen to accept some of the recommendations of the last two press censors, Warren Baldwin (who went on to become a Globe and Mail parliamentary correspondent) and Fulgence Charpentier, a prominent francophone journalist.
They argued, in their secret 1946 report on wartime censorship, that information, once it gets into the hands of reporters or the public, can’t be suppressed. Instead of harassing journalists, governments had to do a better job of keeping secrets.
But they also argued that the military, and democracy, function much better when they’re scrutinized by a well-informed press and public. They suggested the government create commissions of military officers and journalists in wartime to vet information to determine if it really poses a threat to the war effort.
Instead, the Harper government has chosen to “redact” information from the files on the Afghan detainee issue before releasing them to opposition Mps and the media. The names and positions of the censors have not been made public. Since the documents are exempt from the federal Access to Information law because they deal with military issues, there’s no right of appeal.
At the same time, the government has hired a former Supreme Court justice to go over the material in secret and decide, as Duff did in 1942, whether the government and the military are at fault on a contentious wartime issue. In censorship, as in war, the battlefields may change but the battles tend to repeat themselves.

Coming Soon to a Store Near You

2010-04-29T13:23:00.001-05:00

The first book-length study of Canada's World War Two press censorship. What stories did Ottawa cover up? Find out in a few months!

Helena Guergis, Busty Hookers, Coke and Sodomy

2010-04-15T08:45:00.006-05:00

I just threw in the latter, simply because it sounded good. I have no proof that she engages in utterly frightening sex acts. Then, no one has any evidence -- real, solid, testable, get-into-court evidence -- that Helena Guergis has ever been near cocaine or what the Toronto Star keeps calling "busty hookers." But for the rest of her life, say another two decades or more of her working years and the forty or fifty years that she can be reasonably expected to live, she will always be saddled with the introductory phrase "disgraced former cabinet minister Helena Guergis."
Helena Guergis seems like a high-maintenance woman without a particularly sharpened intellect. Like many hicks who arrive in Ottawa, the perks of power seem to be her prime motivator. She and her husband strike me as the kind of young sophisticates that haunt the Byward Market in Ottawa and the ski clubs at Blue Mountain, back in Guergis' riding. But it's not against the law to be a vacuous twit. It may hinder your rise in the cabinet, but that's debatable.
Here's what we know:
Guergis' husband got busted for what, if you think about it, were some embarrassing charges involving great personal stupidity. The charges were not a huge surprise: Jaffer was always known as a big-time partier. I figure anyone who drives drunk probably has a problem with alcohol and personal limits. He may also have a coke problem.
And, as a sort of consultant, Jaffer may well have fallen into the company of douchebags, knowingly or not. It becomes harder all the time to know if business people are legit. And even legit business people can live sleazy lives and haunt strip clubs, I suppose. Guergis was not in the car with Jaffer. In fact, the night of the busty hookers and coke bust, she was out of the province.
So we may have a woman who is married to a guy who has drinking and drug problems and may cavort with women described as "busty" and "high-class" hookers, even though there's been a strange absence of innuendo that any sex actually happened. The hookers seem to have hung around with these guys at the bar, which strikes me as a rather poor utilization of the alleged skills of busty, high-price sex workers.
Getting back to Guergis. Maybe, politically, having a sometimes petulant cabinet minister married to a guy with booze and coke issues is not such a good thing for the Fam-Val crowd who really run the Tory party. But throwing her out of the Conservative party and calling in the cops seems pretty strong. I can't imagine how it will go at Guergis' next job interview when she is asked why and how she left her last job.
In fairness, Harper had the right to call in the police and to drop Guergis from cabinet, but he didn't have to throw her to the press dogs, then keep the story alive by refusing to come clean about the allegations against her. He could have done it with some class by saying the government takes accusations seriously enough to investigate them, and, in the interest of maintaining the credibility of cabinet, has asked Guergis to step aside from Cabinet until a quick but thorough investigation is completed.
But then, with Steve it's always about Steve.
Like the busty hookers, Guergis has been ill-used.

Just asking...

2010-04-12T18:35:00.001-05:00

Do any of you who watched Question Period today know if they put John Baird on industrial-strength Quaaludes?

Vimy Ridge: The Original Coverage

2010-04-12T06:12:00.004-05:00

Stewart Lyon, The Canadian Press

Lyon was the managing editor of the Globe. He was the first Canadian war correspondent in France, arriving in March, 1917. Lyon missed the attack at Vimy Ridge, and no other Allied reporters were on the battlefield.

Canadian Headquarters in France, April 12 (via London) – From the last position held by them on Vimy Ridge the Germans were swept this morning (Thursday) after one of the most fiercely contested engagements in which the Canadians have recently taken part. This morning at 5:30 o’clock during a blinding snowstorm, an assaulting column was dispatched to drive the enemy from the height known as “The Pimple,” occupying a dominating position on the ridge, to the northeast of Souchez. Though wearied by the constant struggle against the enemy and elements the last four days, the men responded splendidly. Swarming up the height, they attacked the enemy garrison, which included troops specially brought up to hold the position, among them the Fifth battalion of the Prussian Grenadier Guards.
The Germans fought under the peremptory orders to hold the position at all costs. The Canadians were not to be denied, however. Over the shell-plowed land and machine gun-fire, they climbed to the summit, and by 7 o’clock the flower of the German army were fleeing to the east and sought shelter in the village of Givenchy. This victory, the second within a week, gives our army absolute command of the entire ridge. Monday’s success opened the way by the capture of Hill 145. That hill is the highest point on the ridge. It had to be secured before the attack on “The Pimple” could be made with any hope of success.
By today’s win on the part of the Canadians, and the victory of the British, who carried Bois en Hache, on the west side of the Souchez River, the entire valley of Souchez is in our hands and we can look down on the enemy’s positions in the plain of Cambrai.

The Spy Among Us

2010-04-11T07:59:00.001-05:00

They went to the electric chair in alphabetical order: Haupt, Heinck, Kerling, Neubauer, Quirin and Thiel, six German spies and saboteurs who were dropped from U-boats on Long Island and in Florida. The two colleagues who ratted them out sat pensively in another cellblock of the Washington City Jail.
It had happened so quickly. In June, 1942, they had come ashore and, within days, had been betrayed. In July, they were tried by a special military commission, (the last time such a court was used until the trials of suspected al Qeada terrorists at Guantanamo). They were found guilty August 1 and, within five days, President Franklin Roosevelt had chosen the place, method and time of their execution.
On August 8, it had taken just over an hour to kill them in the Washington jail’s electric chair in America’s largest mass execution of the 20th century. Roosevelt chose the electric chair because of its horrors. The British might shoot Nazi spies in exotic and romantic places like the Tower of London, but the President wanted the deaths of the Operation Pastorius spies to deter any other Nazis who might come ashore on the Atlantic seaboard.
The story of the six executions filled the front pages of newspapers throughout the Allied nations. In Ottawa, they certainly had an avid reader: Alfred Langbein, the most interesting guest at Ottawa’s Grand Hotel.
Langbein had landed on the New Brunswick coast a month before the Operation Pastorius spies arrived. To this day, his mission is vague. He claimed to have been sent to Halifax or Montreal to watch for convoys and report ship departures so U-boats could position themselves. Supposedly, he decided not to spy, to simply lie low in Canada for the duration.
Yet, of all the places in Canada he could go on the thick bankroll he’d been given by Germany’s Abwehr spy agency, he chose the Grand Hotel, a long-gone rookery on the west side of the Market. The Chateau Laurier is the only hotel closer to Parliament Hill, but even Nazi Germany had some budget constraints.
So what was Albert Langbein doing in Ottawa for more than two years while he lived at centre of Canada’s wartime capital, camped out in a room over a busy beer parlor favored by politicians and military officers? We may never know because, it seems, no one has ever asked.
Langbein’s adventure began April 25, 1942 when Amelung von Varendorff, captain of U-213 had a secret agent come aboard his U-boat in sub pens at Lorient, France. Off the coast of Portugal, U-213 stalked a British convoy but, before von Varendorff could get his torpedoes off, he was attacked by a British destroyer. The sub’s crew raced forward to weigh down the U-boat’s nose as it crash-dove to 200 metres.
Ten depth charges went off, close enough to make the lights flicker and the hull shake. Several of the sailors, most of them fishermen from the Baltic Sea, began to cry and sob. The sub’s tough first officer tried to talk them back to their senses while the captain lay silently on his bunk, his automatic pistol at his side.
The rest of the trip was tedious. The sub fought the Bay of Fundy’s and emerged May 12 near St. Martin’s, New Brunswick. Just after midnight, the sub surfaced, popped the hatches prepared a dinghy for launch.
Langbein left with a Lt. Kueltz and two sailors who helped haul Langbein and his gear cross the boulder-strewn beach and scale the 80 metre bluff along the shore. By 7:30, the dinghy arrived back at the sub and U-213 disappeared. Six weeks later, U-213 was sunk off the Azores by three British warships firing depth charges. The captain and his 50 crew members died.
The man they left behind was born on April 6, 1903 in Graefenthal, Thuringia, Germany. His father, Willy, worked as an insurance broker, but Alfred liked to travel. First, he went to Shanghai and found a job as a special constable on the Shanghai police force. He returned to Germany in 1926.
Things were grim in Germany. His father’s firm was failing. In 1928, Langbein sailed for Halifax. He took a train across Canada to find a family in Pearce, Alberta that he had met on the ship. In Alberta, he found a job as a surveyor, then went to Northern Manitoba to work as a railway laborer. Langbein had been caught in a cat house in Flin Flon, but never got into serious trouble.
He wandered to Ontario, where he worked briefly as a freelance writer. Langbein arrived home just as Hitler took power.
Through the rest of the Depression, Langbein ran a small factory in Germany, then supervised construction of four kilometers of an autobahn – jobs that have a whiff of Party patronage. By the beginning of the war he was married with a daughter (a son had died soon after birth) and he was waiting for his army call-up papers to arrive in the mail.
Instead, Langbein got a phone call from an old school friend, Oscar Homann, who invited him to Hannover to talk business with a mysterious stranger, Dr. Nicolaus Bensmann, a former patent agent for a U.S. oil company operating in Romania. After a few formalities, Langbein was packed off to “The Nest,” the spy training school in Bremen that also taught sabotage to Abwehr agents.
Langbein turned down one assignment, parachuting into England to scout airfields and anti-aircraft gun emplacements, saying his German-Canadian accent would betray him. Then, his spymasters planned to set him up in a fishing boat operated by Belgian collaborators that would scout the English coast. This plan was foiled when British planes sank the fishing boat in Flushing, Holland.
A spying expedition with Bensmann in Romania was also a failure. Instead of spying, Bensmann spent most of the time trying to collect money owed to his American employers.
The Abwehr had a new plan: a U-boat drop in Canada, bury his equipment, get to Halifax or Montreal where British convoys assembled, find a job and blend in for about three months, then return to the landing place to get his radio. After three months, the Germans would listen for his signal every night at 11 p.m. German summer time. If Langbein did not retrieve his radio, he could write letters in invisible ink and send them to mail drops in neutral Switzerland and Portugal.
Langbein christened the mission “Operation Gretl” after his wife.
U-213’s was crew led to believe he was a reporter in Germany’s elite Propaganda Kompany. Langbein was given his fake ID and $7500 in US $50 bills, the same type used on Operation Pastorius. The spy realized with some horror that the wartime registration card, vital for employment, was made out to A.B. Haskins, Young Street, Toronto. Langbein knew Toronto’s main street had been spelled wrong, and he was sure someone would catch him because of it.
After the sub left, Langbein slept for a few hours. Then he traipsed through bogs to St. Martins, New Brunswick, where be bought a razor and some soap. The spy managed to hitch a ride to St. John in a lumber truck. He told the driver he had a cold, and spoke in hoarse whispers to disguise his strong German accent.
His biggest challenge was cashing those American $50 bills. He spent much of the next two years shopping, looking for stores that would accept large-denomination bills. Usually, he let them keep the 10 per cent exchange.
Arriving in Montreal by train, the spy checked into a rooming house where he had stayed in a decade before. On June 18, while the eight Operation Pastorius spies were still free in the States, Langbein went to a store to buy a couple of pipes. The owner couldn’t make change for the $50 bill Langbein offered, but a furtive little man grabbed him by the shirt sleeves and pulled him down St. Catherine Street and into a house on a side street. It was a bordello. The madam said she could get change.
Langbein, no stranger to Canadian whore houses, later said he stayed long enough to collect his change and have a beer, but he didn’t drink it fast enough to avoid a police raid. The cops booked him as a “found-in” under the name A.B. Haskins – his lack of real ID and strong German accent obviously of little concern to the vice cops – and eventually let him go on $50 bail, the Canadian change from his American $50.
When he got back to his rooming house, he packed his stuff and caught the first train to Ottawa. The spy claimed he flagged a cab at the Ottawa train station (now the Government Conference Centre, right across from the Chateau Laurier) and asked the driver to take him to a good hotel.
If Langbein told the truth, the cabbie drove him about a block, to the Grand Hotel on Sussex, about where the Rideau Street Chapters store now has its parking lot. There, Langbein made himself at home.
The hotel was a watering hole for politicians, civil servants and the hundreds of soldiers rolling through the city at any given time. It is exactly the place you’d expect a spy to set up shop.
Yet, for more than a year, in a city that was the headquarters of the RCMP and Canada’s military intelligence, the 40-year-old stranger with a heavy German accent and a seemingly never-ending supply of American $50 bills held court within shouting distance of Parliament and a five-minute walk from the military’s headquarters on Cartier Square (now the site of Ottawa’s city hall).
“The night after I arrived in Ottawa, I seriously considered surrendering myself to the RCMP or any other suitable authority and spent considerable time consulting the phone book to decide the most suitable authority to approach,” Langbein later told Canadian intelligence agents. Instead, he adapted to life in Ottawa and made an interesting group of friends.
Langbein bought a ping-pong table from a store on Rideau Street because one of his Air Force friends liked the game. So did Langbein: he had learned ping-pong from a friend in the Abwehr. He made friends with some of the hotel staff. Two of them had girlfriends who worked as secretaries for Naval Intelligence.
During his first six months in Ottawa, the spy left the hotel at 9 o’clock every morning and returned about five in the afternoon. “I would put in the day as best I could, taking long walks, going to picture shows and taking in any sporting events that might be in progress.”
Eddie Sabourin, a cook in the hotel, was his best friend. Through him, the spy became part of a group of young people who liked to party at the Grand Hotel. On summer weekend, they took short drives to Constance Bay and Buckingham to picnic and drink beer. Langbein usually picked up most of the tab.
Yet Langbein’s friends seemed to be of little interest to the spy’s interrogators. At least once, a friend had taken him into the Naval Intelligence offices in Temporary Building 8 at the Experimental Farm. Still, month after month went by without Langbein raising suspicion from the dozens of army, navy and airforce officers, the politicians and political staffers, and the war bureaucrats who drank with him at the Grand Hotel. His biggest problem was homesickness.
There was just one close call. In the early summer of 1943, while riding home from a Hull bar in a cab with “Bea”, the sister-in-law of the owner of the Grand Hotel, and her soldier boyfriend, Bea’s friend was a soldier. He looked at Langbein and said “I think you’re a spy.” When the drunken soldier left the cab in Hull to look for a cop, Langbein talked Bea and the cabbie into heading for Ottawa. Presumably, the Hull police paid no attention to the soldier’s accurate suspicions.
Once he got back to the Grand Hotel, Langbein avoided Bea and started looking for a new place to live. With some help from a waiter in the Grand’s beer parlor, he found a place to live in Lowertown.

(For the rest of this story, see the April, 2010 issue of Ottawa magazine

Helena Guergis, She Be Dead

2010-04-10T07:53:00.003-05:00

At least politically. And in a week that was a real news drought, there were many happy faces in the Press Gallery when Helena's pretty little neck was laid upon the block. It sure beat covering the 93d anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge and send-off of the last WWI vet, a guy who never actually left England for the European continent. (He had enough class and good sense to realize the last real fighting vets died a while ago).
No matter. Next week we'll see just one or two more days of the Helena Guergis wake as reporters speculate on just what evil generated the photogenic minister's political gutting. Then everyone will move on, wondering, say, about the PM's new pick for GG, Iggy's poll results, or the latest plan for Senate reform. Maybe some more highway maintenance announcements will come out. Pundits will claim Tory MPs are benefiting, while neglecting to mention that most highways are in Tory ridings while most streets are in Liberal constituencies, places where infrastructure "stimulus" money is spent on subways and other stuff.
Right now, Ottawa is in a deadlock. Most Hill reporters are more concerned about the future of their own jobs than the state of their country. The big stories are being broken outside the city by reporters like the Toronto Star's Kevin Donovan. In Ottawa, skeletal news bureaus can barely do the basics, hampered by the Harper government's media freeze-out and an effective news blackout in the entire civil service. Parliamentary debate has been replaced by posturing.
This is not good for democracy. And it's a poor way to run a country.

Guergis

2010-04-09T11:41:00.003-05:00

Oh, how do you deal with Miss Huronia?
Having grown up in, lived in, and covered Huronia for the Globe and the Star more than a decade, I can see how this has happened. People in that area, especially those who hold political office, have come to expect the perks of Third World-style government and there's a hefty feeling of entitlement among the "quality." Quite literally a dumping ground for all of Toronto's chemical and human effluvia, the place is run by real estate agents, sub-dividers, soil-strippers, condo builders and other vermin. It's the kind of place that's good for tourism for a week or two, but you don't get to know how things work.
Helena Guergis is politically dead in the water, but she has a great future in Huronia, perhaps replacing one of her cousins as warden of Simcoe County. She could use her parliamentary severance to become one of the trust-funders who swan around Collingwood pretending to have meaningful careers. I won't be surprised to see her mug on a real estate sign. "Above the Crowd" indeed.
This might be a really good time to ask what we expect of cabinet ministers. Are they hired for looks? Gender? Geographic representation? Because maybe, just maybe, the running of the government of Canada should be in the hands of people who are smart and competent. Some of them might be ugly. Some might talk funny. I think we should be able to live with that.

Limbaugh on Coulter

2010-03-24T20:43:00.003-05:00

Since this is the first time I've agreed with Limbaugh on anything important, I thought I would post what he had to say:

RUSH: I’ve met Ann Coulter a number of times. I can say that I know her, and she is decent, and she’s funny. Dirty little secret here, Ari: She actually doesn’t mind this at all. She’s in the front page, above-the-fold in the local newspaper. Everybody around the world is talking about this, and she has successfully illustrated just what a bunch of bigots there are at this university. So this is something that she’s out there laughing about. This hasn’t even happened at the stupidest American university, as she says. Ari, I’m glad you called. Thank you very much.

Ann Coulter played the University of Ottawa like a virtuoso. The university could have let her come, speak to a few hundred people, then leave. Instead, it got into a shit-flinging match with someone who has a much bigger podium. Provost Francois Houle and student union president Seamus Wolfe have a tin ear for media, and, in their efforts to be big men on campus have done serious harm to the world-wide reputation of the University of Ottawa. Coulter will go on to the next dust-up (they're her stock in trade) but we members of the University of Ottawa community will have to live with the damage caused by Houle and Wolfe.

Other People's Troubles

2010-03-18T11:16:00.003-05:00

I've been getting a steady strem of e-mail from people telling me that a guy I used to fight with on the Internet is having marital problems. Well, you can stop sending me this stuff, guys. Not my business. I don't want to know.
Look, lots of marriages have problems. Sometimes, bumps in the road -- even serious ones -- occur, and people still work out their differences. That's always the outcome that I hope for, especially when there are kids involved.
If a marriage has, indeed, foundered, well, that's none of my business. I just hope everyone extricates themselves with the least amount of collateral damage.
Is it news? Only if it's a PM's wife going berzerk in public. Otherwise, well, it's just another drag, just another bummer in a world where lawyers rarely starve.

Goin' Fishin'

2010-03-13T16:15:00.002-05:00

It's March Break, and we're going out of town for a week. The Hill is pretty much mired in the same tedium that gripped it last fall. When I get back, I'll analyze some of the legislative decisions Harper's government has taken since the House returned.

Peter Woodcock, March 5, 1939-March 5, 2010

2010-03-07T08:47:00.005-05:00

Yes, Peter Woodcock died on his own birthday.
Who was he?
In my childhood, he was the bogeyman. My parents actually warned me, when I was little, that there were bad people like him around. I remember, as a three or four-year-old, riding past the CNE grounds and my father pointing and saying "that's where the guy killed the little kid."
And Woodcock killed another boy at Cherry Beach. A few months later, he murdered a little girl under the Bloor Viaduct. He was caught a few days later and sent to the old hospital for the criminally insane at Penetang. Woodcock was 16 years old.
I was born the week he was sentenced, and he spent every day of my life in custody. That institutionalization was relaxed in the early 1990s. Staff of the Brockville hospital where Woodcock was held took him to the Smiths Falls railway museum to indulge his train fetish. They took him to see Silence of the Lambs.
Then they decided he was ready for escorted day passes with friends. His first escort was Bruce Hamill, a murderer who had been released from Penetang. On their first day out, they butchered Dennis Kerr, a Brockville psychiatric patient. Woodcock had convinced Hamill that an alien brotherhood would solve all his problems in return for Kerr's sacrifice.
Woodcock had a persuasiveness that would make a real estate agent frantic. He seemed like a nice guy, and he could be made to behave like one, if he was carefully supervised. He never really wanted to be free. His biggest real concern was the quality of his food, which abruptly deteriorated twenty years ago when the provincial government contracted out Penetang's kitchen. Anything else complicated his life, and he didn't do well when things changed.
I got to know him well over a 15-year period beginning just after Kerr's murder. I still don't understand why he was a psychopathic serial killer. It may have been baby trauma, when his mother abandoned him and he bounced from one foster home to another. It might have been some kind of brain malfunction, perhaps from birth.
I do understand he was morally flawed. He knew it, too. In fact, he understood that much better than the medical staff at Penetang, who, for years, tried to pretend he had a simple wiring problem that "treatment" or time could fix.
There are what-ifs: if the psychiatrists hired by his wealthy adoptive family had realized the danger, he might have been stopped; if some of the dozens of kids molested by Woodcock had talked before he killed, he might have been caught much earlier; if he had been kept in simple comfort but under real supervision, he might not have killed a fourth person.
He was incarcerated for 53 years. He was told when he was 16 that he would never be free. He was put through LSD therapy, forced to live in a jammed room for 40 days to learn empathy, placed for days in an artificial womb.
He was interviewed, studied, probed, written about. He got his eyes fixed, made a few bucks from a lawsuit against the union representing his guards, was on TV a few times.
I wrote a book, By Reason of Insanity, about him. The title cast a wide net. It was the first verdict against him. It was also an indictment of a system that sought to medicalize a person and a condition, psychopathy, that probably can't be medicalized because it involves a great arrogance, a belief that one's desires trump all the rights of another person.
And it mocked a system that wedded ideas of psychiatric patient activists -- including Scientologists -- with government cost-cutting to rush people out of institutions. Many former inmates had already screwed up and some of them had killed again before Woodcock was released. His case was just so outrageous and so ludicrous that it could be used as a blunt instrument against the system.
But it didn't change much. Jeffery Arenberg, who gunned down Ottawa sportscaster Brian Smith in cold blood, was held at Penetang for just three years before being declared cured. Released from all supervision -- Arenburg does not even have a criminal record -- he was back in custody within months, this time for hitting a US border guard. After serving a couple of years for that, he''s out on the streets again. And he's still crazy as hell.

Person note

2010-03-05T11:17:00.001-05:00

Rebel Steve K., can you e-mail me at mbourrie@yahoo.com. Have lost all your co-ordinates.

World o' Wusses

2010-03-05T10:06:00.002-05:00

Couldn't the Liberals come up with a better strategy than "Harper's destroying Canada but we know we can't convince the people of Canada of that fact, so we'll wait until the Tories somehow screw up bigger-time."

The Maple Leaf Forever

2010-03-05T07:14:00.002-05:00

We could always go back this:

In Days of yore,
From Britain's shore
Wolfe the dauntless hero came
And planted firm Britannia's flag
On Canada's fair domain.
Here may it wave,
Our boast, our pride
And joined in love together,
The thistle, shamrock, rose entwined,
The Maple Leaf Forever.

[CHORUS]
The Maple Leaf
Our Emblem Dear,
The Maple Leaf Forever.
God save our Queen and heaven bless,
The Maple Leaf Forever.

At Queenston Heights and Lundy's Lane
Our brave fathers side by side
For freedom's home and loved ones dear,
Firmly stood and nobly died.
And so their rights which they maintained,
We swear to yeild them never.
Our watchword ever more shall be
The Maple Leaf Forever

[CHORUS]

Our fair Dominion now extends
From Cape Race to Nootka Sound
May peace forever be our lot
And plenty a store abound
And may those ties of love be ours
Which discord cannot sever
And flourish green for freedom's home
The Maple Leaf Forever

Not that The Maple Leaf Forever wasn't tampered with. My mother, who went to school in Orange, Protestant York County learned the song in the 1930s with these lines

The Maple Leaf
Our Emblem Dear,
The Maple Leaf Forever.
God save our Queen and heaven bless,
The Maple Leaf Forever.

sung as this:

The Shamrock, Thistle, Rose entwined
The Maple Leaf forever.
God save our King and heaven bless
The Maple Leaf Forever.

But my father, who was educated in a Roman Catholic private school in Kitchener at about the same time, learned those lines as:

The Lily, Thistle, Rose entwined
The Maple Leaf forever...

I've always thought the words of O Canada were something like:

O Canada, our home-made naked land
(or "our home on Native land")
then mumble mumble mumble until the music stops. At least, that's the way everyone seems to sing it.

The Budget

2010-03-04T19:05:00.003-05:00

Well, here it is.

It's certainly a budget crafted by a government that does not want to risk losing power. In its spending patterns and rosy predictions of growth taking care of the deficit, it reminds me so much of Michael Wilson's budgets in the Mulroney years. The budget was always going to be balanced in five years, but the five-year clock re-started every year.
Nothing to deal with the huge growth in bureaucracy in the past decade.
No real help to Ontario's manufacturing, to forestry or to other sectors in trouble. I guess in Harper's world we can all push paper and computer keyboards and the Chinese will keep lending us money to buy their stuff.
I suspect we will very much regret the opportunity that is lost here. We were still relatively financially healthy, compared to most G-20 countries. Harper is governing like Mulroney, buying off the regions and loading us and our kids with debt. Next, of course, will come higher interest rates and even more decline in the living standards of Canada's working families.

Throne speech highlights

2010-03-03T14:53:00.004-05:00

It's an election manifesto as much as a legislative to-do list. Here are the highlights:

• Freeze in departmental salary and overhead budgets.
• Review of all departmental spending
• A new emphasis on achieving efficiencies and ending duplication in the public service.
• Freeze on MP, Ministers, Senators and PM’s salaries.
• Freeze on ministerial office budgets
• More funding for skills development and apprenticeship programs
• Strengthened education opportunities for Native peoples.
• Emphasis on technology research and development, with strengthening of copyright laws.
• Allow foreign investment in telecommunications comapnies.
• Space-based technologies that will help support Arctic sovereignty (probably a polar spy satellite system).
• Encouragement of foreign investment in Canadian space technology.
• More work on Free Trade.
• National securities regulator.
• Cut red tape for new energy projects and small business.
• Invest in clean energy research.
• Help for the marketing of forestry and farm products.
• Reform Canada’s fisheries management.
• Find ways to protect workers in bankrupt companies.
• Better food safety research.
• Tougher youth crime laws, increased penalties for sex offenders who prey on children, including Internet luring and cyber abuse.
• Life in jail without parole for multiple murders.
• No house arrest for violent offenders.
• Re-introduce legislation toughening the laws on illegal drug trafficking
• “Improve criminal procedures” to cut the number of long, drawn-out crimes.
• More help for victims of crime.
• More anti-terrorism funding, including more airport screening and biometric passports.
• More judicial tools to fight terrorism and organized crime.
• Protection of seniors’ income and a national Seniors Day.
• Access to EI for soldiers.
• More money for war memorials and a memorial to the victims of Communism.
• Modernize support systems for veterans.
• More help for Native reserves, including environmental clean-ups, settlements of land claims, and breaking down barriers to gender equality for Native women.
• Strengthen Francophone identity and restrict the use of the federal spending power in areas of provincial jurisdiction.
• Place an emphasis on Arctic research, including sustainable development in the North.

Back March 3

2010-02-26T12:21:00.001-05:00

I'll be blogging again, starting March 3.

11.11.1918

2009-11-10T21:34:00.002-05:00

Ottawa's become meaner: Ottawa magazine November piece

2009-11-08T15:00:00.001-05:00

Here's the original version. Ottawa mag changed a few of the opening paragraphs:

Dena Gosewich knew something was wrong with Jerry Yanover when the veteran Parliamentary strategist’s Sunday New York Times was still on the doorstep, unread, at lunch time.
Yanover, 62, a pudgy, shy man with a passing resemblance to the actor Charles Laughton, lived with Opie, a Norwich terrier, had succumbed to heart disease.
“Yanover is to Liberalism what Yoda is to the Jedi Council: the most feared practitioner of an ancient craft,” MacLean’s magazine said four years ago. He was something more: a man whose expertise on the arcane rules of Parliament was respected by everyone on the Hill.
His death July 26 left a void, not just in the ranks of Liberal Party strategists, but in the city itself. Yanover was among the very last hold-outs of an endangered breed: a politico who really cared about representative government.
He did not hate his political opponents. He didn’t trash-talk them on the Internet or threaten them with lawsuits. He never worked as a lobbyist. He read books, got his news from real newspapers. People like Yanover were part of an old Ottawa that is quickly disappearing.
“There’s a lot of fracturing going on in Ottawa,” says Ned Franks, a retired Queen’s University professor who is one of the country’s leading experts on governance. He says the old rules that ensured collegiality and professionalism no longer apply to what he calls a “company town.”
Ottawa is a meaner place than it has ever been. Partly, Franks says, minority Parliaments are to blame, but changes to the media and the shift of political power from central to western Canada are contributing to cleavages in Ottawa’s social harmony.
“Since 2004, Parliament has been in a permanent election mode. There’s been no time to think quietly on the major issues of the day and on important legislation.”
As well, the political class is no longer attached to the city and many MPs feel no sense of comradeship with their peers, Franks said. Political parties expect them to be completely partisan in Ottawa and to leave the city to politic in their ridings every weekend. “They’re no longer settled in Ottawa. They’re not seeing MPs from other parties socially, their kids aren’t going to the same schools, and so it becomes easy for MPs to see each other as the enemy.”
Journalists, politicians and political strategists agree that Ottawa has evolved into a meaner place in the past generation. Fingers are pointed in all kinds of directions: at nasty bloggers on the Internet; at the political culture that arose in London and Washington under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan; at the “war room” mentality sharpened in the States by Democrat political strategist James Carville; at the mongoose-cobra shows created by cable news networks.
The enmity does not end in the Commons chamber. Stephen Harper and his Tories are also suspicious of the public servants and journalists who make up the bulk of the city’s political class. In response, public servants have become defensive, while Hill reporters have either tried to ingratiate themselves with the Harper regime or have worked to undermine it.
“In the case of the public servants, there used to be the rose-tinted idea of the public service speaking truth to power. Now it’s reversed, with power speaking to truth. That’s left many people in the public service feeling quite miserable,” Franks said.
This used to be a town of clubs and cliques: senior politicians, journalists, bureaucrats, lawyers and businessmen in the Rideau Club; members of the political elite in exclusive fishing clubs in the Gatineau Hills; the city’s most important francophones in the Cercle Universitaire. Old money and the more successful members of the political-government elite lived in Rockcliffe, while everyone else found their appropriate place in New Edinburgh, Centretown and the Glebe.
Now, the Ottawa urban area, including the municipalities on the Quebec side of the river, is a multi-racial, multi-lingual community that is a government town, but is also a university town and a struggling technology center. All of the clubs except the Rideau Club are gone or are shells of their former selves.
Margo Roston, long-time Ottawa society writer, says people have made their social lives more private and have abandoned clubs for the city’s much-improved restaurant scene.
Hy’s, the Queen Street watering hole, is one of the places that has replaced the old clubs. On most nights when the House of Commons is sitting, Hy’s martini bar draws cabinet ministers, political commentators, pollsters and party strategists. The crowd tends to be young, stylish and much more concerned with the selling of politicians than with the minutia of governance.
They talk about polls, advertising, strategy and lobbying. They don’t talk about legislation or public administration.
Bright young people have always been attracted to Ottawa’s power. Politically-keen people just out of university develop connections with political party operatives and elected officials. If they are lucky, they land a political job on the Hill, then have a career in public relations, lobbying or in a non-government agency where they could use the skills they learned in the Centre Block. When they feel ready, they try their luck on the hustings. This was the career path of William Lyon Mackenzie and Stephen Harper.
Each MP has an office with a legislative aide and a constituency worker. Cabinet ministers have office chiefs of staffs, communications advisors and press secretaries. The Prime Minister’s Office has its own tribe of communications advisors, press secretaries and political strategists responsible for various regions of the country.
Each time a new Prime Minister or a minister is sworn in, most of these people lose their jobs and a new crop arrives. Some of the old staffers automatically qualify for a position in the public service, but the most politically-charged ones head downtown to join lobbying and public relations firms.
Tyler Meredith, a public policy consultant with KPMG, is part of the new breed of political strategists. He’s been an active Liberal since childhood, ran campaigns in his late teens, and was recruited by the multinational consulting firm partly because of his connections.
“Typically, people spend the first few years out of university working on the Hill for little pay. Then they make the natural career move to a firm. The Hill has become a training ground.”
Most of them cannot make a lifetime career in the high-stress, long-hours-and-low-pay environment of Parliament Hill. Political parties in Canada are too poor to keep the best ones. The world of public relations and lobbying offers much better money, a more professionally managed work environment, and longer-term career options. Some try to get into elected politics: the recent Liberal nomination brawls in Ottawa Centre opened a window into the world of uber-successful professional politicos. Most, however, become comfortable settlers in neighbourhoods like Hintonburg and New Edinburgh.
And, as the buildings south of Queen Street sprout more and more lobby and PR firms, the city itself has become more politicized. The mayoralty campaigns of Alex Munter, Bob Chiarelli and Larry O’Brien attracted Hill talent from the Liberals, Tories and New Democrats.
“Politics is a cottage industry in this city,” Meredith said. “The people in this industry are political animals who want to be involved in politics at all times. They do it because they want to build their political contacts, but they also do it because that’s just the kind of people they are.”
Geoff Norquay is a veteran Tory strategist who worked in Brian Mulroney’s Prime Minister’s Office and as press secretary to the-opposition leader Stephen Harper. He doesn’t believe the political culture of Ottawa has changed as much as the media that covers it.
“There’s no doubt the 24-hour news cycle has speeded up the political process’: said Norquay, who now works at Earnscliffe Strategy Group, a downtown political advice and lobbying firm.
He says cable news networks, blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other online media have given platforms to many more people who claim to speak on behalf of political parties. “At the same time,” he says, “it’s given each party’s partisans the opportunity to create self-inflicted wounds.”
Several firms, such as the Capital Hill Group in Ottawa and Navigator in Toronto, were created by political strategists to give advice to political campaigns, but these have morphed into lobbying and crisis management agencies. When Brian Mulroney was being scrutinized for taking cash payments from German arms dealer Karl-Heinz Schreiber, he turned to Navigator to help salvage his reputation. So did former Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant after he struck and killed a bike courier last summer.
The political center of political power has moved off Parliament Hill. Two generations ago, when the country had about half the population of today, the House of Commons met six days a week, often with evening sittings that stretched far into the night. These often ended with boozy poker games in the lounge of the Press Gallery newsroom on the third floor of the Centre Block, or in late drinks at one of the clubs.
Reporters actually showed up to sit in their seats above the Speaker’s chair and take note of the debates. Prime Ministers and members of the cabinet crafted speeches on important legislation and engaged in real debate with their counterparts in opposition.
Now, the Press Gallery is nearly ten times larger than it was at the end of the Second World War, yet it’s rare to see a reporter in the House of Commons after Question Period. It’s also rare to see a newspaper or TV story based on coverage of debate of a law. MPs who “debate” in the House are actually dictating quotes into the record that will later show up in the fliers that are sent to constituents.
And, Ned Franks notes, only about half of the bills introduced since 2004 have actually become law.
These days, it’s common for the House to empty out at the end of Question Period and legislation to be “debated” by a handful of MPs. The MPs of each party crowd together to create a fiction for the TV cameras, which are not allowed to pan to the empty seats. In reality, most MPs spend just a token amount of time on “House duty.” Instead, they’re full-time partisans doing public relations work for the benefit of their party and to ensure their re-election.
A check with the Library of Parliament’s research branch shows Prime Minister Harper and Opposition leader Michael Ignatieff have never engaged in debate over a bill in the House of Commons. (Harper, in fact, has never spoken in the House about any legislation while he has been Prime Minister.) Instead, their clashes in Parliament are scripted affairs in Question period which, for the most part, consist of opposition MPs asking questions written by staffers and ministers responding with talking points crafted by their own spin people.
Parliamentary scholars like Ned Franks have argued that the House of Commons no longer acts as a real legislature where elected representatives give serious scrutiny to the laws of the country. Instead, most real legislative work happens in Parliamentary committees, which are rarely covered by journalists.
“The questions raised in the House of Commons aren’t really questions, they’re statements. The answers aren’t really answers. What we’ve seen is a dumbing down of the Parliamentary discussion to the point where it’s actually embarrassing to bring students into the House to watch Question period,” Franks said.
The debate, while over-scripted, is intense and filled with personal cheap shots.
“There’s a difference between politicians today and during my time in the House of Commons,” said former Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps. “We didn’t hate each other.”
Press coverage has gravitated to two types of stories: the “who’s up, who’s down” pieces based on polling, even when the polls are taken years before an election; and the “gotcha” stories that embarrass politicians.
“Gotcha” journalism has hobbled the professional relationship between press gallery reporters and the political class. In 1994, George Bain, a former Globe and Mail political columnist and journalism professor, wrote a book, aptly named “Gotcha,” in that examined the early variations of the form. In Bain’s book, “gotcha” journalism was directed at politicians, using snippets of information, usually taken out of context, to re-define a politician as stupid or venal.
Copps, a former reporter who sat in both the Ontario legislature and the House of Commons, rising to Deputy Prime Minister in the Chretien government, says technology drives modern politics and is partly to blame for the decline of civility among politicos.
‘“Gotcha’ journalism started with the 24-hour news services. The news used to come out in the morning and evening newspapers and on the 11 o’clock news. Now, with the all-news networks, there’s no time for fact-checking. Now there’s more innuendo, more gossip on TV as they try to fill that giant news hole,” Copps said.
“Fox News and CNN have created ‘panic politics.’ The whole political discourse is not as civil as it used to be.”
Recently, “gotcha” journalism has been turned against the bureaucracy and political staffers as Canadian journalists seek to replicate the expense scandals that have crippled Britain’s Labour government. Access to Information laws have given political reporters the ability to paw through the expense accounts of bureaucrats, allowing public servants to be crucified for the three-martini lunch, business-class travel, and the too-cozy sole-source contract.
Communications and ministerial staffers have been chucked into the dunking stool for, in the case of former Chretien communications director Francie Ducros, calling President George W. Bush a moron.
When Jasmine MacDonnell, press secretary to Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt left some of her boss’s documents at a downtown TV studio last June, news of the gaffe crippled her career. A few days later, she was finished off by Halifax Herald Ottawa bureau chief Steve Maher, who, after trying several times to return a tape recorder MacDonnell had lost in the Centre Block, finally listened to the device. He reported how the press aide talked of the shortage of isotopes caused by the breakdown of a 50-year-old nuclear reactor as a sexy issue.
If MacDonnell had moved to Toronto or back to her home town of Halifax, she might have quietly found work in a mayor’s office. Instead, she stayed in Ottawa and went to work for mayor Larry O’Brien, a man in dire need of skilled public relations. In the supercharged political environment of Ottawa city hall, the mayor’s opponents used MacDonnell’s hiring as yet another cudgel to use on O’Brien.
In the weeks surrounding Jerry Yanover’s death, O’Brien was on trial for influence peddling. In the same city, Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla sat in a witness chair at a House of Commons committee, tearfully denying she had mistreated her family’s domestic help. At the old Ottawa City Hall, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was tearfully denying taking bribes from an arms dealer.
All of them had spin doctors and media manipulators making sure the show was done right.
It was, indeed, a very changed city.

What's new? Lots!

2009-11-08T14:46:00.003-05:00

Sorry to my reader(s) for the lack of recent posts. I am still nipping and tucking my book on the press censorship system in Canada in World War II. This is a huge topic that's never been written about before, except for the odd passage in a few books, and some of them are wrong.
First, I had to read all the documents of the Censorship Branch, the civilian agency that handled press censorship. Imagine a stack of paper as high as a three-storey building.
Then I had to see how what the censors recorded fit with the events of the times and what other people wrote about them. And, of course, I've had to read a lot of wartime history to put this stuff in context. Plus old newspapers. Lots and lots of those.
This is a piece of history, which will mean that a lot of people will try to pick it apart. I've written nothing good about the Vichyite press in Quebec, which included some of the province's most important dailies. I've written about A-bombs, balloon bombs, spies, giant radio transmitters, U-boats, rioting celebrity U-boat captains, convoys, troop movements, crazy publishers, brave editors, weak editors, and Mackenzie King's paranoia.
Right now, I'm working hard to make the whole thing readable, connecting a few more A to B to C's, hunting down pictures and cartoons, and trying to have fun.
Key Porter, probably the best publisher that's still in Canadian hands, will put the book out in the fall of 2010. We've settled on an advance and a royalty structure.
Finding a publisher was not particularly difficult. Non-fiction is somewhat easier to peddle to publishers in this country, but you end up selling it yourself because agents can't be bothered. The money that agents make tends to come from movie or TV royalty rights. In the case of a book like mine, the stories are in the public domain and my book simply provides a map. So I'm easily ripped off for any "story" that's in the book.
But I do expect the book will will be popular with people interested in Canadian history, political junkies, universities, and especially to military buffs.
I should have it all done soon and will be able to turn my attention back to politics.

They owe money to everyone

2009-10-23T18:52:00.002-05:00

From Canwest's list of creditors, released today:

ADBUSTERS MEDIA FOUNDATION
MARK G. UNDERHILL,
UNDERHILL, FAULKNER, BOIES, PARKER LAW CORPORATION INC.
1640 - 401 W. GEORGIA STREET VANCOUVER BC V6B 5A1 CANADA

$9,060.00

That pesky constitution

2009-10-22T13:28:00.003-05:00

Anyone who thinks the Quebec government can use the Notwithstanding Clause of the Charter to over-ride today's Supreme Court decision in the immigrant education case should get a copy of the Charter and read Sections 23 and 33. In the case of minority education rights, the Notwithstanding Clause is blocked.

Pierre Polievre... the working man's pet

2009-10-21T13:45:00.002-05:00

HT Brian Lilley

Jesus is Coming. Look Busy!

2009-10-21T11:02:00.003-05:00

The face of Jesus has been found on a washroom door at an Ikea in Glasgow.

General Hell-Yea!

2009-10-20T08:35:00.002-05:00

Don Martin should stop judging generals by their ability to generate good quote and get out and talk to the real soldiers who are cleaning up Hillier's mess. Aside from the fact he was media-friendly, there's little of any value that Hillier brought to his job as chief of the defence staff. He undid the military command and control structure and tried to rebuild it in an American form, at a cost of tens of millions. Now that Hillier's gone, the forces are spending tens of millions to undo this organizational mistake.
As for being some sort of fighting general, well, where's the list of Hillier's victories? Certainly not in Afghanistan, where strategy has always seemed to be some medieval idea of staying in a lager or castle-like stronghold and venturing out into the enemy-dominated countryside to get killed. No chance of victory in that.
Setting aside what some might see as my bloodthirstiness -- I'm a firm believer in the idea that you don't send soldiers into combat situations unless you are prepared to do what it takes in terms of men and equipment (and killing) to win a military victory -- Hillier's great and grievous fault was his failure to understand that he was a soldier, not a political leader. He tried to manipulate political decisions, exactly the same behavior that convinced Harry Truman that he had to fire Douglas MacArthur. We live in a democracy, and we don't elect generals. At least twice in our history, generals tried to usurp the democratic power: once in November, 1944, when the general staff threatened to resign en masse unless Mackenzie King sent conscripts overseas (King gave in); and the other time during the Cuban Missile Crisis when, against Prime Minister Diefenbaker's express orders, the military and the minister of defence conspired to raise the military's state of alertness, effectively putting us on a war footing.
I don't care if Hillier was right or wrong about Afghanistan or any other military matter in which he crossed swords with the PMO. And I don't care whether the PMO was Paul Martin's or Stephen Harper's. When it comes to dealing with elected politicians, the representatives of the people must always win. The general's last response in a conversation with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence must be "yes Sir", and he or she must diligently carry out orders. If a general can't do so in good conscience, he should resign.
If Hillier wants to run the country, let him run for office. I suggest he sit down with a copy of William Manchester's great bio of Douglas MacArthur (American Caesar) and take heed of the contents therein.

Small town cheap.

2009-10-16T14:40:00.001-05:00

Here in Canada, the cult of the leader continues to grow.

Ugly Olympic Medals

2009-10-15T16:10:00.002-05:00

I think the organizers of the Vancouver Winter Olympics would really have had to work pretty hard to find lousier Olympic medals than these.

On some reflection, I must eat those words. The Vancouver medals are not nearly as bad as those from Turin, which look like CDs.

Canwest delisted

2009-10-15T08:46:00.004-05:00

Well, it's over.
Canwest stock, which sold for $20 eight years ago and were among the TSX's blue chips, are now worthless. In early November, the stock will be delisted from the TSX.
This is a real tragedy.
Not the kind of "baby in a dumpster" story that newspaper reporters mistakenly call a tragedy. This story has flawed protagonists brought low by hubris.
I have been attacked professionally by at least one Canwest manager for following the collapse of this company. That's typical behavior of people blinded by failure and denial. Rather than address the problem, kill the messenger. Still, it's strange behavior for people playing at being journalists.
For three years, I have warned people that this day would come. In the first two years, all I saw was shock and denial. Canwest people claimed I didn't understand the situation. If that failed, they said I enjoyed this too much.
In fact, many good friends of mine have seen their careers cut short or have left journalism altogether. My former students at Concordia have almost no chance at a decent journalism job because of this mess.
Fortunately for Canwest apologists, we're in a recession. Eventually, the blame will fall on the economy because no one wants to look at the real problems.
This company is completely a creature of Canada's regulatory system. The CRTC -- along with Canadian academics and policy analysts -- bought into the flawed idea of media convergence. This absolute bullshit idea was engineered to break down the regulatory walls around broadcasters. Cross-ownership of media, decried in the Davey Report on Mass Media in Canada in the early 1970s, would not only be allowed under convergence, it would be encouraged. Media ownership concentration, the focus of the the Kent Commission on Canadian newspapers, would be ignored.
The public interest? Fuck it. We're too cool to worry about that.
But there was always important reasons to prevent too much media cross-ownership and concentration. People in Brandon, Victoria and Hamilton can tell you all about it. So can the readers of every newspaper in Canada, where news pages are empty of local coverage and columns are full of canned copy that's available for free on the Internet.
The Canwest mess is the worst, the fringe, of this regulatory failure.
Thank God the Internet is there to blame all this on. Forget the fact that the newspapers and broadcasters in this country made damn fine profits. Unfortunately, because Canwest was saddled with debt by its owners, those profits went to pay interest on junk bonds. Other Canadian media companies, with deeper pockets and less exposure to the convergence disaster, are quietly carrying on.
All this is a tragedy. We're a country of 30 million people spread out in a ribbon along the border of a superpower with ten times our population. We are trying to adjust to important changes to the economy, to demographics, and to the world geopolitical situation. We also should be having important debates on the environment, federalism and governance in general.
We need a strong media. Canwest's failure must be followed by a reconstruction of Canadian media that factors in the public interest and democracy's need for strong, independent, professional media.

...but you get two free tickets to a Blue Bombers game.

2009-10-14T06:40:00.002-05:00

Blogger claims Canwest doesn't have the money to pay its laid=off employees their vacation pay.

Welcome New Senators!

2009-10-12T07:49:00.008-05:00

Yes, you ladies on the back of the $50 bill are now honorary senators!

And a big shout-out to Emily Murphy!
No honor was too great for Ms. Murphy during her long and, I'm afraid, rather unproductive life. Ms. Murphy, who had no education worth mentioning, but did come from a well-connected Ontario Orange family, wrangled herself an appointment as a police court magistrate (thereby demanding she be addressed as "judge" for the rest of her life.) She was not one of those mushy, feminist lady law prof-type judges. Ms Murphy, er, Judge Murphy, was what we'd call a hangin' judge, dishing out evenhanded injustice to all, especially if they were yellow, black, red or non-white.
Once in a while, the good judge got to sink her teeth into a drug case. Quite frequently, the culprits were itinerant Chinese laborers packing opium. In her book, The Black Candle, Ms., er, Judge Murphy lets us know what the buggers were up to:

The drug traffic is chiefly in the hands of Americans, Canadians, Chinese, Negros, Russians and Italians, although the Assyrians and Greeks are running closely in the race… It is claimed also, but with what truth we cannot say, that there is a well-defined propaganda among the aliens of color to bring about the degeneration of the white race.

Well, there ya go. And Murphy published some pictures of (fully clothed) fallen white women posed in bed with dudes o' color to drive the point home. While feminist historians like Catherine Carstairs have bent over backwards to try to rehabilitate the good judge from the fact that she is responsible for Canada's pot ban, the fact is Murphy's "journalism" in Maclean's and the best-selling The Black Candle were the impetus for cannabis being placed on the schedule of banned drugs under the Opium Act. (Carstairs says it was done by the head of the federal anti-drug agency, but he didn't join the organization until five years after the cannabis ban.)
Specifically, about marijuana, Murphy wrote in The Black Candle:

THIS drug is not really new but, as yet, is completely unknown in the United States and Canada, although three of the American States – California, Missouri, and Wyoming – have legislated against its use, the authorities and police officers being woefully ignorant of its nature or extraordinary menace…
Charles A. Jones, the Chief of Police for the city, said in a recent letter that hashish, or Indian hemp, grows wild in Mexico but to raise this shrub in California constitutes a violation of the State Narcotic law. He says, “Persons using this narcotic, smoke the dried leaves of the plant, which has the effect of driving them completely insane. The addict loses all sense of moral responsibility…
“When coming under the influence of this narcotic, these victims present the most horrible condition imaginable. They are dispossessed of their natural and normal will power and their mentality is that of idiots. If this drug is indulged in to any great extent, it ends in the untimely death of its addict…

Murphy thought very highly of her work. She was appointed a delegate to the League of Nations conference on drugs, where she arrived with several crates of her masterpiece for free distribution to her colleagues. She nominated herself for the Nobel Peace Prize, but, alas, didn't win.

Having little regard for the unwashed and the idea of democracy, the learned judge set her eye on a Senate appointment. Mackenzie King didn't want to appoint her. She launched the Famous Five appeal to the Judicial Council of the (UK) Privy Council. Needing five names for this petition, she approached some of the country's more vocal feminists. Today, all are enshrined in over-size bronze on Parliament Hill. Ironically, once the Privy Council affirmed their right to be considered for appointment, none of them were offered a seat.
Well, now they're honorary senators, but Murphy's ghost actually haunts the courtrooms and jails where people are still punished under drug laws that are built on the Nativist idea that foreign people and their recreations are anathema, on the Victorian notion that addictions can be stopped by treating the addict as sinners, and on the absurd idea that Emily Murphy, not you, had the right to decide what was legal and proper for you to put in your body.

Welcome New Senators!

2009-10-12T07:49:00.000-05:00

Canwest starts bankruptcy filing

2009-10-06T07:55:00.004-05:00

UPDATE: Canwest RIP
Trading in Canwest stock, once considered a blue chip security, has been suspended by the Toronto Stock exchange, pending a determination by the exchange of whether it should be listed at all.

It had to come to that. It's been inevitable, really, since the Alliance-Atlantis deal, maybe even from the time Conrad Black snookered Izzy Asper with the newspaper deal.
Shareholder equity is likely wiped out.
The Aspers are no longer in control of Global TV and the National Post, and their ownership of the rest of the company appears to be unlikely.
As this unfolds, Canadian media will likely go through the biggest one-time shake-up in a century.
This marks the death of media convergence in Canada, which is a good thing both for journalism and the public interest.
The best scenario: Nortel-style break-up and sale to new corporate entities.
The worst scenario: break-up and integration into Canada's existing moribund media oligarchies, with lay-offs, further cuts to local coverage and closure of some titles.

Canwest to Shed its Newspaper Division?

2009-10-02T08:13:00.006-05:00

Well, I saw this coming three years ago, but I never saw the players. I always thought TorStar would get the old Southam chain, a jewel that it chased through the 1970s and 1980s with the help of the Desmarais family.
It's not a done deal, partly because Paul Godfrey has lowballed the price. Canwest needs new owners and senior managers, people who are the best in the business. Right now, the newspaper chain is owned by people who think in the mode of Canada's dying CRTC-protected monopoly TV business, in which ''content'' is bought cheaply and spread across the country. That business model simply does not work in newspapers.
Canwest papers are under-staffed. Apparently, they have, with a few notable exceptions, toxic work environments.
Canwest papers can win back readers if they are properly capitalized so that some profits go back into the newsroom. Right now, huge amounts of money is being taken from these papers to pay the Aspers' debt for purchases such as Alliance-Atlantis and the newspaper chain itself.
People simply don't cozy up to the stricken and the living dead, which is how most Canwest papers seem these days. While North American papers in general have rolled over, taking comfort in the excuse of the Internet, Canwest papers have been especially lame. Meanwhile, the best European papers and news magazines, which are far superior to North American journalism, are doing just fine. The reason? People really do care about the news and are sick of being talked to like simpletons. European papers are also in the business of selling real news and analysis, not advising on yuppie lifestyle.
(Maybe we'll cross the Rubicon when every Canwest columnist who gets pregnant stops writing about their marvelous experience as though it's the first time it's ever happened to anyone, and as though any of us give a shit.)

Meanwhile, The National Post and the CBC (yes, you're reading this right) have made a deal to share financial and sports news. Certainly the oddest deal in modern Canadian media, and a bad one for the Canadian public. With all the cross-ownership deals (TorStar owns part of CTV-Globemedia which also owns CHUM, Canwest still owns a TV network, a chain of newspapers and much of the trade magazine business in Canada) there are too many media managers sleeping in each others' beds.

The Afghan solution

2009-09-23T17:16:00.003-05:00

It's the same prescription I gave eight years go on this blog:

Kill all the al Qaeda within reach. Send in surgical teams to keep killing them, wherever they are.
Kill all the Taliban who shelter al Qaeda.
Keep killing al Qaeda and those who shelter them, no matter where they run, until there's no place on earth that will shelter them.

Instead, we have chosen this approach:

How to start WWIII

2009-09-23T08:17:00.002-05:00

Islamicist scumbags are threatening the life of Barack Obama.
Obama's personal safety is something the mullahs should work to protect, for if there is one thing that could set loose the full, united vengeance of the American people upon al Qaeda, similar terrorists and and their backers, harm to Obama would be it.
This is a guy who, despite the rage of the fascist right, still transcends politics. It is a strange thing for a North American to go into the homes and businesses of black Canadians, as I have recently, and see framed photographs of Obama in places of honour.
The mullahs have always had a tin ear for politics and a real thirst for martyrdom. Trashing and threatening Obama, a man who has the potential to build on his popularity in the Muslim world, strikes me as bad politics.
Following through with their threats strikes me as suicidal.

What passes for Excitement in Today's PMO

2009-09-22T14:38:00.003-05:00

A note from Dimitri Soudas, press secreatry to Stephen Harper:

The Prime Minister will be doing an interview with Maria Bartiromo.

The details:
DATE / LIVE interview time: Tues. 22Sept2009 @ 1515ET
Program: Closing Bell w/ Maria Bartiromo (CNBC)

Dimitri N. Soudas
Associate Communication Director/ Press Secretary
Directeur des Communications associé/Attaché de presse

Prime Minister's Office
Cabinet du Premier ministre

+1-613-992-4211

Personal Note

2009-09-21T21:48:00.001-05:00

I'm trying to get ahold of my friend Rebel Steve in Lafontaine, ON. I can't fnd your phone number and wasn't able to get in touch when Frank and I left in a hurry.

Missile Shield

2009-09-20T08:41:00.005-05:00

Interesting that Mark Steyn can write this piece without ever mentioning the US' ability to use its ICBMs to turn Iran into a flat piece of glass. The strategic nuclear force of the United States (and of the French, Chinese, Soviets and, locally, the Israelis) should be enough to prevent any sane person from entertaining any fantasies of removing Anglo-Saxons, Europeans, Israelis, Soviets, or Chinese people from the face of the Earth. (And don't discount Japan, which could develop a nuclear system in a matter of months if the Japanese people felt truly threatened by North Korea. For now, it exists under the American nuclear shield.)
It never really mattered if "missile defence" works. The system is just one way of deterring nutters, but the Iranians, masters of urban terrorism, know that there's more than one way to transport a bomb. You don't need a Long Dong when you can deliver a nuke to Prague or Warsaw in the trunk of a BMW.
So why not, huh?
Because there's no upside for Tehran. Except for the rent-a-crowds dancing in the streets, the smart Iranians, even the most Jihad-eager, will know the jig is up.
Not that the Iranians ever gave much thought to nuking Warsaw or Prague. The missile defence system was about marking territory in the parts of Europe that were occupied by the Red Army in 1944-45. This is about rolling the Russians back to their late September, 1939 borders (still keeping the half of Poland they seized under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August, 1939, along with East Prussia).
Americans believe the fall of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe had something to do with American military strength. That's because the American media can't see past New York. The Iron Curtain came down because of the European Union and the power of the West German mark (now renamed the Euro). Russia retreated from Europe because it could offer nothing to compete with the new Germany's political and economic hegemony that had spread into Hungary and the Balkans. P. J. O'Rourke got it right when he said nobody wanted to buy Bulgarian tennis shoes.
Now the old Warsaw Pact countries are members of the EU. They have what they want: Russians back in Russia, real money instead of zloties, freedom to travel, to publish, to listen to Kanye West. Putin may want back into Eastern Europe, to rebuild the Russian Empire to its old Czarist maximum (to the city of Warsaw). He might even want to try for the Elbe and the Danube. But he's up against the EU, especially Germany. And if anyone thinks Germany will give up economic dominance of Poland, the Danube Valley, the Balkans and the Baltic -- the very thing for which it fought two world wars -- they should never underestimate the skill of Germans with fine tools.
But, unless Putin is incredibly dense, this is not 1948. Russia no longer needs a buffer in Eastern Europe (and, in any case, has one with the Ukraine and Byelorussia, which will never be allowed to evolve into anything more that satellites). As Doug Saunders ably points out in the Globe and Mail, this game is about more than the fallout of the events of 1989. The geopolitical centre of trouble has shifted to Iran and the Middle East and will stay there as long as Islamicism remains an aggressive force in the region. There, many of the old rules don't hold -- at least in the minds of the Jihadists. The Russians know better than to use Iran for anything but mischief. Moscow's generals probably look upon the NATO campaign in Afghanistan with some mirth. In return for dropping its troublesome missile shield, Washington may have earned some Russian help in western Asia, the place where American troops are fighting today. But in the end, missile shield or no, the Iranians, the only people in western Asia who are likely to attack anyone with anything resembling a ballistic missile, have the ball.
What they do with it depends on whether they believe their own rhetoric, or if Tehran's nasty talk is just part of the mechanism that keeps the mullahs in power.

Maybe this will get health insurance through Congress

2009-09-19T12:24:00.002-05:00

Nice tribute to Doug Fisher

2009-09-18T12:01:00.001-05:00

Sandra Martin gives Doug a great send-off on the Globe web page.

The NDP sent out a pretty decent tribute from Jack Layton:
“I was saddened to hear this morning of the passing of Douglas Fisher, a man with a distinguished place in the history of this country and its Parliament,” said Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party.

“Douglas spent eight years serving Canadians in the House of Commons, as a member of the CCF and the NDP, and worked on the Hill for 30 more as a columnist and television host. He will always be remembered, not only for his defeat of C.D. Howe in 1957 and his work as an MP, but for his 50 years of political analysis. He was known as the dean of the Parliamentary Press Gallery,” said Layton.

“Doug Fisher led an incredibly accomplished life that included many careers: miner, teacher, fire ranger, construction worker, guard. He was a very active, and sometimes outspoken, Member of Parliament who was dedicated to his constituents,” said New Democrat MP Bruce Hyer, who’s riding, Thunder Bay—Superior North, encompasses Port Arthur, the riding Fisher represented between 1957 and 1965. “He was greatly appreciated for his integrity and commitment, and he will be deeply missed.”

“Douglas Fisher was a wise politician who was recognized as one of the best speakers in Parliament during his time there. We in the New Democratic Party look to him as one of the greats in our history,” said Layton. “I wish to send sincere condolences to Douglas’ five sons, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Tobias and to their families. May they take solace in his long life and his legacy.”

Human Rights Act Sec. 13 RIP

2009-09-17T12:46:00.001-05:00

And good riddance.
The Canadian Human Right Commission has neither the expertise nor the mandate to censor Canada's media.
Mark Steyn dances on the grave of Canada's upstart censorship system here.

Just What Was Said

2009-09-14T15:26:00.001-05:00

Jack Layton today in the Foyer of the House of Commons:
I, I have a statement to make.

There are now 1.6 million Canadians unemployed. And unfortunately, throughout this coming winter, many more Canadians are going to lose their jobs. Most economists agree that the job losses will continue at least until next spring. These people need help. I spent the summer visiting many communities all across the country and met many people who had lost their jobs. I heard their stories and have, how much they need our help right now and they made a very direct appeal to me, to our party and I think to all parliamentarians. Many of them are coming to the end of their benefits and they face falling off assistance from EI and having to turn to welfare. Those people are counting on us right now.

The announcement today appears to be a step in the right direction. There is much more that needs to be done as well. Our preference remains fighting for the unemployed rather than fighting for a second election. But make no mistake about it, we have no intention of giving this government a blank cheque, like Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals did. We'll be studying the bill and considering it very, very carefully. We will evaluate this initiative on its merits and we'll do the same with everything else that is brought forward and we'll push for action. Thank you.

Welcome to Ottawa

2009-09-11T09:31:00.002-05:00

Where your tax dollars go to die...

Ottawa Citizen photo

How could we have let ourselves lose this war?

2009-09-11T07:50:00.006-05:00

They slaughtered 3,000 of our people in cold blood, and we argue over whether it's a crime to run stupid cartoons and nod when we're told it was somehow our fault.
Meanwhile, the new museum at the World Trade Center atrocity site will give the killers a permanent soap box for their propaganda.

Remember when I said we might have an election by accident?

2009-09-10T14:16:00.001-05:00

Well, here's the accident:

Video shows two faces of Stephen Harper: Ignatieff
Source: The Canadian Press
Sep 10, 2009 13:24

MONTREAL_ Stephen Harper's chief rival is calling him two-faced.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says the real prime minister only emerges when he thinks he can't be overheard.

Ignatieff said it's no longer possible to work with a man so contemptuous of basic Canadian values, and he reiterated his plan to bring down the Conservative government.

``(Harper's) already lost the confidence of the House once,'' Ignatieff told a news conference Thursday.

``He's about to lose it a second time.''

Harper was overheard in a video talking about winning a majority, squashing separatists and socialists, and keeping leftists out of the courts and other public institutions.

The Bloc says it's particularly bothered by the comment about the judiciary.

Leader Gilles Duceppe says, behind closed doors, Harper sounds like a member of the radical fringe of the U.S. Republican party.

The NDP calls the remarks low politics that undermine Canada's justice system.

INDEX: JUSTICE POLITICS

(c) 2009 The Canadian Press

Meanwhile, back at the Scarborough Town Center...

2009-09-09T14:20:00.000-05:00

CHARLOTTETOWN, September 9, 2009 – Today, the Honourable Peter Van Loan, Minister of Public Safety, announced federal support of over $1.5 million for three projects aimed at preventing and reducing crime in Prince Edward Island.
“This government is committed to making communities in Prince Edward Island safer, and preventing crime before it happens,” said Minister Van Loan. “We believe that when it comes to addressing crime we have to take action. The funding announced today will support programs that offer youth faced with difficult circumstances the life skills to make smart choices and avoid negative influences.”
Through the National Crime Prevention Strategy, the Government of Canada is providing federal support to the Aboriginal Women’s Association of Prince Edward Island, the Adventure Group, and the John Howard Society of Prince Edward Island. These projects will work with at-risk children, youth and young adults in communities throughout Prince Edward Island in an effort to prevent and reduce crime, as well as provide those most at risk with alternatives to a life of crime.

"It Takes All Kinds to Make a World" Department

2009-09-05T09:52:00.002-05:00

On your most down day, when you question your reasons for sticking around and wonder if you're not a complete fuck-up, come back to this page, click this link and remind yourself that, whoever you are and whatever you've done, you're still a better person than that guy.

Today's Media Horror

2009-09-03T14:30:00.002-05:00

The billionaire Desmarias family is threatening to shut La Presse, the only major Francophone paper in Quebec that is not a separatist mouthpiece or trash tabloid, unless workers take a big pay cut.

After four years in office, Harper talks the talk on the economic disaster in Northern Ontario

2009-09-02T17:50:00.001-05:00

REPORTER: Good afternoon Mr. Prime Minister. I represent a local youth advocacy group. We are the Sault Youth Association and we publish Fresh Magazine, which is a free publication for local youth, and like many youth, myself included, we couldn't wait to pack our bags and get out of town. And out migration is a definite issue, not only in this community but all northern rural communities, so I'm asking you, in the economic action plan, is there a realistic solution to our problem of losing our youth and our populations decreasing?

RT. HON. STEPHEN HARPER: Well, as you know, we have put, as a government, a big emphasis on rural and regional development. I've said repeatedly wherever I've gone it's essential if we're to take advantage of the strength that truly is Canada, what we have to do is make sure that we have all regions of this country strong and settled and retaining a decent population base. You know, we can't have…I fought long and hard when I was in opposition against what somebody was then calling an agenda for cities. Not because I'm against cities. I happen to be born and raised in the city, but Canada can't be reduced to just two or three or four cities. You can talk about a lot of countries like that. Canada is a big country with a lot of regions, a lot of resources. That's where a lot of our history and a lot of our future is, and that's why we continue through the economic action plan and Minister Clement, through the regional development agency and other things to investigate [sic] in key infrastructure to allow long-term diversified growth in these communities, because that is what we have to have. As I say, we can't have a Canada in the future where everybody just lives in three or four or five cities in this country.

An Election? Don't Think So

2009-09-02T10:40:00.003-05:00

And here's why:

All of the "Class of 2004", the MPs elected in Paul Martin's winter election, become eligible for their pension in June, 2010. Don't expect any of them to show up in favor of risking their cash for life.

As well, the opposition parties know the last budget, especially its tax write-offs for home renovations, was very popular. The Tories will claim the budget puts those goodies in jeopardy.

It takes almost all of the MPs from all three Opposition parties to actually show up and vote against the government. Will all of these parties -- at the same time -- see an election in their best interests? Nope.

The Liberals have yet to find a good message to run on. I spoke with one Opposition Leader's Office strategist yesterday and his talking points were just old platitudes. This government won't be defeated unless the Liberals come up with a real issue, something like Free Trade in 1988. Smart Liberals know this and are working hard to come up with something.

Many in the media say Ignatieff pulled the plug on Harper yesterday. He didn't. He said the Liberals will not support the government any longer. Ignatieff should have done this last winter when the Tories were rubbing his nose in the coalition dirt. Let Harper go cap in hand to the Bloc and the NDP. he would have done it while the Liberals did their job of opposing Harper's policies. It seems Ignatieff has finally clued in.

So expect a nasty fall session. But an election? At most, it might happen by accident.

New Blood for the Depends Crowd

2009-09-02T10:39:00.001-05:00

Spring chicken Diane Sawyer, 63, has been tapped to be the ABC News anchor.

Hospital Horror Stories: Add Yours

2009-08-27T11:51:00.002-05:00

We'll start off with my 75-year-old father-in-law, a sweet, gentle man who now suffers from Alzheimers. He spent three days in a cot in the crowded, filthy emergency ward of the Hull, Quebec hospital suffering from an untreated broken hip. My mother-in-law was the only support he had. For three days, she fed him, changed his adult diaper and kept him calm. The only staff that ever showed their faces were the pudgy, useless security guards that seem to infest Quebec and much of Ottawa. They took away my mother-in-law's chair, leaving her standing beside the cot for two days and two nights before my father-in-law was transferred to Montreal.
While he was in Hull, the emergency room was jammed with people. One poor crazy man was locked into a chair-table contraption wearing nothing but an adult diaper. Most of the time, he cried and asked people where he was and what was happening. My mother-in-law ended up comforting him, too.
In Montreal, my father-in-law was declared "terminal" by one doctor. another came by and realized he needed hip surgery but otherwise he was as fine as he could be, considering his circumstances. Eventually, he had surgery and now he's back at home, very much alive.

But this story beats mine. I'm not surprised. I visited my uncle at St. Joseph Hospital, where the wards were dirty, the staff was ignorant, and homeless people who lived in bus shelters outside wandered the cafeterias and the halls panhandling.
I do believe in a public health insurance system. I don't, however, believe in public hospitals. They simply don't work. The culture becomes one of entitlement and lack of empathy. There's a lack of focus on quality.
I can't imagine how good practitioners can work in our system. I just know that there are some who do.

The Trials of Larry O'Brien

2009-08-26T16:19:00.002-05:00

Trial by Fire

A political neophyte, Larry O’Brien handily won this city’s top job, quickly earning a legacy as a headline-grabbing mayor unafraid of the spotlight — he promised to bring a business mentality to city hall, but his fix-it nature was overshadowed by a precedent-setting trial. Mark Bourrie unpacks the strategy behind the courtroom climax

There are so many truths in politics, so many realities.
Not everything that is heard is what is said. Not everything that is said is what is heard. Words are not always precise things. The English language has so many words, but words are just sounds the brain uses to transfer information.
Some people can craft this transition very well: each word is pretty much the right tool for the job. Others can’t. They have a messy tool chest — a bucket of rusty nails and bolts when what they need are fine tools to fix a watch.
In politics, words — much like votes and money — are part of the tool kit. In law, words make up all the tool kit. So when the precise words of law are fitted to the deliberate obfuscations of politics, strange things can happen.
For two months off and on, Superior Court Judge Douglas Cunningham tried to make sense of a lot of words: Larry O’Brien’s pre-2006 municipal-election pitch to Terry Kilrea, the words Kilrea used for his never-ending job hunt, and the words of the lawyers prosecuting O’Brien on election corruption and influence peddling.
This great wave of words concealed as much as it explained. Reporters and federal politicians believed that the O’Brien scandal might leap like a salmon from Ottawa City Hall to Parliament Hill. They would be disappointed.
The trial centred on the allegation that O’Brien had offered to get Kilrea, putative candidate for mayor, a spot on the National Parole Board. Kilrea is a court enforcement officer. His job is to enforce court orders — usually implementing evictions and shutting down the odd crack house. He has no post-secondary education, no training as a police officer or in any important aspects of the criminal law.
But Kilrea likes words. For half a decade, he has tried to be a political mover. His views reflect those of the morning radio crew at CFRA, the station that gave Kilrea a platform until the much more electable right winger Larry O’Brien announced his candidacy in July 2006.
Kilrea represented the side of Ottawa that tourists don’t see: Anglo small-town eastern Ontario, not connected to government, and not qualified for the federal public service because of a lack of language skills and education. This is the Ottawa that’s part of The Valley, and Kilrea was able to tap that vote in both urban and rural Ottawa for a very respectable showing against former Liberal MPP Bob Chiarelli in the 2003 mayoral race.
John Baird is also part of the Valley — or at least he has cast himself that way. His education, his proficiency in French, and his spell in Toronto as an MPP have not erased the fact that he’s a kid from Bell’s Corners. Baird is an outsider to the world of what the Valley calls Trudeaupia, the Liberal-left public service whose members live in New Edinburgh, the Glebe, Orleans and, worst of all, Gatineau.
So it’s no surprise that Terry Kilrea knew John Baird and that Larry O’Brien, one of the city’s tech lords, did not.
Liberals and NDPers hoped Nepean MP John Baird’s testimony at O’Brien’s trial would be exciting, perhaps even expose a few of Baird’s more interesting personal secrets. Instead, it was short and boring. It quickly became clear that if there was some sort of conspiracy, Baird didn’t know anything about it.
There was a solid ring of truth to Baird’s testimony. In Parliament, he’s among Canada’s most vicious, most partisan politicians. But in court, he came across as a minister who, after quarterbacking the Harper government’s Accountability Act through the House of Commons, knew that his friend Terry Kilrea was not qualified to determine whether convicts should be let out of jail.
And that became the nub of O’Brien’s defence: Kilrea was not only too dense to be on the National Parole Board, he was too slow to understand what O’Brien was actually saying to him. And not only was Kilrea quite thick-skulled, he was also duplicitous and sleazy, a man in a constant search for some kind of political power, whether through election — something that had eluded him — or by a government appointment.
“Dumb like a fox.” That was lawyer Michael Edelson’s first line of defence.
The second line also turned on words and their meanings. David Paccioco, Edelson’s partner, wrote the book on trial evidence. It’s a two-inch-thick volume that is used at the University of Ottawa law school, where Paccioco teaches.
He argued that two guys playing political horse-trading on a summer afternoon on the patio of 700 Sussex did not constitute a crime. This was the “big swinging dick” defence. Long after the meeting, when the police had taken a professional interest in what happened that day, O’Brien had described the session as a “big swinging dick contest” to try to eliminate one man from the race. There could be only one candidate for the votes from The Valley, or Alex Munter — who represents everything Lowell Green’s callers despise — would win.
Paccioco argued that people make political deals all the time. Political-party leadership races are full of these deals. Many a third-place loser has landed a cabinet job by throwing support behind an eventual winner. And though people might not like it, such MPs as Belinda Stronach and David Emerson crossed the floor of the House of Commons, moving directly from the wasteland of the Opposition to a prestigious, well-paying, and perktastic cabinet job.
“Paccioco can make an argument that, coming from someone else, would sound ridiculous. But from him, it makes complete sense. He has command of the material, but he is also the most silver-tongued lawyer I have ever met,” an Ottawa lawyer said after Paccioco made this pitch to Judge Cunningham.
But the judge had his own interpretation of the words in the law. Yes, he reasoned, people play those political games. That doesn’t make it right. Nor, he added, do they play for jobs with regulatory agencies such as the parole board, which can have dire impacts on people’s lives. If politicians do play that way and they end up in front of him on the same charges that O’Brien faced, the judge would convict them if there was enough evidence against them to prove the offence.
That’s how the charges played out in court. What could the prosecutors prove was actually said? How much of O’Brien’s filmed statement to the police was an admission of criminal wrongdoing?
From the defence side came the argument that all the talk — whatever it was — was just talk. O’Brien hadn’t offered Kilrea anything. The allegations were just sour grapes on Kilrea’s part, an attempt to get back at the man who had supplanted him in an election he might have won.
The drama, such as it was, played out in parallel campaigns outside the courtroom. O’Brien hired Barry McLoughlin, a spin doctor and political-campaign expert, to handle the press. McLoughlin spent most of his day thumbing on a Blackberry and telling reporters the mayor would not talk to reporters.
The Ottawa Citizen had three journalists in the room: city hall columnist Randall Denley, senior writer Don Butler, and Hill reporter Glen McGregor on Twitter. The Ottawa Sun had four people in or near the trial, although one of them, city hall columnist Sue Sherring, was excluded from most of the trial because she had been subpoenaed as a witness.
The CBC sent Stéphane Émard-Chabot, a former Ottawa councillor and one of Paccioco’s law-school colleagues, to do a play-by-play of the trial. It also had radio reporters, along with local, and sometimes national, television journalists. The local radio and television stations sent their own contingents, and the press pack swelled with parliamentary reporters when Baird testified.
The press had a lot to do with this case. There’s still a dispute over who broke the story. Wikipedia says A Channel reported it during the election campaign. The Sun’s Sherring made a brief mention of it at about the same time. Neither outlet grasped the idea that Kilrea’s allegation crossed the line from sleaze to crime.
A few weeks after the election, Kilrea gave the story to Jorge Barrera, then of the Sun, but the editors killed it. Sherring and city hall reporter Derek Puddicombe said near the end of the trial that they engineered the smothering of the story because Barrera poached their beats. (Barrera left the paper soon after.)
Kilrea then shopped the story to Gary Dimmock, one of the Citizen’s investigative reporters. The Citizen did something papers in this town rarely do: hired a lawyer, had Kilrea swear an affidavit, then conducted a lie-detector test, which Kilrea supposedly passed. Dimmock warned Kilrea not to talk to anyone else — especially other reporters.
It was all so exciting that the Citizen devoted pages to the allegation and the affidavit.
“He is revelling in this, with 50 different stories in which Kilrea is the centre of attention,” Edelson said on the last day of the trial as he tried to paint Kilrea as a media whore.
Along with the huge, sensational Citizen stories, Kilrea’s affidavit sparked a probe by the OPP Anti-Rackets Section. O’Brien called the police the day after a sit-down interview with the Ottawa Citizen and asked for an investigation to clear his name.
After their sit-down with O’Brien, in which the mayor used his “big swinging dick” metaphor, the police went on a hunt for e-mails. Somehow Dimmock got them before the cops. Edelson argued that Kilrea fed them to Dimmock, who then used them as leverage in his interviews with the cops.
At about the same time, Kilrea’s affidavit was leaked to Sean McKenny, president of the Ottawa and District Labour Council, who gave it to the police.
(In the trial, Kilrea suggested that one of the 62 people who went through the Kilrea home during a real-estate open house in early 2006 hacked into Kilrea’s computer and stole the e-mails.)
There were some other comic moments, such as when it came to light that two of Kilrea’s campaign men, Tim Tierney and John Light, were cackling in e-mails about their unimportant media manipulations. They saw themselves as future movers of mountains, asking each other if they planned to carve out careers in elective office and comparing themselves to Doug Finley, the guy who ran Harper’s campaign.
The defence did not call witnesses. O’Brien would not be able to tell the judge about the legality of his big swinging dick and its powers to intimidate and offend.
In the end, Edelson, a lawyer so ferocious that cops use him when they’re in trouble, tried to make dozens of tiny cuts to Kilrea’s credibility. The defence case — after Paccioco’s “everyone does it” legal challenge failed — relied on attempting to make Kilrea out as both devious and stupid, a man who distorted reality by manipulating words, a man who had used false words to smear a good man.
Unspoken was the fact that, no matter what the outcome of the trial, O’Brien paid a high price for those allegations: he had taken a lawyer to his police interview in April 2007 and had retained some of the best lawyers in the city for a year and a half. They had generated huge binders of material stuffed with all kinds of words. Conservative estimates of O’Brien’s defence bill are a minimum of $500,000, with outside estimates sitting at well over $1 million.
The man paying the bills, Larry O’Brien, never publicly sweated the costs during the trial. His wife, ex-wife, mother, sons, and friends came to court most days. On the day Paccioco’s argument was thrown out, there were about 30 of them. They expected to win.
“It was like the last day of school,” said a lawyer who watched most of the trial. “They came into court giddy and excited. They expected a quick morning. They had a hall booked for a party. O’Brien planned to do a bunch of press interviews. But as the judge went into his ruling, they became quieter. The body language changed completely.”
In the end, it seemed as though Edelson’s strategy was to bore the judge, perhaps induce some sort of hypnosis that worked on principles unknown to the rest of us. Edelson used thousands of words to try to paint Kilrea as a man addicted to his own media clippings and as a serial political candidate who had applied for many jobs, including a seat on the board of city housing, on the Ontario landlord-tenant tribunal, as a justice of the peace, and many more.
“I think he was trying to beat out John Turmel in the Guinness Book of World Records for biggest loser,” Edelson told the judge to snickers from the O’Brien camp in the right side of the courtroom. Edelson, no scholar of Renaissance philosophy, said Kilrea was “not Prince Machiavelli…but he is dumb like a fox.”
In the end, the trial came down to words: Did Kilrea hear what O’Brien was really saying? Did anything O’Brien say cross a boundary delineated not by a line but by a string of words? Had the judge been able to find his way through the fog of words generated by the lawyers on both sides of the case and reach the truth? It was a matter of whose words you trusted.

Today in Racism

2009-08-26T10:53:00.003-05:00

Khate McMillan (the "k" is silent) at Small Dead Animals holds up yet another Muslim to be used as a pinata by the hillbilles and mouth-breathers who lurk around her site:

"His fate remains unknown"
When the concept of "multiculturalism" was introduced to Canadians, most assumed it meant more pavilions at Folkfest...

It's not the first time a member of the Muslim organization Islamic Foundation of Toronto has gone missing, CBC News has learned. Last November, 22-year-old Abu-Ubaida Atieque, also an engineering student at the University of Toronto, went missing near Neilson Road and Ellesmere Road.

update.... "Police have located and charged Furqan Muhammed-Haroon"

Posted by Kate at August 26, 2009 1:38 AM

-----------
Comments
It reads like the script to your typical mob movie. Except it's Abudul or Mohamed not Tony or Pauly sleeping with the fishes.

Posted by: Eskimo at August 26, 2009 1:56 AM

Interesting that this 'devoted Muslim' has been charged with the theft of computer hard drives from the same facility where other such devices were pilfered recently as well..

Something is going on..

Posted by: Kursk at August 26, 2009 4:13 AM

Khate finds another Muslim for the winged monkeys to use as a pinata.

Posted by: Harry Balsac at August 26, 2009 7:19 AM
Khate finds another Muslim for the winged monkeys to use as a pinata.

Posted by: Darrell at August 26, 2009 7:34 AM
It was interesting how many people from his mosque stepped up to vouch for his exemplary moral character, isn't it?

Wonder if they will say the same now?

Posted by: Kyla at August 26, 2009 7:40 AM

An odd story to say the least. Charged with theft of hard drives, had withdrawn thousands of dollars to go go buy plane tickets.

So I guess people still use cash to buy plane tickets. But arent there also ATM limits, you can only get so much out of an ATM in a day and it wouldnt be thousands, a thousand maybe.

Too many things dont add up about this guys story. Oh well, in due time it will come out, he doesnt strike me as the shiniest apple in the fridge.

PS: The CBC story is the one that brings up "identity" so it matches the criteria for Pavilions at Folkfest

Posted by: Stephen at August 26, 2009 7:45 AM

He's just another fine example of an immigrant doing the jobs Canadians aren't willing to do.

Posted by: Mr.g at August 26, 2009 7:51 AM

The whole thing is bizarre.

What would motivate someone to pull a stunt of that nature? We may find out unless our strict privacy laws are invoked.

Posted by: Liz J at August 26, 2009 7:55 AM

Mr.g, what job is that? Student, thief, suspected terrorist cell leader? Muslim mob target, international man of mystery? geez I dunno, but I think I know at least a couple unemployed network techs would love to be any of these, minus the Muslim Mob target.

Posted by: Arron D at August 26, 2009 7:55 AM

How do you say "I'm a legitimate businessman" in Arabic?

Posted by: Goofy Guy at August 26, 2009 8:00 AM

And that should be CANADIAN network Techs who would ...

Posted by: Arron D at August 26, 2009 8:17 AM

Arron D:

That "whoosh" you hear is the sound of a joke going 30,000 feet over your head.

On an unrelated note, bartenders across the US mourn, and young women breathe sighs of relief at the news that Ted Kennedy died at the age of 77.

Posted by: KevinB at August 26, 2009 8:36 AM

The only illumination this non-story provides is about the loopy mind of the person who posted it. There is no relevance to multiculturalism here. If you see this story as evidence of any larger issue, than you're well on your way to being fitted for a tinfoil cap.

Posted by: David at August 26, 2009 8:37 AM

what an effeminate muslim.

usually this behavior is reserved for the Dar Heatheringtons of the world or this one from NB.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090810/nb_kidnapping_090810/20090810/

Posted by: cal2 at August 26, 2009 8:46 AM

What's been reported to this point leads to more questions and unfortunately speculation.

Apparently he had been charged with stealing a green plastic recycling bin stuffed with computer equipment from his 'former' employer, IBM Canada.

He apparently withdrew the "large amount of cash from an ATM in preparation for his trip that evening to the United Arab Emirates", as reported in the G&M. He must already have had his ticket so what would constitute "a large amount of cash" is the question.

Guess people charged with theft are still allowed to leave the country. Was he fired from IBM?

The fella has some 'splainin' to do.
We better leave him to it.

Posted by: Liz J at August 26, 2009 8:48 AM

don't say anything about moslems and airplane tickets. it's not funny. don't say anything about moslems and stealing anything, especially identities or anything about computers, and if you do, don't say anything about prior criminal activities, don't say anything about moslems and having to go into hiding, don't say anything about anything moslem or anything moslem like, don't say anything about moslems and 30,000 feet, don't say anything about Ted Kennedy yet, you know very well he doesn't wake up until almost noon, and then it's only to finish sobering up for his afternoon binge-ette, don't say anything about legitimate business and moslems in the same sentence, don't say apple, and ramadan during the daytime, especially during ramadan, don't say multicultural and canadian together, don't say terrorist and CBC, don't say devoted and moslem together, don't say monkeys and moslem together, that really doesn't look good, don't this, don't that. just don't. just get in line.

Posted by: marc in calgary at August 26, 2009 9:00 AM

That girl, who convinced her boy friend to kill another girl in Scarborough, she was tried as an adult and received life in prison.
Will any religious leaders, who convince their followers to kill on religious grounds, be tried on the same principles - that inciting murder is a criminal offense, punishable on par with murder itself?
I think that a precedent was set, and a very good one.

Posted by: Aaron at August 26, 2009 9:11 AM

Darrell -- or is it your other brother Darrell?: "What the hell does it have to do with 'multiculturalism?'"

You're kidding, right? You're asking a rhetorical question, right?

Let's go through the ABCD's of this, OK? (Marc in calgary, sorry I'm not getting in line ...)

A) PET's "official multiculturalism," the PR goes, was to turn Canada from a predominantly Judeo-Christian, European nation (granted, with more English speakers than Francophones -- gotta do something about that, said Pierre) into a multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-gendered haven, all the better to smack down the Brits and put the Francophones out ahead. Oh, and the other thing, PET realized after he had legalized abortion, that we would have to replace the millions (that's no exaggeration) of workers that never made it out of the womb, by a massive influx of immigrants.

B) As huge numbers of immigrants, often under the guise of being refugees (great opportunity for the lawyers of Canada) flocked to Canada, bringing with them their many wives, mothers-in-law, stepbrothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins, the mantel of "multiculturalism" made them eligible for unlimited welfare, housing, dental care, medical care, and educational opportunities, all services that hardworking, overtaxed Canadians had to pay for themselves, on top of footing the bill for the immigrant population.

C) So, here we have this wonderful multicultural playground, all races, cultures, and creeds -- and we're all happy, holding hands, and having a great life together ... right?

Wrong.

In far too many cases, immigrants such as Furqan Muhammed-Haroon have taken gross advantage of Canadians' hospitality. "Multiculturalism's" basic premise is that all cultures are equivalent and it makes no distinction between hardworking Canadians, immigrant or not, and freeloading Canadians. They myth is that if you're part of Canada's "multicultural" mosaic or more pavilions at Folkfest, if you will, you're OK.

However, it turns out that Furqan Muhammed-Haroon, who is "deeply spiritual" and whose morals and conduct are "exemplary," according to Mohamed Mobeen, the secretary and fund-raising chair of the mosque he attends, has just been charged with theft under $5000 by IBM, the company for whom he worked this past summer. He has a court date sometime in September. 'Wonder why he was in the process of buying a ticket (one way?) to the United Arab Emirates?

D) There's often a pattern of recent immigrants, having been apprehended by the law, being described as "moral," "decent," "honest" individuals, when all of the evidence indicates otherwise. A common thread through this kind of dissembling -- and often leniency when it comes to sentencing – is that the person belongs to “a visible minority.” Whereas justice should be blind, it appears that in Canada, that’s not always the case. Political correctness seems to dictate that if a recent immigrant to Canada has contravened our laws, we need to bend over backwards to not appear “racist” in our dealing with the misdemeanor.

So, Darrell – or is it your other brother Darrell, or maybe your other brother David? – I hope this small lesson in the connection between this case and multiculturalism is helpful. This is the Reader’s Digest version and I hope it was simple enough for you to understand.

If you're too young, however, to have learned any history in your school, seeing as we don't teach it anymore, having replaced it with politically correct, revisionist, pie-in-the-sky, schlock, so sorry. The connection between Mr. Muhammed-Haroon's situation and multiculturalism would, obviously, not be clear to you.

Posted by: batb at August 26, 2009 10:33 AM

batb,

Good dot connecting. The trolls can't think in those complex terms. But good that you splained it to them anyway.

Now they can't say nobody ever warned them, when their daughters are forced to wear sacs when out in public and they as dhimmis (dummies) must give half + 20% of their income to their Sharia tax collectors.

There is nothing wrong with a multiracial society as long as they all share the same language and culture. Anything else means no peace EVER!

Posted by: Momar at August 26, 2009 11:03 AM

"as long as they all share the same language and culture."

Canada has never shared a single language and culture.

Posted by: ted at August 26, 2009 11:59 AM

Great explanation 'Post by: batb at August 26, 2009 10:33 AM'. Thank you.

Posted by: Merle Underwood at August 26, 2009 11:59 AM

batb:

Well said!

For those left-leaning trolls who insist on visiting this site day after day to express outrage and indignation, dispense self-righteous wisdom and demonstrate moral and intellectual superiority .... take the time to read the post and actually think long and hard about what was written before going into your usual knee-jerk, self-indulgent routine.

Posted by: biffjr. at August 26, 2009 12:00 PM

I think "new at August" is on to something here.

You guys should all go over to his place and get to the bottom of this whole muslim-multiracial- multilingual thing. Seriously, I think this guy has the answers you're looking for.

Posted by: tedafsd at August 26, 2009 12:53 PM
I'm always amazed at the Muslim mourning their dead children......and wonder are they more distraught at losing a potential suicide bomber????

Posted by: sasquatch at August 26, 2009 1:01 PM

batb, you forgot sitting around in a circle and singing kumbaya.

Posted by: Ken at August 26, 2009 1:28 PM

sasquatch

Great nick!

And yes, Muslims don't care about their children the way other humans do - that's very astute of you to understand that.

Welcome to small brain-dead animals.

You're amongst friends here.

Posted by: bob234 at August 26, 2009 1:30 PM

That is so right Bob.Especially when we overlook the atrocities committed against their OWN children in the name of Allah. Keep on overlooking the realities of the 'religion of peace' and you will fit in well with the rest of the perpetually indignant and offended.

Posted by: wallyj at August 26, 2009 1:53 PM

wallyj:

Darling I am most certainly not offended, nor indignant. Totally slack-jawed at the sheer breadth of ignorance on display here - that's all.

But while we're chatting, can you explain how this Furqan Muhammed-Haroon has bearing on, well, anything?

Can you even explain why it's posted?

Hmmm?

Posted by: bob234 at August 26, 2009 2:01 PM

Actually,it has been explained better than I could already.Go up a bit to this, ---Posted by: batb at August 26, 2009 10:33 AM .

Posted by: wallyj at August 26, 2009 2:08 PM

Bobby, what you see as ignorance, others see as facing realities.

Realities that are becoming more self evident day by day.That you don't see what is happening is a product of your upbringing in socialist utopian Canada, where those friendly faces at the falafel stand at folkfest would NEVER conspire to kill you or your family, just because..

Posted by: Kursk at August 26, 2009 2:17 PM

In far too many cases, immigrants such as Furqan Muhammed-Haroon have taken gross advantage of Canadians' hospitality.

1) Is Furqan Muhammed-Haroon an immigrant?
2) Any statistical support for this contention? Or did you make it up?

"Multiculturalism's" basic premise is that all cultures are equivalent and it makes no distinction between hardworking Canadians, immigrant or not, and freeloading Canadians. They myth is that if you're part of Canada's "multicultural" mosaic or more pavilions at Folkfest, if you will, you're OK.

3) This doesn't even make sense. The second sentence isn't even English.

However, it turns out that Furqan Muhammed-Haroon, who is "deeply spiritual" and whose morals and conduct are "exemplary," according to Mohamed Mobeen, the secretary and fund-raising chair of the mosque he attends, has just been charged with theft under $5000 by IBM, the company for whom he worked this past summer. He has a court date sometime in September. 'Wonder why he was in the process of buying a ticket (one way?) to the United Arab Emirates?

4) Is the theory here that Muslims are predisposed to thievery? Is that it? Then for God sakes say that.
5) If his mane was McDonald would that change things for you?

D) There's often a pattern of recent immigrants, having been apprehended by the law, being described as "moral," "decent," "honest" individuals, when all of the evidence otherwise. A common thread through this kind of dissembling -- and often leniency when it comes to sentencing – is that the person belongs to “a visible minority.” Whereas justice should be blind, it appears that in Canada, that’s not always the case. Political correctness seems to dictate that if a recent immigrant to Canada has contravened our laws, we need to bend over backwards to not appear “racist” in our dealing with the misdemeanor.

6) Where's the special treatment you're alluding to? He's been busted - quickly.

So, Darrell – or is it your other brother Darrell, or maybe your other brother David? – I hope this small lesson in the connection between this case and multiculturalism is helpful. This is the Reader’s Digest version and I hope it was simple enough for you to understand.

7) There is no lesson, and the only connection is in your mind. Google ""Correlation does not imply causation"

If you're too young, however, to have learned any history in your school, seeing as we don't teach it anymore, having replaced it with politically correct, revisionist, pie-in-the-sky, schlock, so sorry. The connection between Mr. Muhammed-Haroon's situation and multiculturalism would, obviously, not be clear to you.

7) I see, a good history course is all that's needed to understand why this meaningless case reveals profound truths about Muslims.

Sorry if I'm buying it, nor the patronizing tone you're employing to suggest a superiority you can't provide by way of reasoned argument.

Posted by: bob234 at August 26, 2009 2:26 PM

Canwest

2009-08-22T12:40:00.004-05:00

Why no postings about Canada's most interesting media meltdown? It's not because friends at Canwest have been upset with my three-year-long analysis of the collapse of the company they work for.(Strange for journalists to engage in "Blame the Messenger", but there ya go). Nor was concerned about National Post-it editorial page editor Jonathan Kay's pathetic attempt to smear me last spring. (He suggested on his blog that I was biased against his company, so I was unfit to judge the National Newspaper Award beat category. By then, we three members of the judging panel had already unanimously decided on a winner, a writer with a Canwest paper who had earned the award through hard work and talent. Of course, I couldn't say that until after the prize was awarded.) Quite simply, very little has happened over the past few months. Canwest's debt has grown, the bondholders have brought in their own manager, and soon the debt will be turned to shareholder equity, which means the Aspers will be out. All of this has (finally) become interesting to Canada's media-shy business press. So when something big happens, I'll do a full analysis.

Are We Ready

2009-08-19T10:29:00.003-05:00

Looks like there's at least a 50% chance that Hurricane Bill will hit Atlantic Canada early next week as at least a Category 1 hurricane. Let's hope emergency measures officials are awake and ready.

Twenty-two days until the end of the news drought

2009-08-17T09:18:00.004-05:00

I'll be back on the Hill this fall, dividing my time between Library and Archives Canada, the Library of Parliament and the Press Gallery. In September, I'll be working on a major magazine piece on Canadian politics. My piece on the Larry O'Brien trial is just about on the streets in Ottawa Magazine. The mayor's "big swinging dick" is mentioned twice. In the fall, the same magazine will be carrying a true Canadian World War II spy mystery which is based on previously unpublished documents held in a Canadian archive. My Beaver magazine piece should be out in a few months. The editing process is, I think, finished. I also have a few other irons in the fire: one on Civil War espionage, another on the Great Lakes' greatest unsolved mystery, and a couple of business profiles that have been pitched.
I do want to write quite a few op-ed pieces this fall. My last one, on World War II censorship, was published in the Montreal Gazette in the fall of 2008. My thesis and my teaching at Concordia took up much of my time in late 2008 and the first half of 2009, but they're both finished.
I've decided, after all, to go with an academic press to publish my work on the domestic press censorship system. I'm doing so, I suppose, to make a point. And I've already made a few thousand dollars directly from the material that I've turned up. My next book project has arisen from my research on the Beaver magazine piece. I have about 35,000 words in near-text notes and drafted text. After that, I'll resume my work on the biography of Globe and Mail founder George McCullagh. I'm getting help from Conrad Black, whose family moved in those circles, and I am grateful for the pointers and wonderful fact tidbits that he has given me.

Sucking and blowing for votes...

2009-08-14T15:56:00.002-05:00

We've got record bankruptcies, staggering unemployment, a collapse in our ability to do anything technically challenging (the sell-off of Nortel, the failure of the Chalk River nuclear reactor), we have a war in Afghanistan and possibly a $150billion deficit. So what is Michael Ignatieff's big concern today?

For Immediate Release
August 14, 2009

Statement from Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff on the Typhoon Morakot

I was shocked and saddened to see the devastating effects of the deadly flooding and mudslides from Typhoon Morakot on Taiwan, China and the Phillipines.

On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada and our Parliamentary Caucus, I offer my condolences to families of the hundreds of people killed, and my concern for the thousands more stranded or trapped residents who still need rescue.

The most severe devastation has been suffered in Taiwan, where the storm has wiped out entire villages, knocked out dozens of bridges and cut off hundreds of roads. With damage estimated in the billions of dollars, and further flooding still expected, it will be some time before these countries can recover.

It is imperative that the international community - including Canada - come together to provide aid and humanitarian assistance to help the people affected get through this devastating tragedy. I urge the Harper government to make Canada amongst the first nations to step forward with the necessary aid.

-30-

Contact:

Press Office
Office of the Leader of the Opposition
613-996-6740

I don't get this guy at all. I remember him as the brilliant academic who would go on Peter Gzowski's show and blow the entire country away with his intellect. Now that he's fallen in with the Liberal PR machine, he seems to have politically regressed to the level of a small-town councillor.

Today in Historical Soft-Pedaling

2009-08-13T12:19:00.004-05:00

This press release, verbatim from the Department of Veterans Affairs:

Veterans Affairs Canada
Media Advisory
August 13, 2009

Minister to Unveil Memorial Wall Honouring Veterans of the Battle of Hong Kong

The Honourable Greg Thompson, Minister of Veterans Affairs, will dedicate the “C” Force Memorial Wall to honour all those who served in the Battle of Hong Kong during the Second World War. Veterans of the battle will be in attendance.

Location: King Edward Avenue and Sussex Drive (east of King Edward
on National Capital Commission property)

Date: Saturday, August 15, 2009

Time: 11:00 a.m.

During the Second World War, Canada sent a force of 1,976 to help the British reinforce their outpost in Hong Kong to deter hostile action by Japan. The force consisted of two battalions - the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles of Canada. Over 17 days of fighting in December 1941, 290 Canadians were killed and another 493 were wounded. Those who survived were held in prisoner of war camps until the end of the war on August 15, 1945.

The press release soft-peddles what happened to the Canadians "held in prisoner of war camps..." Canadian soldiers were brutalized from the time they were captured and marched through Hong Kong without water (civilians who tried to give the Canadians water at the Kowloon YMCA were beaten), through their internment in Hong Kong and after the transfer of many of them to slave work in Japan. The Canadians were worked to death in Japanese coal mines and steel mills. All of them sere denied adequate food and most received mo medical treatment. Here's a good link to a web site on the POWs: http://www.geocities.com/canadianhongkongveteran/OmineList.html. The Canadian government knew from the start that the prisoners were being mistreated but censored all news of the cruelties inflicted on them.

Hurricane season

2009-08-11T07:17:00.004-05:00

The first Atlantic tropical storm is brewing off east Africa and is moving west.

UPDATE: Looks like Tropical Depression 2 has let me down, but there is some nice nastiness brewing around the Cape Verde Islands.

Today in Flackery

2009-08-10T08:49:00.005-05:00

Aging Japanese actress Noriko Sakai, a sort of Asian Doris Day, just surrendered to police after a few days on the lam. Police had searched her apartment and found a small amount of a yet-unnamed illegal drug. This is how her PR spokesman handled the arrest:

"Noriko Sakai was arrested last night and we would like to offer an apology to all her fans for the trouble caused," Masahisa Aizawa, president of Sakai's management company, Sun Music, said on Sunday.

"I would like her to reflect on what she has done and feel the weight of the crime she has committed [and] I would strongly urge her to seek rehabilitation."

I can't imagine how Aizawa would handle Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan's troubles.

Indeed

2009-08-10T08:24:00.001-05:00

Google "ottawa sewage treament plant" and you get this from the City of Ottawa web site:

But it is important to remember that the City of Ottawa's wastewater treatment plant can't do it all. Our sewage treatment plant is designed to break down ...

White Collar Criminals as Organ Donors

2009-08-07T14:08:00.000-05:00

Good thing Garth Drabinsky doesn't live in China.

Fifteen Books that Changed My Life

2009-08-05T16:18:00.004-05:00

1. The Face of Battle, by John Keegan. (The first book that showed me military history could be reader-friendly).
2. The Champlain Road, by Franklin Davey MacDowell. (Very dated GG winner by a Saturday Night writer enchanted by Huronia history was my favorite book when I was about 12.)
3. The Odyssey of an Otter, by Rutherford Montgomery. (The first full-length book I ever read. I probably read it 50 times)
4. Disturber of the Peace, by William Manchester. (Manchester's bio of H.L. Mencken)
5. The Glory and the Dream, by William Manchester. (Manchester's take on American political and social history, 1932-1975. Beautifully written).
6. Nicholas and Alexandra, by Robert K. Massie. (Massie shows the historical opus can be spellbinding).
7. The Encyclopedia Britannica. (I can spend hours flipping for entry to entry, asking a thousand questions).
8. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. (I bawled like a baby at the end).
9. The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux. (Captivating and enduring book that shows there's a good story everywhere).
10. Famous Last Words, by Timothy Findley. (Another spellbinding story, a real thriller and whodunnit that pulls together, in fiction, some unanswered WWII questions).
11. Fossils of Ontario: The Trilobites, by Rolf Ludvigsen. (Showed me there were far more types of trilobites in Ontario than I thought. Inspired me to collect them all.)
12. Faust's Metropolis, by Alexandra Richie. (Startling and fascinating history of Berlin from the beginning of settlement until the fall of the Berlin Wall).
13. The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660, by Bruce Trigger. (Massive two-volume study bogs down in places, but it's a very good attempt to use archaeology and written sources to rebuild the lost history of this First Nation.)
14. Mitch Hepburn, by Neil McKenty. (Jesuit biographer of Ontario's strangest politician puts the lie to the claim that Canadian history is boring.)
15. Civilization and Capitalism, by Fernand Braudel. (Three-volume examination of the religious, social, demographic, technological and political reasons for the evolution of modern capitalism and technology shows that history should be weaved from many strands. Braudel is the antithesis of the modern super-specialized historian and his work will stand the test of time.)

Larry O'Brien Verdict

2009-08-05T13:42:00.008-05:00

Ottawa courtroom 37 is the biggest in town, but even that huge room, which was once skedded to hold the Bernardo case and was most recently the scene of the sensational Midway murder trial, was filled to overflowing. The local media, never big on class, butted in front of the line, even though many of them had arrived early enough to get seats if they had taken their place in line. The overflow went to another room with closed-circuit TV monitors. Mayor O'Brien sat in centre row, front, with his bodyguard, his wife and sons. O'Brien's staff, spinmeister and friends had reserved seats at the right front of the courtroom. Judge Cunningham walked in exactly on time.
The judge needed about an hour and fifteen minutes to read his decision. He said the case was more than just weighing the stories of Terry Kilrea and Larry O'Brien. The prosecution had to prove its version of the facts without leaving the judge with a reasonable doubt of O'Brien's guilt.
The Crown relied substantially on the evidence of Terry Kilrea. The Crown said there was a wealth of corroborative evidence of Kilrea's claim that O'Brien tried to bribe him into quitting the 2006 mayoralty race with the offer of an appointment to the National Parole Board, while the defence used "colourful adjectives" to describe Kilrea as a manipulator.
The judge believed O'Brien was telling the truth when he told police his meeting of July 12, 2006 with Terry Kilrea was a "big swinging dick contest" designed to intimidate Kilrea out of the mayoralty race. "I have no doubt that Mr. O'Brien arranged the meeting of July 12 and its purpose was to convince Mr. Kilrea not to run," the judge said. Kilrea's inability to remember the date of the meeting "provides an early warning signal of the powers of accuracy" of Kilrea, the judge said. He had no doubt O'Brien was aggressive, and that there was some discussions about Kilrea's campaign financing.
Whatever happened at that meeting -- and the judge said he could not be sure what did take place -- the "evidence favors Mr. O'Brien's version that he contacted (former Canadian Alliance interim leader and ex-Harper campaign strategist) John Reynolds after the meeting at 700 Sussex and was told not to have anything to do with getting Mr. Kilrea a political appointment. I believe Mr. O'Brien's evidence on this salient point."
That was enough, it seems, for the judge to say that whatever happened, the fact that any offer was whipped off the table soon after the fact was enough to keep O'Brien from being convicted. That struck me as an interesting interpretation of criminal law that might come in handy to many other defence lawyers.
Then the judge turned to the issue of Kilrea's trustworthiness. In this, Cunningham was devastating. He very clearly showed how Kilrea does play the media, and how he distorts facts to fit his goals. For example, the judge discussed Kilrea's torquing of a letter from his employer, the Attorney General's office, that Kilrea deliberately inflated into a threat to fire him unless he quit the race, when the letter, in fact, showed no such thing.
The judge said he believed O'Brien's pollster that the campaign had not tried to get Kilrea an appointment. The judge also tossed Tory MPP Lisa MacLeod's testimony that O'Brien told her he was getting an appointment for Kilrea as vague and trashed the Crown's interpretation of the testimony of O'Brien and Kilrea campaign workers. The judge concluded the evidence of the three campaign workers left him with serious doubts that they proved any wrongdoing.
As for Ottawa deputy police chief Susan O'Sullivan, her evidence lent support to O'Brien's claim that, when he learned the National Parole Board offer was illegal, he backed away from whatever offer he might have made to Kilrea.
The judge said he believed from the afternoon of July 12, 2006, when he talked with Reynolds, O'Brien took no further action regarding Kilrea's appointment to the National Parole Board. The judge said he was "perplexed" about what happened at the Tim Hortons on Robertson Road at the last meeting between O'Brien and Kilrea, but whatever went down in the parking lot of the Bell's Corners Hortons was not illegal.
Kilrea's offer to swear an affidavit for the Ottawa Citizen shows naivite and poor judgment, the judge said. He said, despite Kilrea's testimony, Kilrea leaked e-mails to the Ottawa Citizen's Gary Dimmock. They were not stolen from his computer during a real estate open house, as Kilrea suggested in his testimony.
He found the circumstances of the leak of the affidavit to the Ottawa Labour Council troubling and blamed Kilrea for it.
The judge believed the defence assertion that Kilrea was shopping himself around, looking for an appointment to the parole board, a spot as a JP, or any other government work he could get. Kilrea had called then-mayor Bob Chiarelli, who he had run against in 2003, a disgraced and a coward, yet, in the fall of 2006, Kilrea threw his support behind him.
Pretending to have influence was at the heart of the prosecution. The Crown had to prove that the offer of a federal appointment was made in return for Kilrea leaving the mayoralty race. "I am left with a reasonable doubt that this qui pro quo was offered... While at best I may have suspicions of what happened at this conversation, I am left with a reasonable doubt," the judge said.
"He (O'Brien) was walking a fine line" but the judge was left with that reasonable doubt, and so Larry O'Brien walked.
So, now what?
Ken Gray of the Ottawa Citizen is right: Larry O'Brien, despite the delight of his supporters by today's events, is a lame-duck mayor.
And, as the folks at CFRA and the Ottawa Sun crow over O'Brien's acquittal, remember that they were the media outlets that Kilrea so often manipulated. They were Terry Kilrea's willing mouthpieces until O'Brien, who had the air of a winner, came along.
It will be interesting to see if O'Brien tries to recover his legal fees from the city. Lawyers I've talked to estimate the defence cost between $750,000 and $1,000,000.
Watch for my piece on the case in Ottawa Magazine, which will be distributed next week. Ron Corbett also has an article in the same issue on Terry Kilrea. They're both, I think, pretty good reads that capture the essence of this bizarre case.

Adios, Karl-Heinz

2009-08-02T16:35:00.001-05:00

Don't let the door hit you on the ass...
Should be interesting to see what happens in the German courts.
By the way, when was the last time Eddie Greenspan actually won a case?

Today's academic question

2009-08-01T12:11:00.005-05:00

Would Carleton faculty be as quick to support Hassan Diab's right to teach if he had been charged with killing four people in an abortion clinic bombing or the dynamiting of a mosque instead of a synagogue attack? I don't know if Diab is guilty, and there seems to, on the surface, be an argument for mistaken identity. This will be sorted out by the courts in Canada and, quite likely, France. I think, in times when universities bend over backwards to ensure Muslims, gays, people of colour, women and handicapped people are not made uncomfortable by faculty opinions, having an alleged synagogue bomber teaching Jewish students might be a bit, um, discomforting for them.
Let the courts sort this out before Diab is allowed back to Carleton (and to U of Ottawa). Meanwhile, Carleton faculty should not hide behind seniority rules to justify having Diab in the classroom. The issues go much farther than that. If Diab wants to quickly clear his name and get back into the classroom, court is the place to do it. Canadian authorities should try to move this case forward and see if the French really do have a case.

Just back...

2009-07-30T17:00:00.002-05:00

from a few days of Internet-free relaxation in the Rideau Lakes. Sad to hear that Jerry Yanover, the Liberal House of Commons expert, died suddenly Monday. He was a great guy with a brilliant mind. I wish I had not missed the funeral.
I'm still trying to understand "wafer gate" and would love to know how an error was somehow edited into my friend Rob Linke's story from Romeo Leblanc's funeral. Rob is as honest and accurate a reporter as you'll find anywhere, so I'm glad the Telegraph-Journal apologized to him. As for the firings, it seems to me that canning Richer was a bit of overkill, while the Irvings giving publisher Jamie Irving a 30-day suspension is just plain strange.

Today in Racism

2009-07-23T21:03:00.003-05:00

KKK-ate at Small Dead Animals lets the winged monkeys attack every Muslim for the alleged sins of one family:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Backstroke"
Just one of the correct answers from the Canadian Citizenship Test (Revised 2009).

Posted by Kate at July 23, 2009 1:11 AM

Comments
There seems to be an alarming number of these kinds of stories appearing over the last year or so. My question is this. Are this apparent honor killing events beginning to actually occur with more frequency? Or, are events that would have previously been reported as "accidents" being ascribed to "crimes d'honneur"?

Also, I'm interested to hear the liberal moral pygmies that troll SDA to chime in on this topic. Multiculturalism: not just more pavilions at folkfest anymore.

Posted by: Colin from Mission B.C. at July 23, 2009 2:07 AM
I was wondering when this story would appear on SDA.

I am very, very familiar with Kingston Mills locks, as I lived less than a half a mile from there for over 10 years, and I boat through it every summer.

The local police are completely baffled, and after a quick inspection of the lock a few days after the accident, I can attest to the fact that this was no "accident".

Couple this with the freak show that occured in Gananoque(another favorite boating destination for my family and myself)and it would appear that we have become a dumping ground of some sort.

Once again, and let me say it with complete clarity....there is no way on earth that the car that went into the water at Kingston Mill's Lock entered said water by accident......NO FRIGGIN WAY!

Posted by: kingstonlad at July 23, 2009 5:34 AM
I thought something smelled funny when I first heard the story and I don't mean Rideau Canal water. However, the most disgusting point of all this is that there isn't an outcry from Muslim groups except when us infadels point out that such brutal customs and beliefs should be left in the old country and then the outrage is directed at our western society and "bad" influence.

Posted by: Texas Canuck at July 23, 2009 5:43 AM
and after a quick inspection of the lock a few days after the accident,......should have said "after the incident"....sorry

Posted by: kingstonlad at July 23, 2009 5:48 AM
Move along. Nothing to see here.

But be sure to have the whole family tune-in at 8:00 PM this Friday,
when CBC presents A Very Special Episode of Little Mosque On The Prairie.

The hour-long commercial-free broadcast will consist entirely of
an adorable basket of puppies accompanied by a heartwarming laugh-track.

And you don't have anything against puppies, do you? Quirky puppies.

Posted by: rg at July 23, 2009 6:37 AM
my first thought when hearing the news was muslim men killing their women. living in the area made me question how the car could possibly gone into the lock by accident. looks like i was right. send the muzzies back to where they came from.

Posted by: old white guy at July 23, 2009 6:42 AM
What a horrid death cult islam is. How can muslims be so stupid and embrace such a barabaric hate- filled religion. islam needs to be eradicated by any means possible.

Posted by: Honey Pot at July 23, 2009 6:57 AM
Lok, okay, it's not like there are no Western men who abuse or kill their female family members! These are isolated incidents! What do you know about Islamic culture, which is very peaceful?!

(I just thought I'd save the trolls some effort.)

Posted by: Black Mamba at July 23, 2009 7:26 AM
"Peaceful Islamic culture". Good one Black Mamba.

Posted by: JMD at July 23, 2009 8:06 AM
Ban Islam

Posted by: Simeon at July 23, 2009 8:21 AM
Holy crap. Absolutely none of the Islamic back story was carried by any of the news services here in Alberta. The last I heard was that it was a mystery why the car wound up in the water.

If it wasn't for SDA I wouldn't have found out the ugly truth behind the story. Thanks for nothing, MSM.

Posted by: Sean at July 23, 2009 8:32 AM
Atlas Shrugs has a lot on this story. The "aunt" who died with the teenage girls was most likely the father's first wife.

Oh well, this is just their culture, who are we to judge?

Posted by: ex-liberal at July 23, 2009 8:41 AM
When I heard that news that arrests had been made, I tried to make a bet with my sister last night that the arrests would involve family members, that it would be an honour killing and the politically correct MSM would avoid reporting it as such. She wouldn't take the bet.

Posted by: Maureen at July 23, 2009 9:00 AM
There was a freaky episode of Law and Order last night. The story was about an extremist Christian teen-aged boy who murdered his mother because she was committing adultery with a muslim man. No kidding, but it gets even more bizzare, the murder method of choice - stoning. Ohh those Christians.

Posted by: glasnost at July 23, 2009 9:15 AM
In the bizarre world of Canadian politics perhaps we should change our criminal code to include a special section banning honour killings. After all we have one for gays, we have another for hate.
Why can't we keep adding to the piles of crap we have on the books.
Killing is killing no matter the reason. What we need to do in a very urgent sense is force proper sentencing and lock these killers up. Better yet, bring back Capital punishment specifically for honour killings!

Posted by: melwilde at July 23, 2009 9:17 AM
This was all I found in the local media about the arrests. It is shockingly thin on details. They don't even say who was arrested which is one of the basic facts I would have expected:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/arrested+locks+deaths/1817525/story.html

Posted by: Travis at July 23, 2009 9:18 AM
It seems the victimhood pyramid runs:

Muslim before,
Visible Minority before,
Gay before,
Woman before,
Criminal before,
Disabled before,

No word where journalist, government employee or laywer fits in yet - but fit they do...

"Taxpayer" and "man" obviously do not fit any better than "law abiding citizen" or "christian"

Posted by: Jason at July 23, 2009 9:19 AM
dolton mcguilty tried to ram sharia law onto the ontario citizenry during his 1st term of office.

looks like the muslim bigwigs have gone ahead and done it for him.

Posted by: curious_george at July 23, 2009 9:26 AM
Law and Order has some pretty scabby script-writers.

Another show gets the block on TV.

By the middle of December I probably won't have but 3 channels. Wow shades of my childhood.

Posted by: Curious at July 23, 2009 9:27 AM
so it looks like they also lied on their immigration applications . . . claiming the first wife was an "aunt".

Now it appears the second/newer wife has convinced the boys of the family to get rid of her rival wife and all her children . . . nice "clean" start-over.

Posted by: Fred at July 23, 2009 9:49 AM
Fleeing to Pierre Elliot Trudeau Airport ...

Posted by: ron in kelowna at July 23, 2009 9:53 AM
The real story here is the media's careful handling of this news. No headlines or news that directly states "Father arrested for murdering daughters", which is certainly the case.

I'm still trying to figure out how any young woman would voluntarily choose to be Muslim. It must be hell when she initially learns her role in Muslim society, and what little freedom she has. We (e.g. Canada) should open up some "I don't want to be a Muslim woman any more" houses where young women can go, who fear for their lives.

Posted by: Dave in Mississauga at July 23, 2009 9:54 AM
Absolutely amazing, but not surprising!! Global Edmonton ran this story and even showed the footage of the father saying it was a joyride gone wrong. No mention that the father was one of the arrested or that the family was muslim.

I remebered this story when it was first reported, and last night I saw pictures of the victims and the footage of the father. I turned to my family and said this was an honor killing, this morning, a website reports the whole story and my suspicions are confirmed.

I guess there still may be the question whether this was motivated by honor or inconvenience, either way, some poor woman and children had the nerve to cramp a muslim man's style.

I can't understand how the talking heads can sleep at night without putting the whole story out there. They should be asamed of themselves.

Posted by: Trevor at July 23, 2009 10:08 AM
Congresswoman Backs New Equal Rights Amendment; Points to Afghanistan, China as Models

CNSNews.com) – Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) told activists rallying on Capitol Hill in support of the newly reintroduced Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), that the United States should join 27 other countries that have equality guarantees for women, including Rwanda, Algeria, China and Afghanistan.

http://cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=51368

Posted by: Shawn at July 23, 2009 10:16 AM
"Fleeing to Pierre Elliot Trudeau Airport ..."

Hehehehehehehe!

Who's up for a night of beer drinking followed by a visit to his mausoleum?

Posted by: Edward Teach at July 23, 2009 10:17 AM
"Who's up for a night of beer drinking followed by a visit to his mausoleum?"

You've piqued my interest. Any thoughts on what the rest of the program would be? Any good improv mausoleum theatre in mind?

Posted by: felis corpulentis at July 23, 2009 10:24 AM
[deleted. Clean up your act, or you'll be banned. Final warning. - ED]

(Geez, I wonder how bad that could have been? MB)

Posted by: Momar at July 23, 2009 10:34 AM
This may be a stupid question but what is an honour killing and how can honour be associated with the intentional killing of ones own family, particularly women.

Posted by: wafer at July 23, 2009 10:48 AM
Dear Wafer...your question isn't stupid, but it is serious. Our media and justice system are so screwed up in the way these things are handled
joking about it is the only way to live with it.
Western society ( Canadian) stumbles and fumbles along with these issues because we don't have the maturity or will to act with a moral code for all.

Posted by: melwilde at July 23, 2009 10:59 AM
I keep saying it. Every 16 year old girl gets a .38 and compulsory range time.

Muslim girlies, maybe we go to 14 years old. With big, gnarly female Canadian Forces instructors, just so the idea gets pounded firmly into their tiny, spinning little teenage girlie minds.

Big Brother ain't going to fix this. Who's going to fix it is the kid's teachers, their school friend's dad, their uncles and aunts (unless they're a bunch of psychos too), the next door neighbor, who drops a dime when she sees the kids sporting bruises and the wife (wives) walking with a limp...

But most of all, it will get fixed by WOMEN who stand the hell up and defeat their tormentors. Y'all got that girls? Get UP. Fight! Win!

I'm a guy. I wouldn't put up with that abuse for a millisecond. I don't see why women should.

Posted by: The Phantom at July 23, 2009 11:09 AM
Remember the Herouxville code?

Posted by: Erik Larsen at July 23, 2009 11:16 AM
NAC to the rescue !!

Posted by: ron in kelowna at July 23, 2009 11:17 AM
NAC Ron? Nascar Action Committee? National A-hole Commission? Nuclear Aarvarks on Crack?

Inquiring minds wanna know. :)

Posted by: The Phantom at July 23, 2009 11:21 AM
I worked with a physician from a middle eastern country. Very nice, funny, friendly guy, with a nice wife, and two kids born in Canada. A few weeks ago, to the shock of his family, he decided they were all moving back to the country of his birth - he wanted to get *another* wife. The kids were appalled and distraught.

Perhaps a bit off topic - but this was a real surprise for me. He seemed very "assimilated", (to use an imperfect word for this situation).

Men rule! Men decide! Coming to a country (very) near you!

Posted by: Regular poster boy at July 23, 2009 11:22 AM
wafer, This might help explain it. From Dr. Sanity, Shame, The Arab Psyche, and Islam

Posted by: Kathryn at July 23, 2009 11:23 AM
The big drawback with honour killings is that the killer(s) must be able to prove to peers/rivals/sceptics that they really did the deed. There is no merit or honour regained if a rebel daughter is randomly killed by a bus on her way to a part time job as a stripper. A perfect unprovable murder is useless.

Telling lies to infidel police by all concerned and fleeing the country also help to maintain the image of a devout "head of the household" ruling over his family as he should.

Posted by: Sgt Lejaune at July 23, 2009 11:24 AM
It's not just women,from todays' London Times: "The Danish Asian man is in a serious but stable condition in hospital after an incident in Leytonstone, East London, three weeks ago. Sulphuric acid is said to have been thrown in his face and he was stabbed twice in the back." For seeing a muslim girl and bringing dishonor on her family. The girl is in hiding.

Posted by: tom at July 23, 2009 11:26 AM
tom, a thousand sighs.

I read your bit there, and didn't catch the second last sentence, and thought "what Asian culture/religion would behave like that just because this guy is seeing a Muslim girl?"

Yeah, I know, I should have figured it out

Posted by: Regular poster boy at July 23, 2009 11:35 AM
Ah, yes, Islam...such a peaceful religion.

Posted by: Lori at July 23, 2009 12:09 PM
Watch the news of the drownings at a Gananoque motel indoor swimming pool recently (just weeks apart).

It isn't all that is reported either.
Father: "They probably didn't even know what a swimming pool was." Bare-faced lie (police know facts but one fact not revealed yet).

Father in newspaper: he was asleep when the girls slipped out with their mom. Fact: he and sons slept in different rooms and at the time of the drowning, were (supposedly) eating breakfast (somewhere as restaurant is closed for renovations).

Father in newspaper interview: The two daughters had been living in Lahore with Yasmin's parents for a short while, and returned to Toronto last year at Yasmin's insistence. "Naila made them come back because she couldn't live without them," said Munawar.

Hmmm, teenage 'Canadian' girls had to be pressed to return home from Lahore.

As I said on another thread, I'm beginning to know what it is to be paranoid. Although, I've known enough about the culture/religion not to believe anything they say.

That said, I do hope the deaths of these three were truly 'accidental' even though none of the circumstances make any sense.

Posted by: gellen at July 23, 2009 1:02 PM
Next from the MSM we'll get the "mysterious" death of a young woman having committed suicide by shooting herself three times in the back of the head with a bolt action rifle -- followed by strident demands for more gun control.

Posted by: DrD at July 23, 2009 1:12 PM
I look forward to the front-page, above the fold, with photo, 80-point-type headlined story in the Toronto Star of "Swimming While Muslim" about these incidents.

Posted by: andycanuck at July 23, 2009 1:21 PM
there would be no Sharia law allowing for drowning, it was all conceived or misconcieved in a sand kingdom.

Posted by: cal2 at July 23, 2009 1:39 PM
The story is online at the Toronto Star, National Post and Montreal Gazette - and does refer to the arrested by name; does declare that this may be an 'honour killing' and that the older woman might be a 'first wife'.

Apparently, the police were tipped off by a relative of the older woman, who insisted that it was an 'honour killing' and not an accident.

The three drownings in the pool are equally suspicious, since the press stated that none of the three could swim.

Where are the voices of the Muslim community on this? And feminists?

Posted by: ET at July 23, 2009 1:40 PM
ET - exactly.

Where are the high profile imams, saying "although the facts of the matter are not yet assembled, these recent events are suspicious. We condemn murder and loss of life, and recognize honour killings as a cowardly act representative of misguided tribalism, and totally unacceptable in the modern world"

Posted by: Regular poster boy at July 23, 2009 1:49 PM
to answer ET's question: they are probably busy being outraged at the Harvard prof's "home while black"incident

Posted by: bdogginit at July 23, 2009 2:00 PM
On the local London station we got to hear from a bunch of Male Muslims (I guess the only ones left alive) that it's the hotel's fault for not having a lifeguard on duty.

Posted by: Jason at July 23, 2009 2:36 PM
Posted by: curious_george>

“dolton mcguilty tried to ram sharia law onto the ontario citizenry during his 1st term of office.
looks like the muslim bigwigs have gone ahead and done it for him.”

I like that George – well put!

Posted by: Knight 99 at July 23, 2009 2:39 PM
Posted by: wafer>

“………but what is an honour killing and how can honour be associated with the intentional killing of ones own family………..”

That question in a nutshell is what defines the difference of “Culture” and the idiocy in the west that believes that they are cultured. Your comment isn’t stupid, it’s brilliant in the asking – something that the liberal left is mentally incapable of.

If more multicultural wingnuts paused but for a brief second to first ask that question, then take the time to investigate and educate themselves on “real” cultures of the world instead of watching National Geographic and Travel Travel, the first world would not be in the trouble it’s in today!

The first step is to fully understand the deep and impossibly ingrained belief systems of other cultures. This is something that is not “educated out of them”, even with a generation or two of transplantation in a foreign land. The worst of it is, with “bizarre culture” immigrants coming in the millions who then pool in immigrant communities, the best you could hope for is hybrid cultures as future generations in your streets. Vancouver’s Indo gang communities are a prime example. The culture that is truly lost in time is the host countries, meaning yours!

Posted by: Knight 99 at July 23, 2009 3:06 PM
What I would like to know is whether MSM writers are really just completely not intellectually curious.

I mean, they knew they had a carload of Muslim women in a place it would be impossible to get to, but faithfully reported the story that it was probably a "driving practice" accident. That story should have triggered alarm bells *without* the cultural link.

Posted by: K Stricker at July 23, 2009 3:13 PM
Honor killing. A Cannadian tradition now in any city near you?
These folks act like rabid animals towards themselves & families. How will they treat those who don't share love for the blood God Allah?
I think we know. A bloody sword & chopped heads.
Why are we allowing this culture of killing into this Nation again? Peoples who hate us? In fact bragg they are taking us over? Madness.
JMO

Posted by: Revnant Dream at July 23, 2009 3:35 PM
"Mysterious Death Of 4 Quebecers Baffles Kingston Police."

It's a lot easier to sleep at night if you're only "baffled" by "mysteries" while accepting car loads of murdered little girls in the name of the great progressive utopian multicultural mosaic tapestry matrix. PBUI

Posted by: richfisher at July 23, 2009 3:43 PM
I don't know what to say other than: what the hell is wrong with people?

Posted by: Osumashi Kinyobe at July 23, 2009 3:54 PM
For Muslim males who have gone on the news blaming the hotel owner. It was purchased recently by an East Indian.

The 40 ft salt water pool is part of a health club which opens at 8 a.m. The door is opened at 7 when the night clerk leaves.

Fact: Three East Indian female non-swimmers visiting the hotel for the first time went into a health club/swimming pool area early in the morning alone and when no one is on duty.

The investigation will hopefully lead to the truth.

Posted by: gellen at July 23, 2009 3:56 PM
After coming back from Europe, where I spent nearly a year in 12 countries, I am convinced that it is just a matter of time before the Euros have their backlash and there will be fighting in the streets.

Ditto for Canada.

We may be a kind and generous people, but like Danes, Swedes, Germans etc..you push them, and you will be sorry.I really don't think the Muslims have any idea of the historical background of these people, or their ability to bring a world of hurt down upon their heads..

Posted by: Kursk at July 23, 2009 4:01 PM
Kursk, probably not too much fighting in the streets here in Canada. More Muslim extremists running away bravely, if I'm any judge of character.

Posted by: The Phantom at July 23, 2009 4:44 PM
Barbarism.

Posted by: OMMAG at July 23, 2009 6:09 PM
By the end of the week we will see the mainstream muslims marching in the streets in a groundswell denouncing the terrible practice of honour killings. Their ranks will include the imams of course.
CTV, CBC, The Globe & T.O. Star will be there to record this wave that rolls across the nation. Support will come from other countries and call-in radio shows will be swamped by those delivering the same message...."no more !"

Bueller............Bueller?

Posted by: Rich at July 23, 2009 6:14 PM
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090723/national/submerged_car_bodies

marion boyd should be very pleased.

mcdolty's attempt to force sharia law onto ontario has been accomplished.

what do you bet they get 3 yrs max with 'good behaviour'.

honour killing bullshyt.

Posted by: curious_george at July 23, 2009 6:18 PM
Sorry about going over the line. The line is a bit fuzzy these days and it's sometime difficult to know when the rant is too rude.

Posted by: Momar at July 23, 2009 7:50 PM
It would seem that young women of the Muslim faith are more likely to die from H2O poisoning than H1N1, AGW and unregistered firearms combined.

No media outcry? No awareness initiatives? No editorials expounding on the dangers of water? No call for a liquid registry?

Odd that.

Syncro

Posted by: syncrodox at July 23, 2009 8:32 PM
"so it looks like they also lied on their immigration applications"

Oh, good. Let's do an "Al Capone", charge them with lying on their immigration applications, strip landed immigrant/citizenship from the lot of them, and THEN try them for murder. At least we will be able to trow them our of the country when they get out on parole in 3 to 5 years.

Posted by: Tenebris at July 23, 2009 9:19 PM

Suckers

2009-07-23T12:32:00.002-05:00

The brain trust at the Bank of Canada has gazed out its window, taken a look at the pedestrian traffic on Sparks Street and declared the recession over.
Maybe they hold have come to the Maritimes and seen the idle mills in Edmunston and Grand Falls, checked out the empty parking lots in St. John and Charlottetown, and looked at the local papers down there. Or they could have gone into Northern Ontario, where most of the mills are shut and $20,000 houses are not uncommon. They migh have gone down through southwestern Ontario and talked to auto worker and merchants in Oshawa, Cambridge, London and Windsor.
The only place the economy seems to be growing is Ottawa, where there are more construction cranes than ever.

Bank declares recession over

Jul 23, 2009 01:17 PM

RITA TRICHUR
Toronto Star BUSINESS REPORTER

The end of the recession is nigh, according to the Bank of Canada.

Canada's economy could mark the end of the recession this quarter amid improved financial conditions, firmer commodity prices and recovering consumer confidence, says the central bank's latest monetary policy report released today.

Still, Governor Mark Carney cautioned the economic recovery remains "nascent" and the high-flying Canadian dollar is "significantly moderating" the pace of the rebound. Worse still for consumers, a return to economic growth during the July-to-September quarter will not halt painful layoffs in the job market.

"Unfortunately, the labour market is the slowest to adjust," Carney told journalists in Ottawa following the release of the report. "And so we can expect continued adjustments and probable further rises in unemployment for a period, even though the economy has started to grow."

The central bank is forecasting economic growth of 1.3 per cent on an annualized basis in the third quarter, which is an upward revision of its earlier projection of a 1 per cent contraction for the three-month period

Today's Dishonesty

2009-07-21T09:08:00.005-05:00

The Avro Arrow might have been a good airplane, but had the project not been cancelled it certainly would not have engendered the technical infrastructure to put a man on the moon, as the Toronto Star suggests today.
The Arrow was cancelled for two reasons: cost, which the Liberals carped about for months in the House of Commons; and strategic reasons, the fact that Soviet ICBMs were replacing the Russian bomber fleet, and the Arrow was an over-the-Pole bomber interceptor. So, in an ironic way, the Star gets close to the truth. Rocketry did, in some ways, kill the Arrow.
We were never potential players in the space race. We couldn't be. We didn't have the scientists (the bulk of whom were former German V-weapons experts picked up in the last days of the war), we didn't have the economic infrastructure (either in the masses of engineers or in the physical plant needed to develop a rocket, command module system and lander), and we certainly didn't have the money. The Soviets, spending billions of dollars and possessing many of the V2 scientists, could not keep up to the US.
What was the space race really about?
1. ICBM power and technology
2. Dominance of orbital space economically and militarily
3. Propaganda
4. Science
We had no interest in the first two. We certainly would not have skewed our economy to win the space race for reasons of science and propaganda, even if we had the economic and human resources -- which we didn't.
The Star's piece is a political cheap shot.
"If it wasn't for the Tories, we would have been first to the moon!" That's a keeper.
Kind of like: "If Mackenzie King hadn't been such a wimp and Nazi-coddler, we could have knocked off the Nazis in 1938."

He's Qualified

2009-07-20T16:28:00.002-05:00

From the guys who gave us the Accountability Act, heeeeere's the next Canadian ambassador to UNESCO:

André Bachand was elected mayor of Asbestos in 1986 and reeve of the Or Blanc (Asbestos) Regional County Municipality in 1987. He was re-elected to both positions in 1990 and 1994. In 1997, he was elected member of Parliament for the federal riding of Richmond-Arthabaska, one of five MPs from Quebec elected for the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. He was re-elected in 2000, becoming the only Progressive Conservative MP representing Quebec. In August 2004, the Government of Quebec appointed him to head its office in Ottawa. In September 2008, Mr. Bachand left that position to run as the Conservative Party of Canada candidate in the riding of Sherbrooke. Mr. Bachand is the father of a 13-year-old son, Gabriel. He succeeds Gilbert Laurin.

The Tories made some good appointments these last few years, but surely Canada could send someone to UNESCO with some background in science and culture.

Close Most Journalism Schools

2009-07-20T06:46:00.002-05:00

Yup. Shut 'em down. Or at least stop pretending the students who enroll in them have any more chance at a job than a kid with an economics degree and some good college paper clippings.
I taught at a J-school for two years. The students were bright people and I could see most of them working in media, if there were any jobs. They were good enough and smart enough. They will emerge with a BA that, on its own, is as valuable as a degree in anthropology or sociology. They'll have a bit of a door-opener into the public service, the private sector (other than in media), and might go on to law school. I used my own journalism degree, a Master's, as a stepping-stone to PhD studies, though most J-school Master's grads probably could not make that jump.
There are too many journalism schools in Canada. Most community colleges across Canada now have one -- which is outright fraud. There are now two university J-schools in Ottawa (the U of Ottawa-Algonquin-Cite College program is new), a new J-school at Wilfrid Laurier University, and several new ones in BC's rapidly-expanding undergrad university system. There are also established programs at UBC, Western, Ryerson, Carleton, Concordia, and King's College in Halifax.
That's way too many. At most, we need four: UBC, Ryerson (because of its connection to Toronto media, which really is where the bulk of hiring happens for jobs that pay more than minimum), Carleton (because of the quality of its school), and King's (for Atlantic Canada). Enrollment in all of those schools should be no more than about 150 people, all in undergrad streams.
Here's a piece from the Huffington Post about the J-school scam in the US, where the fees are higher and there are far more J-school students as a percentage of undergrads) than there are in Canada.

Gone Fishin'

2009-07-15T14:13:00.001-05:00

I'm in Brackley Beach, PEI. Be back blogging next week.

Canwest again

2009-07-09T07:42:00.002-05:00

The Globe's Andrew Willis reminds readers that 14 cents for Canwest shares is no bargain and predicts the Aspers will be out as principal shareholders and managers by the end of the month.

Today in Racism

2009-07-08T16:53:00.001-05:00

KKK-ate holds up a dead black guy while the winged monkeys take turns kicking the corpse.

Larry O'Brien: I, The Jury

2009-07-08T07:56:00.002-05:00

My bet: conviction on at least one count, possibly both.

For Those Who Think Stephen Harper is an Android

2009-07-04T21:46:00.002-05:00

Dave Batters was a Saskatchewan Tory MP who didn't run again in the last election because hewas struggling with depression and a prescription drug addiction. Last week, he committed suicide. Dave was a great guy who lost a fight with an affliction that often plagues the brilliant and sensitive. Depression is not a disease of the weak: Churchill and Lincoln fought the black dog.
I found Harper's speech at Batters' funeral to be one of the best he's ever given. I suspect, like many of us, he's spent some time in the belly of the beast. Here are Harper's remarks:

Saturday, July 4th, 2009
Le samedi 4 julliet 2009

Regina, Saskatchewan

Denise, members of the Batters family, ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered together today to remember Dave, to lament his passing, and to comfort each other.

Dave held a place in all our hearts.
To his wife and family, he was a loving and beloved husband, son and brother. To his friends, he was unfailingly loyal, generous and caring. And among his colleagues in parliament, myself included, he was greatly admired for his dedication to his constituents, our party, and our country.

In my experience, no one, on either side of the aisle ever had a bad word to say about Dave.

His passion for the causes he embraced was combined with respect for his opponents. Dave was always excited about whatever issue or initiative he was working on. His energy and enthusiasm were infectious. He had a good sense of humour. He lifted spirits and inspired others. In fact, I used to tell my staff that I wished I could match Dave Batters’ liveliness and optimism.

However, some months before his political career ended I became aware that beneath this veneer of optimism Dave struggled with severe anxiety and depression.

And in the end Dave lost the fight against his illness.

While we cannot understand why a loved one would act with such sudden finality, we need to know that Dave is not alone.

Each year, nearly 4,000 Canadians make this same choice. Mostly, the experts tell us, it is a decision to end their burden of depression. Fighting their illness, their minds drawing them ever further inward, they have grown weary of life.

However, this we know: in his struggle Dave achieved a life worth living, a simple but profound truth, a goal we all aspire to, and he reached it. Dave’s family can take great pride in this.

For Dave made a significant contribution to the lives of others. Another great goal in life, and one he achieved so ably.

When he ran for public office, Dave did not do so for selfish reasons. He responded to the tragedy of another, the murder of his friend Michelle. He heard, and answered a call to service and he did so with conviction, distinction and success.

Depression didn’t stop that. It was his decency that drove him forward, that defined him in life, that will define him in death.

Dave was a very human politician. He opened himself to others. It strengthened his hand in representing his constituents, but it rendered him vulnerable to depression as it can to any of us.

Dave was an idealist but he was also a realist. When he decided not to offer again for re-election, he made the right choice: to re-build his health. And he spoke openly about his illness. In doing so, he performed a great public service.

We need to know that mental illness like Dave’s is shockingly common in our society. It affects the great and the small alike despite the stigma that still too often surrounds it.

Other politicians have carried the same burden. In fact, perhaps the two greatest English-speaking politicians in history, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill struggled with depression. And one of Canada’s most admired and successful statesmen, Ontario premier John Robarts, served the country with great distinction before finally succumbing to his illness.

Dave’s friends in caucus gave him their support. I encourage them to reach out to other colleagues. Parliament is a human institution, and depression is a human experience, none of us are exempt.

The science has progressed but we still don’t know enough about depression, and less about suicide. But we know this much: depression can strike the sturdiest of souls. It cares not how much you have achieved nor how much you have to live for.

Severe anxiety and depression are concentrated among men and women in their primary working years, and, most sadly, in their adolescent children.

Unlike its myth, depression is not a function of character except that to fight it summons a strength of character and a great strength of character like Dave’s to fight it as long as he did. Dave dealt with his illness head-on. That takes courage.

To Dave’s family, we mourn and share your loss. But so too do we share your pride in Dave’s life and in the greater good he served through elected office and through his public battle with depression from which we can all learn.

For this, we honour his memory and celebrate his life.

In Dave’s name, to all Canadians who struggle with depression, and to all families who have lost loved ones to depression and suicide, I say that you are not alone. And I commend Dave’s legacy of distinction, courage and resolve both in Parliament and in life.