Stacy Bonds: Chief White's halfway measures

Ottawa Police Chief Vern White's limp response to a judge's ruling that four of his officers unlawfully detained, violently assaulted and strip-searched a young Black woman:

Ottawa Police Sgt. Steve Desjourdy, the officer caught on videotape cutting a young female prisoner's shirt and bra off with a pair of scissors, will be forbidden from dealing with the public until the conclusion of an internal police investigation.

What does this tell us? Far from firing this thug, or at the very least suspending him without pay until the conclusion of his two-years-late "internal investigation," Chief White will retain him on the force at full salary.* And the other officers involved in the gang assault on the 100-pound Stacy Bonds are still out there "dealing with the public."

Not a good start, Chief.

By what he assures us is a coincidence, White has just announced measures to deal with racial profiling by his troops. The initiative was actually begun by order of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, after a well-publicized case of racist antics by the Ottawa police--six years ago. (The police cleared themselves of any blame in this incident after one of those "internal investigations." The OHRC disagreed.)

Meanwhile we await the results of another human rights hearing after another "internal investigation" cleared another cop--five years ago. What saved young Chad Aiken's version of events was an audio recording of his encounter.

The vicious police assault on Stacy Bonds took place a mere two years ago. We'll see if it leads to the same mutual back-scratching result as all those others. So far, the signs are not reassuring.

UPDATE: Some disturbing stats:

A recent Toronto Star report looked at 3,400 investigations of police misconduct in Ontario over a 20-year period. In only 95 of those cases were criminal charges laid and only 16 officers were ever convicted. Only three of those went to jail.

Will Bonds beat the odds?

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*As a reader rightly points out, Section 89 of the Ontario Police Services Act does not permit suspension without pay--even in a case of murder. But Desjourdy could at least be sent home to cool his heels, if outright firing is indeed not an option even in so egregious a case. And what of his co-animals?

Ottawa Police horror [updated]

It could have been Mississippi, ca. 1950.

A woman of colour, returning home after a party. A false arrest, a sadistic police sergeant, a trumped-up charge, a prosecutor attempting to jail the victim.

But this is Ottawa, 2010. A judge called a halt to what he rightly called a "travesty." He couldn't ignore the videotape that showed a sustained assault on an unresisting prisoner by police officers, and the sexual and emotional humiliation of their victim.

Stacy Bonds, a 27-year old theatrical makeup artist, was simply walking on the street. As reported, she was stopped by Ottawa police for no reason, and held until she was run through the police computer. She was then told to proceed on her way.

But this uppity woman didn't know her place. She turned and asked them why they had stopped her.

She was immediately arrested for "public intoxication," although the judge found this an unlawful act because she was nowhere close to being drunk. She was handcuffed, thrown into the back of a police cruiser, and taken to the police station.

What then happened was recorded by a videocamera in the station. Showing no signs of resistance, Bonds was viciously kneed in the back, her hair yanked, and a hand thrust into her pants. The arresting officer, Const. John Flores, didn't once let go of her.

Bonds was then thrown to the floor with the use of a riot shield. Her shirt and bra were cut off by Sgt. Steve Desjourdy, and she was strip-searched in the presence of several male officers. She was then left in a jail cell for three hours, half-naked, and ultimately charged with that old butt-saving favourite, "assault on police."

Desjourdy has been in trouble before, for kicking and Tasering a female prisoner a mere few days before this incident. For that he was given a three-month demotion to the rank of constable in 2009. Must have stung.

He claimed that his victim had "mule-kicked" a constable behind her, justifying his use of force. But the videotape showed no such thing.

The judge berated the officers for the strip search, calling it "an extremely serious breach of [Bonds'] rights, apart from it being unlawful." Her lawyer, Matt Webber, was less restrained: "It's an appalling example of abuse of power and misconduct on the part of the police. It's a complete disregard for her dignity. It's shocking."

Yup.

What I find particularly interesting is the fact that the entire assault on Bonds was carried out under a police videocam, but the officers involved simply lied, as though no such record existed. Such is the culture of police impunity that they obviously imagined the system would save them no matter what.

The Crown's decision to proceed to a trial, once again proving the adage that police and prosecutors are stuck together with Krazy Glue, must have reassured them. But they all ran into a judge who didn't have a bandage over his eyes. He stayed the bogus charge against her, and went on a refreshing rant against her victimizers.

Police Chief Vern White has promised an "internal investigation." White does appear to be a cut above the usual police chief, regularly reaching out to the community and so forth, but that may simply indicate his mastery of effective public relations. In this case, he hedges: "If the judge's ruling is indicative of what happened, it's appalling."

If? Roll that video for the chief, please.

We'll see what comes of this investigation, which could take months. Meanwhile, I assume that the officers involved are still on the job, serving and protecting.

For her part, Bonds says she is thinking of suing. Thinking? Here's one observer who would be willing to part with some cash to get that process started. Outside her acquittal, a lawsuit may provide the only justice she ever receives.

UPDATE: My sometime editor at the National Post, Kelly McParland, weighs in. The message? Fire. Them. All.

UPPERDATE: (November 18) Vern White's halfway measures:

Ottawa Police Sgt. Steve Desjourdy, the officer caught on videotape cutting a young female prisoner's shirt and bra off with a pair of scissors, will be forbidden from dealing with the public until the conclusion of an internal police investigation.

What does this tell us? Far from firing this thug, or at the very least suspending him without pay until the conclusion of his two-years-late "internal investigation," Chief White will retain him on the force at full salary. And the other officers involved in a gang assault on a 100-pound Black woman are still out there "dealing with the public."

Not a good start, Chief.

Hassan Diab: the French deception 2

The courtroom demolition of France's case against Hassan Diab continued this morning.

Just as he did with the passport evidence earlier this week, Diab's lawyer Don Bayne dropped a sixteen-tonne weight on another misrepresentation in the Record of Case (ROC) certified by the wily French examining magistrate Marc Trévidic.

This time it wasn't conflicting accounts of Diab's alleged use of passport(s) to gain entry to France. It was what can only be described as deliberate deception by Trévidic: tailoring his ROC by omitting crucial evidence that made a nonsense of his claims--evidence, furthermore, that he was fully aware of.

In the ROC, Trévidic drew parallels between the rue Copernic bombing in Paris in 1980 and a subsequent bombing in Antwerp in 1981. In each case, a hotel had been selected that was near the target (a synagogue), and a nearby railway station for a quick getaway. The clear implication was, on so-called similar fact inference, that the same gang of terrorists, allegedly including Diab, was involved.

There was just one problem. In fact, there were four problems.

First, Trévidic somehow failed to note that his predecessor Guy Joly, who had travelled to Beligium and upon whom he had been relying for his account of the Antwerp bombing, also named the three suspects in the case.

Guess what? Diab was not one of them. They were known to the Belgian police: Kathleen Hill, an Englishwoman married to an IRA terrorist, Hasan Akbalickci, a Turk, and Atman Yusuf.

Trévidic didn't include three other salient facts either, that distinguished the Antwerp bombing from the Paris one. First, the Belgian police were not convinced that the bombing in Antwerp had even been targeting the synagogue. It was set off in the financial district of Antwerp and could, in their view, have been an anti-capitalist attentat. Second, the bomb type was entirely different. Third, two terrorist groups immediately claimed responsibility for the Antwerp bombing: Black September and Action Direct. In Paris, no group claimed responsibility.

So much for the "clear links" alleged in the ROC between the two attacks. All we are left with is a hotel, a railway station and a synagogue in close proximity. As Bayne noted, raising Antwerp was an attempt to further implicate Diab in the rue Copernic bombing when all of the evidence to the contrary, including the the fact that the participants in the Antwerp attack has already been identified, had been adroitly excised by Trévidic. Had that evidence been included, there would have been no argument to make--in fact there would have been no reason to talk about Antwerp at all.

So much for what the prosecution has called inconsequential errors. So much for the presumption of reliability in a Record of Case submitted by the requesting state (France). And--if the extradition case succeeds--so much for the Charter rights of any Canadian citizen being able to protect us from being framed by a foreign power.

He'll never be missed

Larry O'Brien is the Mayor of Ottawa for two more days. That's two days too many.

O'Brien is a vulgar, classless swaggerer, an uncultured nouveau riche who has demeaned his office for nearly four years.

We all know his track record--comparing homeless people to pigeons, making fantastic promises about city taxes, playing the alpha male with the bus drivers with catastrophic results, costing the ratepayers a fortune by scrapping light rail.

More recently, true to his boorish nature, he has revealed a schoolboy sexism that must be embarrassing even to some of his ditto-heads. His rival Jim Watson, who is just about to bury him alive, is a "little old lady" who "whine[s] like a little girl," says the doomed macho man. I guess we'll see just who's whining on Monday night.

I cannot express how much I'm look forward to the next few years without having to see O'Brien's vacuous, smirking mug in the local papers. Good riddance to bad rubbish, to coin a phrase: maybe we've finally found a use for those green bins after all.

Ottawa Oblates threaten community

I'm referring to Ottawa East, where I live.

A stone's throw from my house (although I have not physically tested this as yet) is a residence for the Oblates, a Catholic order. Behind them to the south is another residence (photograph), and a park, which they own: adjacent to them is St. Paul's University, which they run.

Besides offering a sometime haven for accused and convicted priestly pedophiles, the Oblates have of late shown nothing but contempt for the community in which they live. They are selling the property, but have steadfastly refused to meet with the Ottawa East Community Association to discuss our Community Development Plan (CDP), which City Council was to have voted on before the summer recess.

Rumours abound: one is that a subdivision called "One Thousand Doors" will replace the greenspace. Adding fuel to this rumour is the sudden announcement by the Oblates to the City of Ottawa that they are opposed to the CDP. They have refused as yet to provide details of their last-minute objections.

Now, after some delay because of wet conditions, these kindly folks have posted signs banning off-leash dogs on their land--following the eleventh annual "Fido Fundraiser," in which grateful dog-owners had ponied up once again for St. Paul's University in return for the privilege. Needless to say, the Oblates have refused to meet with the community association to mediate a solution, after delivering the news to association representatives on June 29.

As an indication of their arrogance, here is what the Oblates had to say on the matter:

Jacques L'Heureux, the administrator for the Oblate residence that owns the property, said, "If people want to talk then they can talk, but this is private property even if many of them think that they own the place."

Leblanc said residents were not informed of the decision because it was not negotiable.

Ah, Christian love. There goes the neighbourhood.

Ottawa mayoralty race: Lyin' O'Brien?

"Lawn signs? We don't need no steenkin' lawn signs!"

UPDATE: Could reader Craig be right--that these are recycled from O'Brien's first campaign? Note the word "elect" rather than "re-elect." Given the letters to the Ottawa Citizen on the subject, though, one might have expected such a clarification, were it available. (Craig also saw a solitary "Doucet" sign--reports of any others would be welcome. Fair's fair.)

Populist barbarism

Alvaro Vargas Llosa has a good piece in the Globe & Mail this morning on the French government's new ethnic cleansing initiative--the rounding up and deporting of Roma. Whether Nicolas Sarkozy is comfortable with the comparison or not, this hideous bit of racism unfolding before our eyes reminds one vividly of the Vichy government's assiduous Jew-hunting only a few decades back.

Without falling into the trap of moral equivalence, it must be said that the motives, if not the consequences, are exactly the same in each case--a racist notion of "purification" that isn't, perhaps, surprising to find in a country that has a Ministry of National Identity and not long ago sponsored a public debate on the subject of "Frenchness." In a certain sense, in fact, the consequences are almost incidental: the same ill-will can result in mass murder here, in mass deportations there, in a refusal to serve someone in a restaurant over there. Grosso modo, means and opportunity are all that really differ.

Vargas Llosa rightly calls Sarkozy's round-up "populist barbarism," and the phrase got me thinking about populism and what it means. This definition works, up to a point: "an ideology which pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous 'others' who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity and voice."*

But I would argue that, as accurate as this is, it misses something fundamental. Populism, right, left or in-between, is lazy politics. It's the politics of "now." Populism runs on appetite, not reason; it advocates quick fixes, not strategic goal-setting. It favours reflexes, not reflection; instinct, not thought.

It's reptile brain politics, in other words. It's a destructive, divisive, sometimes murderous politics that tends to flare and die when it runs full-tilt boogie into the real world. No more taxes! Thousand-year Reich! Lock and load! There's no analysis to be found: it's all slogans, geared towards the promise of instant gratification. And it's always against "other" people. There is no such thing as inclusive populism, by definition.

The politicians who exploit this form of human weakness are of two kinds: the WYSIWYG guys like Rob Ford and Randy Hillier who really are as dumb as they sound, and the smart cookies who, with consummate skill, exploit and shape the inchoate anger of the "I'm not going to take it anymore" crowd. Hence the bizarre spectacle of anti-politician politicians, and of governments allegedly dedicated to dismantling government.

It's all a ruse, of course, but it works. Governments will persist, and anti-politician politicians remain politicians. But the latter have utterly abandoned a key responsibility of leadership: to inform. Instead of leading, they follow, and they look for shortcuts in the brain of the body politic so they can arouse rather than explain.

"A hungry mob is an angry mob," said the wise Bob Marley. And an angry mob is the very essence of populism. The trick for populist politicians is to keep the people feeling hungry in all sorts of ways--and blame it on someone else. Give tax cuts to the rich (so they'll keep supporting your campaigns) but frame it as an attack on big government and its allegedly spendthrift ways, using your money. "We can't afford Obamacare," sneer the Teabaggers, even if half the bankruptcies in the US have been caused by medical bills.

Scapegoating is always key to this sort of thing. In France, it's the Roma. In Canada, it's currently the Tamil refugees. Muslims, of course, have been fair game for some time, as was the so-called "yellow peril" several decades ago. Homogenize the ethnic or religious group of the month, ascribe evil to it, and turn the baying yokels loose. No matter whether it's a necktie party or an election, you're almost certain to reap your reward.

The insidious thing about this cynical feeding of brute appetites is that it escalates if allowed to continue. The longer you're kept hungry, the more frantic you become. Ten years ago, who would have imagined that the French government would start rounding up racial "undesirables" as it once did in its dark past? Or that a popular Canadian newspaper would urge that Tamil refugee ships be sunk at sea with its inhabitants on board? Further back, who could have dreamed that the civilized Germans would unleash an uncultured, deadly, racist monstrosity on themselves and on the world?

Can't happen here? Of course it can, under the right circumstances. Obviously we're nowhere close to that at the moment. But the steady cheapening of Canadian political culture, its reduction to glib "us vs. them" talking-points, dulls and blunts our better natures. It makes increasing numbers afraid and distrustful, and even hateful. That's fertile ground--and eager conservatives are even now turning the sod.
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*[Albertazzi, D. and Duncan McDonnell. Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy p.3. New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan.]

Panic!

Always wanted to act in a film? You're in one now, in real-time: The Invasion of the Body-Snatchers. Your neighbours, even your own family members, seem like regular people, but they're...different. Search your neighbourhood for pods.

Presumption of innocence? Don't make us laugh. This is no time for abstract principles. How could these alleged terrorists turn on us in this way? Why? They seemed so normal!

An effortless transition has quickly taken place in the popular mind: Why don't those niqab-wearing, mosque-attending people blend in and become like us? has now become, They're blending in and becoming like us! Security!

Meanwhile, one of the suspected terrorists, Rizgar Alizadeh, strongly proclaims his innocence, but guilty people do that all the time. The McGill-trained doctor and Canadian Idol contestant, Khurram Sher, played ball-hockey. He worked in a Montreal soup kitchen, and volunteered for a month of service in an Israeli hospital. Alizadeh's brother Hiva liked Canada for its wealth and kind people: "He was saying lots of good things about Canada's economy and it was really good for him because he was working and had enough to do."

Heh. We're on to you.

The overstimulation of the body politic's reptile brain continues. The t-words are everywhere. "The threat, as exemplified by the arrests of three Canadian citizens this week, including a McGill University graduate of medicine..." ("Exemplified?" What on earth does that mean?) "A New Threat: Homegrown and High-Tech," blats Canada's National Newspaper, noting in the deck that an alleged conspirator denies the charges.

"How Terror Came Home to Roost," blares the Ottawa Citizen above the fold. "[T]he cancerous result of al-Qaeda's successful marketing of Islamic extremism," shrieks the deck.

"The spectre of terrorism," we are informed, "continues to haunt North Americans....[A]s highlighted by this week's unmasking of an alleged bomb plot in Ottawa, the threat increasingly comes not from strangers with rough English and dubious passports. Instead, it resides much closer to home: in urban townhouses, darkened basements--anywhere with an Internet connection."

While in the past the government has "had a hard time proving" other alleged terrorists dangerous, "the terrorist threat in Canada has continued to evolve." CSIS director Richard Fadden says, "It's the people who have been in this country for quite a while who are rejecting the very essence of what we are in Canada."

"The case of Dr. Khurram Sher is the most perplexing," the Citizen's "analyst," Andrew Duffy, continues. "How is it that he allegedly enlisted in a conspiracy to deliver arms to Afghan insurgents and to plant bombs in Ottawa?"

Khurram helped with earthquake relief in Pakistan in 2006, and in 2007 he signed a petition demanding better care for three men held in prison on security certificates. "Could these events have been among those to shape his worldview?" asks the breathless Duffy. Good Lord.

Meanwhile, Citizen regular op-ed columnist David Harris (an interesting man, to be sure) decries Ottawa police chief Vern White's outreach to Muslim community leaders, the word "leaders" placed in shudder-quotes for some reason. That's "politically correct policing," shrieks Harris. It's "feeding the Islamist victimology hype."

"Montreal Muslim community closes ranks," screams another hed in the print edition of the Globe and Mail. Surprise, surprise.

More Catholic than...

Mirabile dictu! The folks at St. Joseph's Parish in Ottawa are supporting the Capital Pride march on August 29.

What, tolerance squeezing through the door of the Catholic church? Not so fast. Big Blue Wave's SUZANNE is MASSIVELY pissed, and she's ratted them out to the Archbishop.

Should be interesting.

Just the facts.

This is a follow-up to No dogs? Then leash your child, please.

In order to change the designation of a park, with regard to allowing dogs within or not, at least 25 householders within a certain distance of the municipal recreation facilities must present a petition to the City of Ottawa councillor for that area and the By-laws and Regulations Services staff.

The information received is confidential and staff will not release the names nor the addresses of the individuals who signed the petition.

A notice was posted at Sandy Hill park with regard to the request to a change of designation, to ban dogs.

This change was not initiated by City employees. Whatever your personal feelings are regarding the petition presented, whether you support it or oppose it, please do not direct anger towards the staff who are ensuring that the process is handled in accordance with regulations.

Emails and faxes are effective ways of indicating your view and reasons; be succinct, coherent and respectful please. Again, there's no purpose served by being abusive.

Here again is the information; if you put dogs/Sandy Hill park in the subject line, that is helpful and efficient.

Christine Hartig, By-laws and Regulations Services, City of Ottawa, K2G 5K7. Please email or fax your comments to her before September 3, 2010: christine.hartig@ottawa.ca, fax 613.580.2179

More information about City of Ottawa regulations regarding animals.

No dogs? Then leash your child, please.

It has come to my attention that a long-standing usage of a section of Sandy Hill park in Ottawa (behind the community centre) could be terminated because petty and intolerant individuals want dogs banned from that area. They (whoever they are) have applied for a regulation change.

It would be just as petty and intolerant of me to speculate that those who initiated this application process are irresponsible parents who take their children to public recreational facilities and expect city employees to watch out for them.

You know the type. On planes, they let their child kick the back of your seat until you stand up and ask him (or her) to please stop, at which point the parents will glare at you for curbing their little darling's freedom. They take their children into washrooms or change rooms and let them run about bothering everybody. In restaurants, they don't use the opportunity to educate their children about courtesy and good manners, assuming other customers won't pay attention to their kids' whining, banging or screaming since they've become inured to such behaviour.

The playground and wading pool (summer use) area of Sandy Hill park is clearly delineated and it excludes dogs, for hygienic and safety reasons. In the other section, canine companions with their people are allowed off-leash within the perimeter. When soccer and other games are scheduled, the players' need for the field is usually respected.

There are very few such areas available in the neighbourhood, for dogs and their people to socialize. For those without vehicles (dogs are not allowed on public transportation) Sandy Hill park is well frequented meeting spot. There are many dogs who live nearby; their people are highly responsible in scooping up after them on the streets and in the parks where dogs can enter.

I have no vindication to score and no benefits to lose as my child no longer finds playground equipment exciting nor do we share our lives with a canine buddy - but I do enjoy the practical beauty of that park when invited to walk there with friends and their doggie companions.

I strongly object to a regulation that would exclude dogs from Sandy Hill park, and if you also find such change regressive, please express your opposition to:

Christine Hartig, By-laws and Regulations Services, City of Ottawa, K2G 5K7. Please email or fax your comments to her before September 2, 2010: christine.hartig@ottawa.ca, fax 613.580.2179

The Mayor was an anti-Semite

Today I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Bernie Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress: no official recognition for Charlotte Whitton, please.

Whitton was best known as the eccentric Mayor of Ottawa in days of yore, who once brought a cap-gun to a Council meeting and fired it off at councillors. She was also lightening-fast with a well-placed quip. At a gathering of mayors all wearing their ceremonial chains of office, the Lord Mayor of London noticed that she was wearing a rose on her chest. "If I smell your rose, will you blush?" he asked her. "If I pull your chain, will you flush?" she responded.

It was only when I read None is Too Many that I discovered a darker side to this woman, which Farber has rightly noted. Whitton played an instrumental role in barring Jewish refugees--children, in fact--from Canada when they were fleeing the Nazi gas chambers.

B'nai Brith, playing the contrarian, disagrees with Farber--a little to my surprise, I must say, since they are well-known these days for finding "anti-Semitism" under every bed. Says Ruth Klein, of BB's League of Human Rights, "the very fact that she had these prejudices is something that has to be remembered. It has to be noted, and it has to be commented on."

Something to be remembered, certainly--but surely not to be commemorated.

I'd call for a little consistency here. A once-respected and decorated aboriginal leader, David Ahenakew, lost his honour, his reputation and the Order of Canada because of a few poisonous words uttered when he didn't know a microphone was on. But nothing he ever did or said led directly to the deaths of the people he disliked.

Whitton's biographer Patricia Rooke refers to her virulent anti-Semitism as a "foible." That seems rather the wrong word to describe a hatred running so deep that Jewish children died because of it. She has her place in history: let's leave her there and move on.

Attentat in Ottawa

On July 23, 1892, Ovsei Osipovich Berkman entered the offices of Henry Clay Frick, the manager of a steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania. Frick had just finished presiding over the shooting of several locked-out members of the Amalgamated Association of Steel and Iron Workers by 300 armed Pinkerton strikebreakers.

Berkman shot Frick three times, stabbed him in the leg with a file, and was beaten unconscious by workers in the vicinity. He was later sentenced to twenty-two years in prison, of which he served fourteen.

The working class across the country was not ignited by this spark of revolutionary violence. Ordinary workers and anarchists alike condemned the action. And nothing improved on the local front. The factory resumed operations after 8,500 members of the Pennsylvania National Guard were ordered into Homestead. The locked-out unionized workers were almost entirely replaced by non-union immigrant labour.

Life went on much as before--except that fears of domestic terrorism were now freshly fanned among the population.

Fast-forward to May 18, 2010.

At approximately 3:30 this past Tuesday, an anarchist group calling itself FFFC-Ottawa firebombed a branch of the Royal Bank of Canada in Ottawa's upscale Glebe neighbourhood. The group then posted a record of the event on YouTube.



FFFC-Ottawa has promised more of the same, and claims that it will be a presence at the upcoming G20 summit in Toronto.

No one can doubt the sincerity of Berkman and other violent anarchists in the US during a period of massive labour strife. Their theory was a simple one, based on a delusion: workers were ready for revolution. All they needed was a decisive action to galvanize them.

But such actions, again and again, simply frightened people and gave public moral authority and sanction to the very forces of law and order that the anarchists were confronting.

Theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer say of "the people" in whose name the anarchists presume to speak: "immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities."* That's hegemony, in a word: and you don't overcome it by random acts of terror--you energize it.

Why do the latter-day anarchists--the Black Blocs, FFFC-Ottawa--pay no attention to history? Perhaps, in fact, they do. It appears that the attentat theory--that a bold act of violence will activate the revolutionary potential of the masses--has been (thankfully) abandoned. Instead these political street-urchins are inflicting minor flesh-wounds on capitalism, and getting high on feeling like revolutionaries as they commit their acts of vandalism.

But the establishment now has the excuse to push its own agenda. Articles and editorials have already appeared in the press that attempt to draw predictable "lessons" from the unthinking, unstrategic actions of a few.

Here's one, by Tom Quiggin, described in today's Ottawa Citizen as a member of the "council of advisers for Canada's Global Brief magazine and...a senior research fellow at the Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies at Carleton University." It's a frankly jejune piece of analysis, of which this extract will give the flavour:

[T]he recent RBC attack demonstrates an escalation in the level of violence on the part of a small core group. Furthermore, over the past several years, we have seen an ongoing convergence between the "extreme left" in Canada and various radical Islamist groups. The most visible manifestation of this "convergence" could be seen at the Cairo conferences in Egypt from 2002 to 2007. The presence of Canadians from a variety of "peace and social justice" groups was a regular occurrence. The Cairo Anti-War Conference was started by the British Socialist Workers Party (Trotskyites and Fourth Internationalists) and it was attended by Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist organizations. Why Canadian organizations felt the need to spend their money by sending individuals to this conference is a question all Canadians should be asking.

From the Glebe to Cairo in the blink of an eye! Squeezing the dread "Islamists" into the mix is a propagandist's master-stroke. Note, too, the reference to mysterious "Canadian organizations" with money, and the conflation of anti-war organizing with Islamist terrorism. This is the standard rhetorical trickery of the Right, and it hasn't changed much since Frick took his bullets: define the act as international in scope; tar "the left" as a clear and present danger to right-thinking, peaceful people everywhere; and proceed to fan the flames of local and national paranoia.

Just as a few undisciplined hooligans in Vancouver endangered thousands of peaceful protesters there, you can bet that security at the G-20 will clamp down hard on peaceful protesters in Toronto next month--if not by the unskillful use of agents provocateurs, quite possibly with a wild police overreaction like the one seen here in Ottawa in November, 2001.

Thanks for nothing, FFFC-Ottawa. These childish, self-indulgent acts of violent individualism do nothing but help our enemies. You're an affront to the values that motivate us, and to the ideals that we share.

You speak and act for no one but yourselves. Turn yourselves in before someone gets hurt.

_____________
*Horkheimer, Max and Theodor Adorno. "The Culture Industry," in Dialectic of Enlightenment. London: Verso, 1979, 8.

The Afghan documents: Liberals to cave?

Speaker Peter Milliken's deadline for the release of the Afghan documents expires tomorrow.

And Liberal spokesperson Ralph Goodale--was I prescient, or what?--is suggesting that more time is needed.

Good grief. Why negotiate, when you hold all the cards?

Because they're Liberals. There really is no other answer.

Michael Ignatieff: the "cave" man?

Is Michael Ignatieff planning to fold in the wake of Speaker Peter Milliken's historic affirmation of the supremacy of Parliament? My friend Skippy Stalin thinks so, and he's worth quoting at length:

If Michael Ignatieff refuses to put his own political viability before the constitutional future of this country, he will have failed not only as a leader, but as a citizen. Time and time again, he has put political expediency before principle, and where has it gotten him? More Canadian now prefer Jack Layton as prime minister than they do Ignatieff, which hasn't happened to a Liberal leader in nearly thirty years.

I would prefer an election, but even that isn't necessary. Parliament could vote no confidence in the government, and then the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois could present themselves to the Governor General as a coalition majority government. I don't think that would be granted, but it's at least worth trying.

I loathed that when it was tried after the 2008 election, but this different. This is about protecting Parliament itself, as opposed to being displeased with the results of an election. While I'm certain that I would despise everything that such a government would do in power, at least the principle of Parliament would be preserved. Better yet, if the Liberals started wandering into Harperland, the NDP and Bloc could withdraw their support and force an election.

...[W]hat Stephen Harper wants is the worst of both systems; executive powers without checks and balances, within a toothless Parliament that resembles something like the one that governed Romania for four decades. And Michael Ignatieff seems to be fine with that, if only because he thinks that he himself will inherit those powers someday.

Obviously I hope he's wrong. But take a look at this. And note the way the story is being spun:

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said this week he would consider relying on Mr. [Frank] Iacobucci if the former judge’s mandate could be changed to make him report to Parliament instead of the Tories. Some Liberals are leery of committing senior MPs to reading mountains of documents – a process that because of the need to swear an oath of secrecy would neuter their ability to speak publicly on the treatment of detainees after Canadian soldiers hand them over to Afghan officials.

Let's get this straight, once again. Parliament, as Milliken's ruling affirmed, has unfettered access to the documents. No oath of secrecy must be administered. There is no "balance" to be struck between Parliamentary supremacy and what the government claims are the interests of "national security" (more likely, the interests of its own security). Andrew Coyne crushes that persistent red herring to fishmeal here.

And let's put the spectre of Frank Iacobucci to rest. Ignatieff's suggestion is simply ill-informed. As legal expert Amir Attiran points out,

[T]he option of letting the Honourable Frank Iacobucci choose the documents Parliament can see is daft. Iacobucci is not a judge, but an ex-judge turned lawyer. As the Speaker noted, like all lawyers, when his client gives instructions, he must obey, and "his client is the government."

Nor can Iacobucci's reporting relationship be expanded to the whole House. The Law Society's rules of professional conduct read that "A lawyer shall not advise or represent more than one side of a dispute." Thus Iacobucci cannot be lawyer for the government, and with a change of clothing in a phone booth, turn lawyer for the opposition parties where the situation remains disputatious (which is always the case in the House). Anyway, Iacobucci would never accept this, as it would lead to a professional misconduct complaint.

The NDP's Jack Harris puts the whole matter squarely: "We want Parliamentary oversight, not a proxy." Attaran suggests a public inquiry as a preferred solution, or an in-camera session of Parliament in which decisions about the documents are made by the whole House about what is, or is not, a matter of "national security."

But what if Harper decides to dig in?

Will the Opposition parties stand united against what would be a spectacular defiance, not only of Parliament, but of its representative in the Speaker's chair? Will it stand up for the democratic system of governance upon which Parliament is founded--and fight an election, if need be, to defend responsible government?

Or will a timorous Ignatieff pull the plug on democracy and weasel up a "compromise" with no basis in law or Parliamentary tradition?

Am I the only one getting a sinking feeling?