Hey, Alain Préfontaine...

...who the hell do you think you are?

So much for the rule of law in Stephen Harper's Canada.

UPDATE: Préfontaine has trouble keeping his story straight--or doesn't care:

Prefontaine first said the government might withhold the eight documents on the grounds that they are irrelevant, then said some of the eight cases fall outside the May 2007-June 2008 period of the complaint the commission is examining. He later said the commission already had the eight reports from a court case - not true, according to [Military Police Complaints Commission counsel] Lunau.

Either way, pretty sloppy work.

Disco sucks

But we knew that!

[H/t News of the Restless]

4...3...

Four settler nations voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007: the United States, Australia, New Zealand (Aotearoa) and Canada.

It took a change of government in Australia--the replacement of the racist John Howard regime by that of Kevin Rudd--but that country signed on in April, 2009.

Now New Zealand, a year later, has endorsed the declaration as well. Kātahi nā ka tika!

So we're down to two holdouts. And they're still mousing around:

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice is scheduled to address the forum on Tuesday and will announce that "we will be conducting a formal review of the declaration and the U.S. position on it," according to an excerpt from her prepared text obtained by The Associated Press.

"Our first nations face serious challenges: disproportionate and dire poverty, unemployment, environmental degradation, health care gaps, violent crime and bitter discrimination," Rice says. "We recognize that, for many around the world, this declaration provides a framework for addressing indigenous issues."

The Canadian government said in a speech by the governor general [sic] last month that it would take steps to endorse the U.N. declaration "in a manner fully consistent with Canada´s constitution and laws." Indigenous groups have urged the government to embrace the human rights instrument without conditions or limitations.

I'll believe it when I see it, but perhaps, as the Declaration is not legally binding, the Harper government will grudgingly sign at some point. When it comes to the First Nations, after all, words for this government are cheap: they tend to be far preferable to deeds.*

______
*Not that federal governments, Liberal and Conservative, have been sleeping on the job. For example, it took the people of Attawapiskat First Nation a mere ten years, but now they have an actual promise of a school for their kids. And in just a few more years they might actually get one, too.

Unperson

No one looking into the eyes of the would-be politician on the right could seriously claim that she isn't a person.

Still not permitted in some parks, forced off furniture and out of restaurants, made to wear a slave collar and leash outside the home, and now denied the right to be a candidate for municipal office, Genny's treatment has become an international disgrace.

The curt dismissal of her candidacy by municipal clerk Patti Barri is just the latest injustice in a region plagued with discrimination. No doubt Genny's colour and gender played their roles as well. I can't help but wonder: would Barri have been so quick to dismiss this up-and-coming young pol?

Genny's human companion, blogger Marven Whidden, deserves more than a friendly pat on the head and a biscuit for his ardent advocacy. We must stand with him and with her. At this shameful nadir in Canadian history, both need our unqualified support.

Break the species bar! If they're good enough to walk, dammit, they're good enough to run.

[H/t Marie-Ève]

Free speech for thee..

...but not, apparently, for me:

Now the ARA and other friends of Richard Warman have moved into a new field of criminal activity, they are now into the witness intimidation racket. Marc Lemire is a witness in an ongoing case before the court and we are once again seeing the smear machine ramp up.

When Marc Lemire was being maliciously attacked by Richard Warman and the CHRC (an attack predicated by negative news about the CHRC being reported on Lemire's website) it was one thing for these thugs to be spending their days smearing him but that is no longer a case, now he is only a witness and these people are attacking one of our witnesses.

We will respond to this criminal activity. Some of these people will be eventually criminally charged for these openly criminal acts. We're taking names and documenting everything.

Justice is coming.

At which point I almost violated Dawg's Blawg's no-cussin' rule with a two-word apostrophe.

Let's get this straight, now: exercising my freedom of speech about the provable past of a Speech Warrior™ poster child is "intimidating a witness?" My post is going to shut him up--how, exactly, given that all that information is already on the public record? Were Marc Lemire's precious feelings hurt? Did the li'l sweetums cower in fear when certain facts were yet again revealed?

Just bring it, you tiresome clucks. You've made this kind of empty threat before, and it doesn't work on me.

Better still, let Lemire do the Oscar Wilde thing, launch a lawsuit and get his hindquarters seriously bitten. I'd be prepared to sell tickets for the discovery phase of that action.

Torture: a conservative value

Don't take my word for it. Craig Smith, aka "ferrethouse," a moderator at Blogging Tories, has this to say on the subject, referring to an apparently heretical member of the blogroll:

Against the death penalty?
Supports gun control?
Against stricter immigration laws?
Opposes torture?

I'm fairly certain that this guy gets 95% of his traffic from Blogging Tories and he slags the values that most Blogging Tories members support. [emphases added]

And, for the record, Smith is also a huge supporter of Lebensborn policies. (That's what they used to be called, back in the good old days.)

In other news, two Blogging Tories have called for the overthrow of the government "by any means necessary" if Omar Khadr wins his lawsuit against Ottawa for Charter rights violations. Set aside the obvious necessity for a Civics 101 remedial tutorial (the judiciary is not the executive, something I thought the recent SCC ruling on Khadr had made abundantly clear). Is open sedition really something the Blogging Tories are now countenancing?

Are there, indeed, any standards for Blogging Tory membership?

You tell me, Stephen Taylor.

[H/t x 2 to CC, who reads this stuff so you don't have to]

UPDATE: (H/t reader Terrence) And readers of Moose and Squirrel fall to with a will. One advocates sexual assault: "I say put him in a Canadian prison and I guarantee he’ll be touched daily" (to which Natasha retorts, "I like your sentiment," but opines that an American prison would be better for that). Another prefers "a rope and woodchipper." Imagine what they'd be saying if young Khadr had actually been found guilty of anything.

UPPERDATE: (April 22) I am reliably informed that "Blazing Cat Fur" is not a Blogging Tory. To be on the safe side, I hereby apologize to BCF and to Stephen Taylor.

University bans speaker

A prominent visitor was banned this past March from a university campus. Said a university official:

Academic freedom is a core principle of any institution of higher education. But with that freedom comes an obligation to exercise free thought and free speech in concert with mutual respect and acknowledgment of broader resource and security impacts on the campus. The exercise of freedom requires a commensurate dose of responsibility.

François Houle again?

Nope. Recall that Provost Houle expressed a little well-modulated concern and then welcomed the horrendous hatemonger Ann Coulter onto his campus. Her own organizers canceled the event.

This time an invitation to a controversial speaker was formally rescinded. But you shouldn't expect quite the same level of outrage from the Usual Suspects.

[H/t Blues Clair at BCL's house]

Stuck together with Krazy Glue

The judiciary in action when a cop drives drunk.

Const. Sheldon Hamm testified he could smell the strong odour of alcohol on Dunkle's breath.

He said he asked Dunkle about his drinking and the driver replied he had one drink. Hamm said when he asked him again, Dunkle said it was two drinks.

Hamm told court Dunkle was unable to pull his wallet out of his pocket on request, then he observed the accused having a problem walking and was unsteady on his feet, "swaying from side to side."

But:

[P]rovincial court Judge Gerry LeGrandeur tossed out results of a breathalyzer stemming from a checkstop just before midnight on Jan. 17, 2009.

Following a voir dire, LeGrandeur said in his ruling the demand for a breathalyzer was not reasonable, because there was no indication of impairment such as glassy eyes or staggering.

And so the culture of police impunity continues.

FdaJEWS

Nope, not a repeat of a famously misinterpreted post, although I'll admit that the latter was the first thing I thought of when I saw this.

Great work, ARC: the smoking gun at last. So much for the FDom crowd's persistent, annoying attempts to rehabilitate the repulsive Marc Lemire.

[H/t BCL and ARC b/c]

UPDATE: And the merry dance begins.

Abdelrazik: fight the persecution!

Abousfian Abdelrazik's life savings--$10,000, a bequest from his late wife--has been effectively seized by the federal government under Canada's infamous United Nations Act. A citizen added to the UN's "1267" list is, under Canadian law, forbidden to work, receive support of any kind, or have a bank account.

Taken literally, this would have been a death sentence. But the caring of family and other ordinary people has kept Abdelrazik clothed, fed and sheltered.

Mr. Justice Russel Zinn, in his judgement ordering the Harper government to repatriate Abdelrazik, exiled in Sudan for more than six years, referred to his situation as Kafkaesque. It remains so to this day: Abdelrazik is a citizen without rights. A second-class citizen. In fact, if one takes our Charter of Rights seriously, which the Harper government plainly does not, an uncitizen. An exile in his own country.

This targeting of a fellow-citizen by a vengeful government cannot stand. Decent citizens must act, and we have the opportunity to do so on April 28.

"Project Fly Home" was the name of the initiative taken by a number of citizens to purchase a ticket back to Canada for Abdelrazik--an illegal act. Organizers have now begun a serious sanctions-busting campaign on his behalf. From the website:

We are calling on you to restate your solidarity or join the long list of people who have defied the 1267 regime by contributing money to Mr. Abdelrazik. Your donations will support Mr. Abdelrazik personally, and the very act of donating will help challenge the oppressive "national security" logic, which creates and feeds on fear, racism and isolation.

Any time in April, send a strong message to the Canadian government:

* Step 1. Make a check or money order to the order of "Abousfian Abdelrazik" and mail it to:

CSCP Charlevoix
PO Box 65053
Montréal QC H3K 0K4

* Step 2. Fill in the blanks in the letter linked here and send it to Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon at Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca, to inform him that you have sent money to Abousfian Abdelrazik in open protest of the 1267 regime, and calling on him to lift the sanctions from Abdelrazik without delay.

On April 28th, between 7pm and 9pm, call in to our Sanctions-Busting Telethon:

Between 7 and 9pm, call us at 877 737 4070 and let us know how much you are pledging. If you wish, you can also pass along a message of solidarity and encouragement for Abdelrazik, which will be broadcast live at the Sanctions-Busting Telethon and Spaghetti Dinner event taking place in Montreal.

Tune in to rabble.ca to watch the telethon broadcast live or listen to live updates on CKUT 90.3 FM.

Surely I do not have to quote the always timely Pastor Niemöller. But at this point it is abundantly clear that we, the ordinary citizens of this country, have a civic duty to stand up, not only for Abousfian Abdelrazik, but for the values that make us all Canadian.

UPDATE: The phone-in is between 7-9pm EDT. [H/t reader theo]

Pardon me?

What's worse than one of those institutional apologies? An institutional pardon.

The Nova Scotia government is preparing to "pardon" Viola Desmond, a Black woman arrested and jailed in 1946 for sitting in the whites-only section of a movie house in New Glasgow.

Desmond's niece has the right idea:

"If the justice minister had come to Viola and said, 'We want to pardon you,' she would have laughed and said, 'Pardon me for what? I didn't do anything wrong.'

Meanwhile, Ringo Starr has the right idea as well. The Vatican, in its infinite mercy, has "forgiven" the Beatles, and called them, perhaps a little creepily, a "precious jewel." Ringo isn't having that:

"Didn't the Vatican say we were satanic or possibly satanic? And they've still forgiven us?" the 69-year-old said yesterday.

In an apparent reference to the scandal over paedophile priests that has shaken the Catholic Church worldwide, he added: "I think the Vatican, they've got more to talk about than the Beatles."

Amen to that.



UPDATE: (April 16) As it turns out, I was too quick to judge. The posthumous pardon granted by the Nova Scotia government to Viola Desmond was a rare "free pardon," which is an admission on the part of the Crown that she was innocent of any wrongdoing, rather than the more usual official forgiveness for a wrong. And it came with an official apology as well. Desmond's surviving sister was reportedly "numb with joy."

There may even be a designated special day to recognize Desmond and her part in breaking the former Nova Scotia colour bar. I hope that comes to pass. My frustration with official apologies is the lack of accompanying action: too often they appear merely pro forma. In this case, it is hard to imagine anything more that could be done.

Rights and Democracy: new boss quizzed

I listened to the new President of Rights and Democracy, Gérard Latulippe, testifying before the Foreign Affairs Committee earlier today. Polished, slippery and evasive he was, avoiding a lot of direct questions and doing his best to run out the clock.

The Committee, we are promised, will get chapter and verse on all those recent untendered contracts, and more information about the honoraria the Board members have been paying themselves as well.

Paul Wells was back in full spate before the Committee even met. On the famous "forensic audit" commissioned by Board member Jacques Gauthier:

[A] funny thing happened on the way to the witch-dunking. Deloitte turns out to be a serious organization. One that, it may safely be assumed, would not enjoy being conscripted into somebody else’s show trial. The audit is taking far longer than expected: Gauthier and Co. expected Deloitte to report within three weeks, but Deloitte is not quite done its work six weeks later. Serious work is being done. Which explains why the only people now demanding the audit’s release are the staff, and fired former staff, who were supposed to be its target.

Unfortunately, the mandate of Deloitte and Touche does not include the period after Gauthier became interim President. He spent $380,000 in two months, including the hiring of another Board member, the antic Marco Navarro-Génie, as his "advisor" for $3000.

Latulippe claimed today that he was looking forward to the findings. Let's see how eager he is to make the report public once the report is submitted.

Review Policies of the IPCC - a pass with distinction

The latest attempt to discredit climate science takes the form of another assault on the IPCC Assessment Reports. A group of people have gone over the IPCC references and have found that there are a number of non-peer reviewed references in the document.

Some of these provide a good example of why context matters, for example they identify one of the non-peer reviewed documents as an article from Newsweek written by Peter Gwynne. How does the IPCC use this document? They use it as an example of early work published in the media which later turns out to be wrong. To quote from the report:

Not all theories or early results are verified by later analysis. In the mid-1970s, several articles about possible global cooling appeared in the popular press, primarily motivated by analyses indicating that Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperatures had decreased during the previous three decades (e.g., Gwynne, 1975).

Other non-peer reviewed sources are books (very few books are peer reviewed) or the proceedings of workshops which are non peer-reviewed but usually provide the very cutting edge of the science.

However, while it would be amusing to look at the the details of the assessment, it is all moot. The key point is that the IPCC does not claim to use only peer reviewed literature. This is clear from the document Procedures for the Preparation, Review, Accpetance, Adoption Approval and Publication of IPCC Reports in which Annex 2 specifically deals with how to use non-peer reviewed material. To quote from it:

Because it is increasingly apparent that materials relevant to IPCC Reports, in particular, information about the experience and practice of the private sector in mitigation and adaptation activities, are found in sources that have not been published or peer-reviewed (e.g., industry journals, internal organisational publications, non-peer reviewed reports or working papers of research institutions, proceedings of workshops etc) the following additional procedures are provided. These have been designed to make all references used in IPCC Reports easily accessible and to ensure that the IPCC process remains open and transparent.

So to the group that claims that the IPCC is invalid because not all the material in it are peer-reviewed, I give the grade (to quote another blogger) Epic Fail.

Cocaine

I always liked Eric Clapton--and this song. For your listening pleasure:



Oh, you wanted the full version? Here you go:

Tea Party profile

Thanks to a New York Times and CBS News poll, we now have a better idea of just who the anti-Obama, populist Tea Partiers are. There are surprises here for everyone, but maybe not a lot of surprises.

First, 18% of those surveyed in the poll consider themselves Tea Party supporters (question 82). The poll helpfully juxtaposes their responses to poll questions with those of the general population surveyed.

A lid can finally be put on the assurances by some credulous bloggers and journalists that African Americans are a significant sector in their ranks. The poll reveals that a whopping 1% of Tea Party supporters identify themselves as African American (page 41).

Speaking of small percentages, 2% of the self-identified Tea Party supporters had heard or read nothing about the movement they support (q.78), and 1% had an unfavourable view of their own movement, with a further 9% undecided (q.79).

30% of the Tea Party supporters believe that Barack Obama was born in another country, with a further 29% indicating that they didn't know (q.50). 92% think Obama is moving the country towards ""socialism" (q.49).

53% of the Tea Partiers consider Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity to be a source of hard news--more than twice the general population (q.96). 63% claim Fox News as their chief news source (q.93).

31% are armed--about 50% more than the over-all population (q.104). 28% support the nativist extremist Ron Paul (q.37). 53% define themselves as "angry" (q.24).

Only 18% of those identified as Tea Party supporters have actually attended rallies (q.84). One should be careful, therefore, to distinguish between the two "pools," given the self-selection bias involved when the more militant members of a group form themselves into a sub-group. One might expect, for example, to find a higher percentage of "angry" Tea Partiers on the streets. And, judging from the signs above and the gentleman below, more armed activists as well.





















Is any of this a cause for alarm? Tea Partiers comprise less than one-fifth of the voters. Besides, they're more educated and better off than the general population (page 41), think their tax burden is "fair" (q.76), send their kids to public schools (q.108), and don't think Sarah Palin is qualified to be President (q.39), although they like her (q.40). But the findings above are worrying nonetheless.

Tea Partiers, motivated to a considerable extent by ideology, are living in a dreamworld if not a closed delusional system, reinforced by their extremist news sources. 84% of them think their views are shared by most Americans, but only 25% of the over-all sample believe that--a pretty good indication of what "most Americans" feel. They are angry, white, a third of them are armed, and only a minority believe that their African American President was born in the US.

Do they have critical mass for regime change? Angry anti-government nativism at almost the same level is alarming Europeans at present, as they watch the goings-on in Hungary. It's far too soon to say that it can't happen here.

UPDATE: And the counter-reformation begins:

Alabama attorney John Eidsmoe, who has spoken previously to white supremacists, withdrew from a tea party rally in Wausau, Wis., after organizers questioned his views. Coordinators of a tax-day rally in Pleasanton, Calif., rescinded the speaking invitation of Orly Taitz, an attorney who has filed lawsuits claiming Obama was not born in the U.S. and is ineligible to be president.

Who invited Eidsmoe and Taitz in the first place? Never mind. Perhaps the quest for respectability may be all that's needed to kill this movement off.

[H/t Left on Lanier]

A neoconservative's stand for decency

Madness:

Obama is the loyal son of a left-wing anthropologist mother who sought to expiate her white guilt by going to bed with Muslim Third World men. He is a Third World anthropologist studying us, learning our culture and our customs the better to neutralize what he considers to be a malignant American influence in world affairs.

That would be David P. Goldman, former member of the Lyndon LaRouche crowd, and current darling of the far Right.

John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, veteran neo-con, a person with whom I might have imagined I had nothing in common, draws a line in the sand: "This is, not to put too fine a point on it, disgusting."

But here in Canada, the nutcases slobber and yowl.

Has the Overton Window been yanked so far towards frankly racist conspiracy-mongering that we must now accept David Frum as a comrade?

Michel Chartrand, December 1916-April 2010

An old anti-capitalist culture hero of mine, the legendary Michel Chartrand, died on Monday at the age of 93. One hesitates--it seems defamatory of his memory, somehow--to add, Rest In Peace.

The highlights of his life can be found here and here: no need for me to repeat all of them. An activist, gadfly and organizer, Michel was viscerally opposed to the Establishment ever since his father was fired, after 44 years on the job, for exposing fraud in Quebec's public works department. Michel was studying to be a monk at the time, and had taken a vow of silence! That abruptly changed, as the numerous recipients of his barbs would testify.

But I would like to share a personal anecdote. During a national strike by my union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, it fell to me as a vice-president to introduce Michel to a crowd of strikers at Place du Portage in Gatineau. I did so with some pleasure, and he spoke...and he spoke, as was his wont. Quite an orator, even in his mid-eighties, he held the crowd's attention. But I was distracted: my regional director was giving me an urgent message.

When Michel finished, Nycole Turmel, PSAC's National President, who had just arrived, went to the microphone to announce that the strike was over.

It was September 11, 2001.

Rights and Democracy: mea culpa

In my just-previous post, I asserted that "there is really very little left to say about the egregious antics of the Gang of Seven," and rashly stated my assumption that Payam Akhavan's testimony yesterday had not been "earth-shattering."

I couldn't have been more wrong, which will teach me to assume.

Here is an excerpt from today's Canadian Press story:

"A big part of [a doubling of the Board's budget last year] were honoraria that went to board members who come here (to the committee) and speak as though they are volunteers," he said.

Akhavan claimed that Jacques Gauthier, a board member who served as acting president after Beauregard's death of a heart attack in January, had charged 11 days worth of honorariums for a six-day trip to China. He also alleged that board member Marco Navarro-Genie charged four extra days for personal time spent in Haiti on agency business.

More explosively, Akhavan alleged that while Gauthier was acting president he gave Navarro-Genie a one-week agency contract "as a senior adviser, for an unspecified amount of funds for an unspecified mandate."

Akhavan said he was unaware of a sitting board member ever getting a contract from Rights and Democracy: "It would seem self-evidently a conflict of interest for any board member to give a contract to another board member."

New Democrat MP Paul Dewar demanded the agency produce copies of any such contract, calling it "highly disturbing and unprofessional and unethical" if true.

But blogger Alison at Creekside--who gently corrected me in a comment--has more, much more. I urge readers to walk on over there and read her lengthy account of what Akhavan had to say.

Some highlights of what are, at this point, allegations:

• Board member Marco Navarro-Génie referred to Board members such as Akhavan as "third worldists," comparing them to Robert Mugabe, and contrasted them to "Her Majesty's North American subjects."
  
  
• Internal documents were leaked to Ezra Levant, Canwest and NGO Monitor's Gerald Steinberg.
  
  
• The Board budget, $130,000 the previous year, had swollen to nearly $300,000 by the time Akhavan resigned. Board members paid themselves a lot of honoraria--$80,000 worth.
  
  
• Worse, one Board member (Jacques Gauthier) allegedly let a contract to another member (Navarro-Génie).
  
  
• The influence of NGO Monitor was everywhere apparent: Board Chair Aurel Braun even tried to have Gerald Steinberg address the Board. Steinberg had access to internal R&D documents. Akhavan noted that Yosi Alfer, a former advisor to Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, has said: "NGO Monitor seems dead set against human rights monitoring of Israel and smearing anyone who supports this vital activity." Steinberg, in fact, had to issue a retraction to human rights organization Al-Mezan in 2007 for calling it a supporter of violence. Al-Mezan is one of the three Middle East human rights organizations that received small grants from Rights and Democracy, and which Chairman Braun has consistently denigrated.
  
  
• The one staff member who did not sign the famous letter calling for the resignation of Braun, Gauthier and Elliot Tepper was the source of the unproven allegation that a favourable collective agreement was given to the staff in return for signatures. Gauthier subsequently tried to promote this person to the position of Director of Communications, on the same day that incumbent Charles Vallerand was fired.
  

Transparency? Accountability? We'll see. In the meantime, it's perhaps a little more obvious why the knives were out for Akhavan.

And to compound my embarrassment, I had missed Barry Coopers slag-job in the Calgary Herald on April 7. These excerpts give some indication of its viciousness:

R&D's late president, Remy M. Beauregard, was a career bureaucrat and like all such creatures had developed a deep allergy to criticism, however mild, and had mastered the art of covering his backside.

--

[B]etween May 2009 and January 2010, Beauregard managed to turn several "international" members of the board against the performance review committee by granting them favours, including travel perks, interns, and funding for projects in their home countries, according to Marco Navarro [sic], an R&D board member. [emphasis added]

Alison rightly pointed out in her comment on my earlier post that this would make the Canwest attack-article yesterday the third of its kind. No longer happenstance or coincidence, then: it seems that we're indeed looking at enemy action.

Rights and Democracy: how a smear is done

Heavy hitters testified as scheduled before the parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International development, now looking into the troubled Rights and Democracy agency. There was Suzanne Trépanier (the widow of former R&D President Rémy Beauregard); two other former R&D presidents, Ed Broadbent and Warren Allmand; and former Board member Payam Akhavan, who resigned in disgust in January.

There is really very little left to say about the egregious antics of the Gang of Seven, and there were no surprises today. I missed Akhavan's testimony, but nothing earth-shattering has been reported. Mme. Trépanier, recounting the abuse of her late spouse by members of the Rights and Democracy Board, called for a public inquiry, as have many others. Allmand and Broadbent spoke of the non-partisan nature of the Board in years past, and called for something to be done without delay about the current mess. "The soul of the Centre" is in peril, Broadbent said, and the reputation of Rights and Democracy in the international human rights community has been seriously harmed.

Nothing new in any of this.

The real story today was itself a story: one that appeared this morning in the Edmonton Journal under the by-line of Steven Edwards, Canwest's New York correspondent.

Recall the timely appearance of Senator Linda Frum's rather unconvincing defence of the Braun Gang--warmed-over talking points, actually--back in March? And now we have another suspiciously timely piece, a shabby trash-job on Payam Akhavan, appearing on the very same day when he was slated to testify.

This article should be used in J-school as a graphic illustration of spin. The rot begins at the hed: "Rights and Democracy board member used 'inappropriate' tactics to lobby for UN post." That sets up the story nicely.

Well, what did Akhavan do? A new UN commission on war crimes in Sri Lanka was being mooted (it was never established), and he asked then-President Rémy Beauregard to recommend him for it.

That's it. That's all. But this is how Edwards spins it in his third graf:

The administrative chief in question was Remy [sic] Beauregard, whose job as president essentially placed him in service of the board. Not only would such an official find it difficult to turn down a request from a board member, but Akhavan also sought the UN appointment through a division of the international body that, documents show, had earlier received an $824,000 over four years from the taxpayer-funded Rights and Democracy.

"[F]ind it difficult to turn down?" How so? What would have happened to Beauregard had he refused? And then there is Edwards' innuendo about a conflict of interest. Only when we read all the way to the last (16th) graf do we discover that Akhavan's request was made after the partnership between Rights and Democracy and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights had been terminated.

Here are the fourth and fifth grafs:

Akhavan, a professor of international law at McGill University, boasts a resume showing he is amply qualified to join an inquiry such as the one some in the UN were mulling in order to investigate alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka.

But for some, the memo and Beauregard's subsequent letter of recommendation to the UN raise questions of propriety.

It turns out that "some" is "a senior UN-focused executive familiar with squabbling among past and present officials with Rights and Democracy...who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject matter." His use of the term "inappropriate" was qualified (and is found only in the seventh graf):

"This may not be a breach of fiduciary duty, but it appears to be inconsistent with what the role of a director should be. So it strikes me as inappropriate."

"Appears to be inconsistent." "Strikes me as inappropriate." Yet the word "inappropriate" finds its way, unqualified, into a hed and lede, and a simple request for a letter of reference becomes the snarl-word "tactics." Is it really "inappropriate" to ask for a written endorsement from the President of your own organization for a job for which you are "amply qualified?"

A shameful piece. And, as noted, check the timing.

The first time is happenstance. The second time is coincidence. But if this happens again, I think we can safely conclude that it's enemy action.

Academic freedom: a tale of two cities

...and, I expect, a tale of two standards as well.

Readers will recall the shrill chorus of denunciation directed against the mild-mannered Provost of the University of Ottawa, François Houle, for daring to suggest that conservative hatemonger Ann Coulter might want to be aware of Canadian criminal legislation against hate speech--legislation that differs considerably from the latitude afforded by the Fifth First Amendment. One might have thought he was Torquemada, given the shrieking outrage that ensued.

He sent a letter to an arriving guest. Now consider what happened at York University when an academic conference on the Middle East was planned.

I have already blogged on the gross interference by the Minister of Creationism, Gary Goodyear, in the internal workings of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, for providing funds for the conference. But today we learn of determined attempts within York University itself, notably by Board head Marshall Cohen, to derail the conference.

[E]-mails, obtained by The Globe and Mail, discuss how the university might avoid “a disaster,” by paying for the event to be moved off campus, putting forward speakers to balance the program and planting participants in the audience to moderate debate.

--

Later, [Cohen] adds, "Freedom of speech and academic freedom are essential to what we are,” before listing options for “managing and mitigating the risks."

In another e-mail a few days, Mr. Cohen asks [York President Mamdouh] Shoukri, "Can the conference organizers enforce some discipline on the speakers – and are they strong enough to do so? Can we disinvite known hate mongers, if we have any on the program? Is this censorship?"

In yet another e-mail to [University Provost Patrick] Monahan, Mr. Cohen discusses "Plan B," to move the event off-campus, saying of talks with organizers, "I can only assume that you put the fear of all 3 gods involved here into them! Good work."

Organizers are speaking out after the release of a report by former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci, clearly a name to conjure with in certain quarters. The report was ponderous but inconsequential, addressing none of the organizers' concerns.

As the report indicates, organizers were forced to hire their own lawyer at their own expense to force a retraction from B'nai Brith, which had made the bogus charge that a "Holocaust-denier" had been invited as a speaker. The University refused to assist. Several instances of heavy-handed administrative treatment of the organizers are noted, but Iacobucci sees no reason for any further investigation of the events surrounding the conference.

I would invite readers to compare and contrast: a mild letter sent to a speaker in Ottawa, versus several heavy-handed attempts to drive the York conference from the campus, select some of its speakers and plant "moderators" in the audience--not to mention disinviting "known hatemongers, if we have any on the program."

One can imagine the yowling from the Usual Suspects if any such thing were done to a conservative conference. We've already heard that U of O Provost Houle's minor admonition was a dreadful imposition, nothing less than a brutal assault on free speech. But in this case, expect only silence--or support for the York administration.

[H/t Marky Mark for the Iacobucci report link]