RCMP watchdog replaced by kitteh

A Conservative real estate lawyer has been appointed "interim chair" of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP. Ian McPhail replaces outgoing chair Paul Kennedy, whose critical reports offended the Harper administration.

McPhail cheerfully admits knowing next to nothing about policing, criminal law or federal oversight agencies. His role doesn't require it, he says. He just has to know "how an administrative agency should operate." He is in place for a minimum of one year.

Kennedy says, "If you don't know the law, I don't know what value you can bring to the job." His predecessor, Shirley Heafy, is more blunt: the Mounties, she says, "are going to love to have him there. He's just a caretaker. There's no power to do anything unless you really push the envelope. He's coming in cold. There's no way he can do anything in a year … he's a complete neophyte."

Critical public reporting has really been the only lever for change available to the largely toothless CPCAR. "My style tends to be collegial,” says McPhail. Purr-r-r.

UPDATE: Over the protests of Conservative Senator Pamela Wallin, a report from the Liberal majority on a Senate Committee inquiring into the practices of the RCMP is due to be released shortly. It is expected to be deeply critical of the RCMP, and to call for more effective civilian oversight--which Kennedy had been pressing for before his ouster. Conservative Senators reportedly disagree with the draft report's "tenor and tone."

Our Adolf

"Harper = Hitler." Unacceptable. Over the top when progressives do it; surely even worse when Tories do it!

The photograph above is of two Tory agentes provocatrices at the anti-prorogue demo in Winnipeg yesterday, taken by an agent provocateur. For your delectation, here are the straight goods, from a student at the University of Manitoba:

Hey guys, I attended the rally in Winnipeg today. Very impressive. Great organization. But one thing really got to me.

I was enjoying the speeches today, and I noticed someone I know to be a big Tory supporter and a member of the University of Manitoba Campus Conservatives observing the event, and taking pictures. I figured he was trying to get pictures of radical signs and what not to malign the protestors, but that didn't bother me much. It's his right to be there and observe.

Anyways, I got back to watching the speeches and noticed that this Tory had climbed the fire escape of the University of Winnipeg building to get a better view, and I noticed he motioned at people beyond where I was to come forward or come into view. So I turned around and saw some people wearing masks, coming forward, and one of them was carrying a sign that said, I kid you not, in big letters, "Harper = Hitler."

I thought no, there's no way, this Tory guy would go to these lengths to get these people to come to the rally to make the people there look bad, and radical. I couldn't tell for sure that he had motioned at these specific people. So I went back to watching the speeches and what not. But as the speeches were winding down I turned around again, and what do I see? I see the Tory guy getting together with the masked people. He took the Hitler sign and walked away with the phony radicals!

I was pretty angry to see that garbage. So I chased him down and called him out about it. It is disgusting to see such a horrific historical character as Adolf Hitler used in this surreptitious and disgusting way. I imagine the victims of Hitler's genocidal actions in Poland, Germany, Hungary, Ukraine, and elsewhere would be appalled.

Those of us at the rally oppose Stephen Harper's latest maneuvers but the overwhelming majority of us would never make such an obscene comparison.

I know a lot of Tories. Many of whom are some of the nicest people I know. It's too bad their reputation will be marred by this event.

Shame.

Needless to say, the pic, prominently displaying a spelling error as well for the riffraff to mock, has been duly seeded on the right side of the blogosphere. Award-winning blogger Kate McMillan is on the job, spreading the hoax widely, although to be fair she might have been duped. (Turnabout is fair play.) The huffing and puffing from the Usual Suspects is, in any case, something to behold.

Similar signs were, reportedly, seen at other protest sites as well. I think we might be forgiven, at this point, for suspecting that the balaclava-clad Winnipeg infiltrators were not the only ringers in the festive Saturday crowds.

[H/t Scott Tribe and Canadian Sentinel]

UPDATE: Now there's a Facebook group, calling them out. Join!

"Rip Van Winkle"

That would be Mohamed Harkat, Ottawa resident and bailed security certificate detainee, who CSIS stubbornly insists is a "sleeper" agent for the bin Laden network. Given the length of time that his client has been in the country, and his apparent lack of suspicious activity for many years, lawyer Matt Webber was being forgiveably sarcastic.

All week, at a hearing to determine whether the security certificate against Harkat should be quashed, a federal court has heard testimony from John the Agent (his identity is protected).

John read books on the subject of terrorism to prepare him for what has been a gruelling cross-examination. He has reviewed what must be at least a five-foot shelf of documentary material. He's bright, and has been careful on the stand. But I suspect the outcome of this hearing is not in doubt, despite an interesting comment from the bench by the judge hearing the case, Simon Noël.

The judge seems to be scrupulously fair, and he has been scathing in the past about the reliability of CSIS. I suspect that he was sending that signal (about secret evidence concerning Harkat's time in Pakistan) to the defence team, to allow it to prepare a response.

In any case, this is how John's testimony has come under question during the past week:

• Meeting with Ahmed Said Khadr:
  
  John agreed there was no public information linking Khadr to terrorism at the time, and he was known to be a man who ran a legitimate charity once supported by the Canadian International Development Agency. John acknowledged that the meeting could have been an innocent one. Khadr's arrest for terrorism came much later. [emphasis added]
  
  
• Links with another figure, Ibn Khattab, in Pakistan:
  
  When he lived in Pakistan, Harkat is alleged by CSIS to have worked for Kattab. But, whatever the truth of this allegation, another judge, Richard Mosely, has already rejected CSIS' contention that Khattab was a terrorist in any case.
  
  
• Harkat's possession of a fake passport when entering Canada:
  
  Harkat, an Algerian national seeking refugee status, declared to immigration officials upon entry that his Saudi passport was a fake. As the defence points out, this is odd behaviour indeed for a sleeper.
  
  
• Harkat's behaviour in Ottawa:
  
  In the course of his work at a gas station and then as a pizza deliveryman, Harkat had several encounters with the Ottawa police, to whom he reported a robbery, thefts and one assault. The defence argues that sleepers, by virtue of their profession, lie low rather than making their presence continually known to local law enforcement.
  
  CSIS declares that Harkat carried out one mission as a sleeper, allegedly on behalf of Abu Zubaydah, described as a senior al-Qaeda lieutenant: he paid $1000 towards the immigration legal fees of Abu Messab Al Shehre, a man later deported to Saudi Arabia as a security risk. Harkat visited Al Shehre in the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre. As the defence notes, visitors there are logged in and out, and their actions monitored--again, such a visit was atypical for a sleeper.
  
  
• CSIS' use of questionable sources:
  
  Zubaydah, whose alleged importance to al-Qaeda is now in some dispute, was waterboarded 83 times by US officials. The suspect validity of his evidence had, I thought, already been acknowledged by Canadian officials. Judge Noël has stated, in any case, that he will not accept evidence obtained through torture.
  
  CSIS' own informants, meanwhile, seem to escape close scrutiny by the agency that utilizes them:
  
  Boxhall [a lawyer for Harkat] then pointed out that a critical source in the agency's case against Harkat had failed "all relevent questions" when issued the polygraph in 2002. [emphasis added]
  
  "You place great weight on the polygraph," Boxall suggested, asking how such a fact could be left out of the report that led to Harkat being arrested in 2002. He was released in 2006, but faced the most stringent bail conditions in Canadian history.
  
  "It should not have happened," the agent replied.
  
  
• Muddled timelines:
  
  Boxall zeroed in on a 2005 letter the Algerian government sent to Canada's foreign affairs department, detailing an alleged sojourn by Harkat in Afghanistan in 1991 -- information John acknowledged was inaccurate.
  
  ---
  
  Earlier in the day, "John" acknowledged he "muddled up" a timeline in previous testimony that put Harkat on a Toronto-bound road trip with high-profile Canadian al-Qaida operative Ahmed Said Khadr.
  
  "It’s not that I didn’t know the details. I simply muddled it when I was testifying on the stand," said the agent about incorrectly testifying in November 2008 that Khadr had already been arrested on terrorism charges when he took the van trip with Harkat.
  
  "John" said his error occurred to him a few days after his testimony but he didn't inform lawyers representing the federal immigration ministry, which is seeking Harkat’s deportation to his native Algeria.
  
  "It didn’t occur to me that anything else was required," "John" told Webber of correcting his testimony.

Whether Harkat is a sleeper, John conceded, is "a judgment call." "I could see there would be a difference of opinion," he said.

Indeed so. But Harkat himself awaits the opinion of the judge--for him, and for his spouse Sophie Lamarche, the only opinion that really counts.

"Canadians don't care." —Stephen Harper

Could have fooled me.

3,500 in Ottawa, 7,000 in Toronto, thousands more in Vancouver, 60 rallies across the country. Canada's very own democracy movement.



Trevor Strong of the Arrogant Worms: "As a good Canadian I'm most comfortable sitting on the fence. If I'm at a rally, something's gone horribly wrong."


Bloggers were there too.

UPDATE: David Akin eats crow.

Blog for choice: a matter of trust

What does "Trust Women" mean to me? That's easy in the pro-choice context. A pregnant woman has a better grip on her own circumstances than I do, or a judge, or Stockwell Day, or a priest, or the guy down the block, or even her husband or partner or boyfriend. And I, for one, trust those who actually have the required knowledge when they make decisions. So if a woman chooses to have a child, who am I to say no? And if she chooses not to, who am I to say no?

For anyone who believes that women are full-fledged, thinking human beings, trust is the default position.

We're actually pretty big on trust in Canada, even if it is sorely tested on occasion. And I'd say that if we can trust that woman-hating punk Jean-Guy Tremblay, who went to the Supreme Court in 1989 to try to prevent his girlfriend from obtaining an abortion, and has been criminally harassing and assaulting women ever since--then trusting women ought to be a slam-dunk.

Seventeen convictions he's had since 1981. Not a "dangerous offender," said the judge. Not a danger to "all women." Just the ones, it seems, who wander into view.

A man who assaults, harasses and forcibly confines women on multiple occasions--and was the "pro-life" poster boy twenty-one years ago for putting his partner through judicial hell--can be trusted to do the right thing. He still has time to turn his life around, said the judge. It's not as though he's ever committed a sexual offence. Narrowly construed, at least.

Yet trust, as it turns out, isn't nearly so simple where women themselves are concerned.

Women have apparently not earned the trust of nearly half of the Canadian public, who think that our health care system should cover abortion only in medical emergencies--or not at all. A medical procedure, in other words, should be denied because...women simply can't be trusted to make the right choice. Which is nearly always, of course, procreation.

So we need the state, argue the anti-statists, to tell women what to do, say the advocates of individualism, and if they won't, shriek the get-the-government-off-our-backs folks, then make them. Or, failing that, at least ensure that abortion is as difficult and expensive to obtain as possible.

We aren't really talking about choice here at all, of course. We're talking about its opposite: compulsory pregnancy. If you want the other, then here are some hoops and hurdles for you. Jump! Jump! And if you make it, here's the bill.

Abortion is legal in Canada--there has been no law against it since the Supreme Court struck down the last one in 1988. But that doesn't mean that all Canadian women have reasonable access to it. As reported by the feminist website section15.ca, some of our provinces are in direct violation of the Canada Health Act (which is meant to guarantee consistency of medical services across the country):

• New Brunswick will only cover the cost of an abortion if a woman has received approval from two doctors and if the procedure is performed in a hospital (but not in a clinic); procedures by family physicians are not covered. [The battle continues --ed.]
  

• There is no access to abortion in Prince Edward Island, no funded clinics in Manitoba, and no clinics at all in Saskatchewan.
  
  
• Similarly, women in northern Canada, which is made up mainly of Aboriginal communities, must often travel hundreds of kilometers to the nearest clinic. Whether abortion is funded or not, this distance often means women cannot go. Statistically, Aboriginal women experience significantly higher rates of sexual assault and domestic abuse than other populations.
  
  
• Access is limited in areas where procedures are only covered at hospitals, because fewer than one in five hospitals across the country offer abortions, most require a doctor’s referral (which can be difficult to obtain in more conservative areas), and hospitals generally offer little or no counseling. Moreover, many hospitals have long waiting lists – up to six weeks – but will not perform abortions after the first trimester.

There is obviously a systemic problem here. We've been in a stalemate, in fact, ever since Prime Minister Brian Mulroney tried to bring in a new abortion bill in 1988, draft legislation that met its end with a tied vote in the Senate. Judges, senators...wouldn't it be great if our elected officials did the right thing?

But they're in no hurry. The issue consumes enormous quantities of political fuel, and the outcome is never a certainty. Better to duck and cover, talk about EI reform or the economy, anything, anything at all, while Aboriginal women take those long sad bus rides into the city, and PEI women take the ferry to New Brunswick with a wad of bills in their purse and a story they hope will satisfy two doctors who will sit in judgment over them.

This is 2010, and here we are.

A combination of political inertia and the package of prejudice, fossilized religion and misogyny known as social conservatism remain solidly in the way of full reproductive choice for Canadian women. And trust is part of it--or rather, distrust, that lurking patriarchal paleo-notion that women are "the weaker sex," requiring protection and, more importantly, direction. In an important variation on this theme, the "pro-life" crowd sees women as mere vessels, incubators, soft procreation machines.

As I said at the beginning of this post, trust is, or should be, a given when it comes to a woman's right to make what I suspect is rarely an easy decision. Yet there is still so much troubling and widespread resistance, a blank refusal to concede that women have that right, the fundamental, unquestionable right, to decide their own reproductive futures. And this on-going social and political obstinacy has already caused, and is still causing, and will for the foreseeable future continue to cause, no end of real suffering and humiliation.

Will Canadian women someday be deemed more trustworthy than Jean-Guy Tremblay? Almost certainly. But, unfortunately for too many of them, not this year, or the next--or the one after that.

The best government that money can buy

...bought to you by the US Supreme Court.

[H/t A Creative Revolution]

Rights and Democracy: Board members strike back

Readers will remember a post I wrote recently about the current imbroglio at the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development.

The seven Board members in the thick of the controversy are David Matas, Aurel Braun, Jacques Gauthier, Marco Navarro Génie, Michael Van Pelt, Elliot Tepper and Brad Farquhar. As reported, staff members have, by letter, explicitly demanded the resignations of Braun, Gauthier and Tepper, for what they describe as on-going harassment and intimidation, not to mention racial profiling:

À l'interne, des membres du CA auraient demandé l'origine ethnique de plusieurs employés et s'ils parlaient arabe. «Ils estiment que l'organisme est trop pro-arabe, ce qui est ridicule. On fait du développement démocratique là où la situation l'exige. Mais il y a du harcèlement constant depuis quelques mois», souligne une source à l'interne.

[Internally, the Board members have asked about the ethnic origin of many employees and if they speak Arabic. "They think that the organization is too pro-Arab, which is ridiculous. We do democratic development there, as the situation demands. But there's been constant harassment for several months," an internal source emphasized.]

All seven of the Board members in question have now responded.They attempt to throw doubt upon the reported unanimity of their opposition amongst their staff, claiming that managers pressured their employees to sign the letter, and that not all of them did so. They have heard from concerned non-signatories, they claim, but no numbers are provided.

Certainly some welcome clarifications have now been offered: for example, the freezing of the late President's discretionary fund had the support of the President himself, while a new financial accountability framework was being put into place. The reported refusal to fund a project assisting rape victims in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is apparently erroneous: funds were indeed allocated, but there were "some adjustments to the staging of the project."

As I suspected, the central issue here is Middle East politics. And on that subject, the seven Board members reveal their own political parti pris. Here are the salient paragraphs:

[I]n February 2009, three questionable organizations were provided grants through discretionary funds which have had little to no board oversight. These organizations are Al Haq, headquartered in the West Bank, Al Mazan, headquartered in Gaza and BT’selem, headquartered in Israel. They were each granted $10,000.

Al Haq’s general director, Shawan Jabarin, has been denied exit visas by Israel and Jordan because of his ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP is a listed terrorist organization in Canada. In 2007, the Supreme Court of Israel rejected Mr. Jabarin’s petition to have his travel ban lifted because “he is an activist in a terrorist organization.” It should come as no surprise that the board reacted with shock when it found Mr. Jabarin’s own signature on the paperwork accepting this grant from Rights & Democracy.

Furthermore, two of the three named organizations are active in the lawfare movement, which is a strategy of abusing law to achieve military objectives — in this case, to punish Israel for anti-terror operations. Al Haq has even pursued a strategy of lawfare in Canada, where it has backed the use of the courts to harass Canadian companies based in Quebec which have business operations in Israel.

Shawan Jabarin is a respected human rights worker in Ramallah, who has been harassed by Israeli authorities since 2006. He is accused by the Board members of having "ties" to a listed terrorist organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. ("Is linked to" is my favourite non-specific innuendo, followed by "associated with," but "ties" is effective as well.)

Jabarin himself strongly denies any such "ties," but the guilty always protest their innocence, right? After all, the Supreme Court of Israel says otherwise, and that's good enough for the Board members.

But the Court in question, it turns out, heard secret evidence ex parte, and upheld a travel ban on Jabarin, preventing him from receiving, on his organization's behalf, a prestigious human rights prize from the Netherlands last year. Ten Israeli human rights groups were less than impressed, and wrote to then-Defence Minister Ehud Barak to protest:

The blatant blow to the freedom of movement of one of the best-known human rights activists in the West Bank is contrary to the basic principles of a state that is governed by the rule of law.

Jabarin himself asked: "How can it be that my stay in the Netherlands constitutes a higher security threat than my being in Ramallah?" Good question.

So try to follow the chain here: secret evidence was delivered to a court in Israel, without the opportunity for an accused person to respond, much like the now-discredited CSIS evidence in two recent security certificate cases right here at home. The court ruled in favour of denying the man an exit visa to collect a human rights prize. And for the seven Board members, this was proof of guilt, and a grant to his human rights organization was accordingly repudiated.

We then learn that two of the "questionable" organizations that received grants from the President before his discretionary account was frozen have been going to court to settle issues of concern to them. Terrorism is bad enough: but now these wily Palestinians are pursuing legal remedies! "Lawfare," the seven Board members call this. But perhaps we should let the courts, and not the seven Board members, decide whether the legal cases in question have merit or not.

Never mind. The two organizations Al-Haq and Al Mezan have suitably Arabic-sounding names, and they're critical of Israel. Case closed.

But wait. There's a third "questionable" organization on the list: BT'selem, an Israeli human rights group. At this point the collective mask of the seven Board members slips.

There are no terrorist "ties" here: in fact, the organization is merely named by the Board members in classic McCarthyist fashion, and then never mentioned again. The very first commenter on their National Post piece is not slow to see what's going on:

The inclusion of B'Tselem in a list of groups called "questionable" and associated with the word "appalled" is a shameful smear. B'Tselem is a mostly Jewish organization of Israeli human rights advocates, and one of the beacons of democracy in the region. B'Tselem members face harassment and threats daily; it is an example of non-partisan courage.

Readers may quickly assure themselves with a Google search that B'Tselem is indeed a respectable human rights organization, painstakingly collecting data, distributing cameras in the West Bank to record human rights abuses, lobbying members of the Knesset (Israel's parliament), and so on.

No doubt it is a thorn in the side to the settlers and the Israel Defence Forces who would prefer not to be embarrassed by such publicity. Assuredly it has been a pain in the neck for various Israeli governments. Its data and methods have certainly been debated by organizations with their own right-wing agendas, like CAMERA and NGO Monitor. But B'Tselem is a prominent mainstream advocacy organization within Israel, and enjoys considerable international credibility.

By including B'Tselem in their mix of "questionable" organizations, the seven Board members reveal nothing less than crass partisanship on behalf of official Israeli state policy. It is their right, of course, to hold strong political opinions. But is acting upon them in this narrow fashion, throwing up clouds of innuendo and unsubstantiated accusations and smears, appropriate conduct for governing members of a non-partisan institution created by, funded by and accountable to Parliament?

UPDATE: (January 22) Paul Wells weighs in on destructive Board member hi-jinks and the underlying politics. [H/t Antonia]

Just a data point on root canals!

Shortly into the new year, I felt some funny pains in my jaw. A couple of emergency trips to my very excellent dentist shortly revealed that I needed a root canal! I was scheduled for one very quickly, but that was enough for me to hear every story about bad root canals that you ever could (top prize goes to my daughter's flute teacher).

Now I could be the exception, but I have to say that my experience was nothing but good! The only negative was that the procedure took a little longer than scheduled. However during it I felt little to no pain at all - far less than any other dental procedure I have had (including cleanings). After, my dentist gave me a prescription for pain killers that are rated for moderate to severe postoperative pain but I never bothered to get it filled. I did take two Tylenol that night, but that was all.

There were a couple of factors that might have helped my case. First, my dentist is really very good. Second, I was put on antibiotics right away and from what I have read and the stories I have heard, this is actually critical. The more the infection can be brought under control, the more effective the freezing will be.

Anyway, with all the bad stories I heard before my root canal (and some of the stories really do make me shudder) I thought I would relate my very positive experience. If you ever need a root canal I hope your experience is as good as mine.

A tough message for Obama

...and I hope he receives it.

We have minority governments in Canada that govern like majorities. Obama had--and still has--a legislature with a rock-solid majority of Democrats in both houses, but he's governed as though his party were in the minority. Yes, yes, I know there's a yawning gulf between the Canadian system and his own. But am I wrong?

Obama has reached across the aisle ever since he was elected. Why? To what end? His hands have been clawed every time he's done so. He looks weak and wavery to his enemies, but, even more important, he looks the same way to his own troops.

If he were a blogger, he'd be running his posts past Matt Drudge for approval.

Obama was sent an ultimatum by the electors in one of the most liberal states in the union. It wasn't: please compromise more. It wasn't: don't forget to track down all the nuances before you make the slightest move.

We wanted accessible healthcare, they said. You handed the legislative process over to a gaggle of conservatives, and ended up with two patchwork bills that promise a windfall for insurance companies.

We wanted an end to ceaseless war that drains our resources and kills our young men and women, they said. It's not stopping terrorism. But you sent a whack more troops off to Afghanistan instead--clutching the Nobel Peace Prize as you did so.

We wanted no more torture and extra-Constitutional measures and atrocities, if only because our country is getting a black eye over them. But Guantanamo is still there, a year after you took office. Prisoners may have been murdered there, and the cover-up is happening on your watch. The Blackwater killers in Iraq got off after your Justice Department threw the case. And you have embraced the same notion of Executive privilege that shielded your predecessor from Constitutional restraints.

We wanted a recovering economy and appropriate punishment for the Wall Street malefactors who did our country infinitely more harm than the terrorists. Instead, 2009 was the Year of the Bonus for the very people that got us into the recession in the first place. Bonuses that we effectively paid for ourselves with bailout money.

We wanted change. We got the same old, same old, same old, same old.

Yes, we're pissed off enough to put a homophobic Cosmo nudie with a taste for waterboarding into the Senate. Did that get your attention?

Good.

Now, for crying out loud, do what we sent you to the White House for.

So what if the other side can filibuster now? Big deal. Abolish the filibuster with a simple majority vote. It's high time. For goodness sake, stop cowering and wringing your hands.

So the Teabaggers and talkshow barbarians are on your case? Here's a thought: pay no attention. It's not your job to medicate them.

Use your majorities. Act like a doggone President. It's not too late, but it's going to be by the Fall. Don't try to pacify the Republicans: fight them. Stop saying "Nice doggie" to that bunch of rabid wolves.

Don't play to the centre. There's no political there there. What was it some blogger once said? "Pleasing your enemies does not turn them into friends." Except that you aren't pleasing either your enemies or your friends. Stop trying! Choose!

******

I wish Obama were a tenth the radical his nutbar antagonists claim he is. Instead, as it turns out, he's just Michael Ignatieff South. And the poorest Americans, not to mention struggling middle-class Americans, are carrying his failures on their backs, and too many are cracking under the strain, wondering what the hell went wrong.

But the bankers, the Wall Street gamblers--the whole of corporate America is even now saying, "Yes we can!" And Rush Limbaugh is cackling: "See? He is failing! The audacity of hope, my friends!"

Get back in the ring, Mr. President. And this time land a punch or two, instead of trying to hug the other guy. That makes your fans unhappy. Besides, the shot to the head you just received should let you know that he's not looking to hug you back.

Code Blue!

Help resuscitate Canadian democracy on Saturday. Join the cross-country rally closest to you.

A few wise tips from a No-Proguer:

* Stay peaceful. There is no reason not to be peaceful. As a matter of fact any violence will destroy the legitimate message.

* Keep the message simple and factual. We are against the Prime Minister abusing their powers to avoid legitimate questioning. We want our MP’s to actually be doing their job.

* Don’t BS the public. We know what is wrong. Don’t push the message too far. Stick to the simple points.

* Have fun. Your simple presence proves the point. Enjoy it, and you will get your point across.

And if I might add something: watch the contents of your signs, folks. And spell your messages correctly!

For those of you in the National Capital Region, see you on the Hill. And let's have a beer or three at D'arcy's afterwards.

Meanwhile, back in the Middle East's "only Western-style democracy"

...criticizing Israeli government policy is fast becoming illegal.

Israel is arresting a growing number of prominent opponents to its policies toward the Palestinians, say critics who are accusing the government of trying to crush legitimate dissent.

In the most high-profile case yet, Jerusalem police detained the head of a leading Israeli human rights group during a vigil against the eviction of Palestinian families whose homes were taken by Jewish settlers.

Since the summer, dozens of Palestinian and Israeli activists have been picked up, including those organizing weekly protests against Israel's West Bank separation barrier as well as others advocating international boycotts of Israeli goods.

Anyone doubting that there are legitimate concerns with respect to the current treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government, military and West Bank colonists should check out the dismal, eye-opening reports by the Israeli B'Tselem human rights organization. One hopes that it is not next on the list.

And life for the Fourth Estate over there is no bed of roses either:

The English Desk at Ma'an News Agency, the largest independent news network in the Palestinian territories, is deeply concerned that its chief editor, Jared Malsin, an American citizen [and graduate of Yale University], was detained on Tuesday afternoon upon arriving at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv. He is slated for imminent deportation.

In what can only be explained as a retaliatory measure for Malsin's reporting on Palestine, his long-term girlfriend, Faith Rowold, a two-year, registered volunteer with the Lutheran Church in Jerusalem, was also seized and placed in a holding cell pending deportation. Israeli security agents have prevented the couple from making calls, and lied to concerned American consular staff, denying that the two were even being held.

While the US Embassy is protesting both incidents, and is in constant contact with our staff on the ground, diplomatic officials say that there is little they can do when Israel cites "security reasons" for the denial of entry. Meanwhile, Israeli security officials have quietly expressed concern to Ma’an over this latest abuse of power by authorities at the Interior Ministry, skeptical that the professional journalist they know could be deemed a threat.

Ma'an News Agency has recently come under fire (metaphorical, as yet) from Hamas. One might think that would be a badge of honour among those who oppose Islamist fundamentalism. But the problem with independent news agencies is--their independence.

Democracy and the freedoms associated with it are simply too inconvenient for governments at times, even elected ones. Besides, "annexation" and "democracy" don't exactly coexist peacefully. But in fairness to Israel, parliamentless Canada is also a "Western-style democracy," presently ruled by an autocrat who found Parliament too destabilizing. Perhaps we need to take a closer look at that purr-term. Could it be--an oxymoron?

Kate McGarrigle 1946-2010

I remember Kate and Anna when they first started to be known--my ex and I took in a haunting Ottawa concert back in the 1970s. The sisters' harmonies were magical. One song keeps coming back:




[H/t Politics for the People]

Harkat hearing and classic media bias--Update: the Citizen's memory hole

This is how Andrew Duffy of the Ottawa Citizen slants the news, presumably with the collaboration of his editor:

Mohamed Harkat, the Ottawa man accused of being an al-Qaida sleeper agent, ran a guest house in the early 1990s in Peshawar, Pakistan that was used by "mujahedeen (holy warriors) and other extremists on their way to and from training camps in Afghanistan," according to new information from CSIS.

Harkat, 41, who was known as Abu Muslim, was also an "active jihadist" in Peshawar in the service of Ibn al Khattab, who was considered a terrorist.

The information was released in a hearing in Federal Court on Monday to determine if the government was right to detain Harkat five years ago under a security certificate. The former pizza delivery man simply wants to clear his name. [emphases added]

No subtlety here. Just call an allegation "information," and print it as uncontested fact that Harkat was an "active jihadist" -- and no, the quotation marks won't save you.

The judge in the case, Simon Noël, has taken a rather more sceptical view of similar CSIS claims in the past, going to far as to use words like "prevarication." Lucky for Harkat that he's being heard by a real judge. If he'd been in front of the Ottawa Citizen editorial board instead of the Federal Court, he'd probably already be hanging from a lamppost.

UPDATE: As some commenters have noted, the Citizen has deep-sixed the story and the URL points now to another article. Luckily I snagged a screenshot of the original Duffy piece:

And here's an un-bylined version. This Google page indicates that the original story was written by Duffy, but the URL provided also points to the revised story by another author. Curiouser and curiouser.

Googlegate debunked?

We've all heard the meme by now: type "Christianity is" into Google, and you get a raft of possibilities from Google Suggest. Ditto for "Judaism is" and "Christianity is" and "Buddhism is."

But nothing for "Islam is."

Case closed, right? Google dhimmitude established for all time? Now even the Globe & Mail has bought into this, not to mention the Usual Suspects. (Go look for yourselves: the wingnuts are even now howling in the twilight.)

My libertarian friend Mike Brock thought he'd check this out. He tried a few more entries.

"Europeans are" -- scores of links. "Americans are" -- no links.

"Mormons are" -- links aplenty. "Jews are" -- nada.

Hmmm. Then one of Mike's readers asked us to try "Obama is."



Whew. If there's a liberal conspiracy going on at "Don't Be Evil" headquarters, the Learned Elders of Google obviously missed that one.

46,619 101,455 150,143 200,000 members!

...of the Facebook group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament.

And, er, counting.



UPDATE: (@8:52 pm) 47, 558. That's 939 new members in the last 21 minutes.

UPPERDATE: (January 6) 65, 573 @2:06 pm.

UPPESTDATE: (January 8) 101,455 @7:13 am.

EVEN MORE UPPEST: (January 11) 150,143 @ 9:31 am.

AND...(January 17) 200,000! @7:33 pm.

Green blues

Maybe it's the onset of the Grumpy Old Man syndrome, but Ottawa's new Green Bin program is giving me the pip.

Friends have excitedly asked me if I have received one, and if I'm using it, and in response I'm starting to sound like those nutbars who idle their SUVs on Earth Day. I'm planning, in fact, to repurpose the city's gift (which will actually cost me a chunk in taxes) as a planter. But I will pay the weekly costs of green garbage pickup regardless, which, the city soothingly assures us, will be "less than the cost of a latte."

Some readers might be surprised to learn that I don't drink--or is it "sip?"--latte. But I'd be prepared to start doing so in protest. Go figure out the politics of that one.

I have a small kitchen, and I keep putting off the day when the necessary renovations will be done. In it, I have a standard scraps bin that conveniently takes about a week to fill. Everything goes in there: organics, glass (mostly from broken wine vessels), plastic, and the contents of wastebaskets around the house on garbage day. That gets put into an animal-savaged wheeled container that I paid for, and dragged to the curb.

I do use my recycling boxes, mind you. Paper every second week, ditto for various glass and plastic containers. I believe in recycling, even if (as I suspect) some of it may end up in landfills in China--which was apparently where "recycled" styrofoam went a few years ago, until the city stopped collecting it. I haven't figured out which group is assigned to the black box or the blue box respectively, but the stuff does get picked up.

But now there is a new box in the neighbourhood. Two, actually. I am supposed to collect acceptable organic scraps in a small beige jobbie that I am expected to find room for in my kitchen (maybe stack it on the other bin?), and then empty that from time to time into the larger green bin outside.

It doesn't end there, not by a long shot. Bin liners are needed for both bins, which can be purchased for the usual reasonable price. Alternatively, I am invited to wrap the kitchen waste in newspaper and place those packages in the green one. In case we can't figure out how to do that, we are offered instructions in "organic origami."





















Remember when we just, you know, threw things out? Our ancestors used to toss their garbage on the village midden. Now we are expected to sort, wrap and box our various house wastes, do this every week, and pay for the privilege.

Mark my words, we'll be packaging up our own wastes next. Or paying more taxes for one of these things:





















Not that I want to give the city any ideas.

We are provided an extensive list of what's allowed in the bin. Only plastics and dog poop are explicitly excluded. Kitty litter is permitted. So are "food-soiled pizza boxes," which, we are now told, "should not go in [the] black bin." That must refer to the paper recycling bin. I've been dutifully putting said boxes out with the rest of my paper waste for years. It's always picked up. Now I might be facing a fine or something. Those boxes don't, by the way, crumple easily.

Untreated wood scraps are allowed, but they are not to exceed "four inches in any dimension." What's that in centimetres, please?

Nothing metal is on the list of included items. Is everything not explicitly listed, forbidden? Old socks? Saran wrap? Pork bones are on the list: what about beef, fish and chicken bones?

All of the approved waste, in any case, will go to a "composting facility." That's not a bad aim, of course, although the stuff does end up composting in a landfill as well. But what if we were to come at this in a different way? What about excluding only plastic, glass and metal from the regular pickup, and being permitted to put all of the former in the regular recycling boxes? (Now only glass, plastic and metal containers are permitted--and "clean foil.") And then divert the regular pickup to the composting plant?

Makes too much sense, I guess.

Meanwhile, those folks rifling through your numerous coloured bins? They haven't mistaken you for a rock star, never fear. A small army of inspectors will be needed to do random searches and fine the offenders. "Sorry, sir, but your blue-box foil is soiled. And we found a popsicle stick in the green bin. Exceeds the size limit."

Time for a latte. Or maybe a stiff Scotch.

UPDATE: And we had a solution!

Mayor Larry O'Brien said this week that testing of the Plasco plant is nearly complete and the city is only weeks from being able to sign a contract for a plant that will turn garbage into electricity without emissions. Construction of the plant will take two years.

The Plasco plant could turn the organic waste in our ordinary garbage, now being diverted to the Green Bins, into useable energy. How green is that? Instead, Ottawans are now on the hook for two programs instead of one. City columnist Randall Denley nails it.

[H/t RGB, b/c]

Sunday clairvoyance

"The body of the victim, who was living with his partner in Ottawa, was discovered Thursday morning by a passerby inside a suitcase on the streets of Montreal."

Rush Limbaugh's political cesspit

Popular far-right demagogue Rush Limbaugh sees everything--EVERYTHING--in black and white, and I'm talking "race" here. A kid-fight can't take place on a schoolbus without the Rushbo seeing a racial angle in it. And you can't take presidential action on Haiti (if you happen to be a Black president, that is) without it being allegedly motivated by skin-colour.

To put it in this political barbarian's own terms, "They'll use this to burnish, shall we say, their credibility with the black community, both the light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made to order for him."

By "light-skinned," he presumably means "Halfrican-American."

Limbaugh, of course, has been racist to the core since his debut days in the early 1970s, when he told a Black caller to "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back." But the election of a Black president has sent his Oxycontin-and-Viagra-riddled body over the edge. As Think Progress documents, his Obama discourse is racialized to the hilt:

On his radio show in March, Limbaugh said Obama "has a chip on his shoulder, and his wife does too, and they are some angry people." Limbaugh has also chastised people for being afraid to "criticize the little black man-child", referred to Obama as "Barack the Magic Negro," complained that he “disowned his white half” and warned that Obama is of "Arab-African" descent. Nevertheless, Limbaugh says race is not an issue for him.

That's the wider context for his recent remarks about Obama's prompt and constructive reaction to the Haiti tragedy--as well as for his strong suggestion that charity for the Haitians be withheld. Why help out mud people? Not that he'd dare use a term like that publicly, of course--at least not yet.

If Limbaugh were just another tobacco-chewing bigot with a white hood twisting hemp in his hands in the back of a pick-up truck, he could be easily dismissed. But, as it happens, he has an army of literally millions of like-minded admirers who hang on his every word. They're making him fat and rich beyond the wildest imaginings of his distant predecessors in this game, Father Charles Coughlin and Gerald L. K. Smith. And not all of his dittoheads, alas, live south of the border.

We know very well what might have been the response from these same knuckle-dragging yahoos had Obama flubbed the Haitian crisis as his predecessor did with the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. But a Black president, in their sick and limited little minds, can, almost by definition, do no right.

Indeed, the lunatic Birther was quite open about his hope that the uppity Kenyan would fail. It is obviously galling him and his legions of yokels beyond endurance that Obama, for all his faults, is still standing. Indeed, the president is hanging in there, and at least from time to time rising to the occasion. So be prepared for ever more hysterical racist commentary from Limbaugh and his political co-religionists, and their Teabagger acolytes, as political discourse in the US continues to plumb new depths. And let's hope against hope that it can't happen here.

Friday words

Two: "loyalty" and "plurality."

The Globe & Mail runs a letter today from a James C. Mullan, of Toronto, which I quote:

An Irish immigrant, I understand attachment to "home." I also understand loyalty to, and responsibility toward, one's adopted country, especially in those holding office in that country. By that standard, Governor-General Michaëlle Jean's emotional TV performance was a disgrace. She put her country of origin before the country in which she holds office and evoked emotion unbecoming in the Queen's representative.

On a personal note, I will be contributing to help Haiti recover from yet another terrible natural disaster.

Somehow Jean's expression of grief for the plight of Haitians is taken to mean putting Haiti (her birthplace) before Canada. The spatial metaphor conveys a narrow, linear notion of loyalty that does not permit the expression of affinity for any country or its people other than one's adopted one. Memories of our countries of origin may be suitably packaged into cooking, folk dances, green beer on St. Patrick's Day and the like, but that cultural reification--a form of containment, in fact--is the important thing.

Canadians, thus far, apparently including Mr. Mullan, have shown extraordinary generosity towards the stricken people of Haiti, and this outpouring cannot be said to be emotionless. It would appear that only the Governor-General, who has a personal connection with Haiti and who has just lost friends and relatives there, is expected to remain stiffly aloof, waving a maple-leaf flag. Ironically, she would be remarkably out of step with her fellow-citizens by so doing.

The difficulty with the signifier "loyalty," in any case, is that it conveys many conflicting things. To the "my country right or wrong" hyper-patriot, loyalty means blind, unquestioning obedience and conformity. To the more humane, the question is perhaps not so much what loyalty is, but where it is aimed. Some would direct it to the state, the government, the nation; others to humanity in general, or to ideas.

Buried in the concept is the sense that one's loyalty must not be plural. Where a conflict of loyalties arises, of course, ethical dilemmas present themselves. But I have never understood the perceived problem with "divided" or multiple loyalties where such conflicts are not in evidence. It is held to be an anti-Semitic canard to remark that members of the Jewish community have an affinity for Israel, for example, but I would be surprised if they did not, just as Tamil-Canadians obviously cared enough about the old country to mount major protests on Canadian city streets. I see no reason whatsoever to criticize our G-G for her human, as well as humane, response to the Haitian tragedy. It's a response that the world ideally should share.

But hold on a minute! Didn't that same Governor-General give up her French citizenship when she assumed office?

The Haitian-born Jean said it would have felt "kind of strange" to remain a French national, given the duties she will be assuming, including the title of commander-in-chief of the Canadian Forces.

"In light of the responsibilities related to the function of the Governor General of Canada and commander-in-chief of the Canadian Forces, I have decided to renounce the French citizenship that I acquired for family reasons in 2004," Jean wrote in her statement.

She said that French authorities have accepted her request to give up her citizenship in that country.

Jean's decision came despite earlier assurances from a French embassy spokesperson that she wouldn't have to give up her dual citizenship to assume the post.

The Official Opposition applauded Jean's decision.

"I welcome the news. I think most Canadians do," said Conservative Deputy Leader Peter MacKay. "I think it shows Mme. Jean wants to get off on the right foot and make a good impression."

John Aimers, chairman of the Monarchist League of Canada, said Jean's move proves that she's a Canadian first.

Although the symbolism of having dual citizenship struck many Canadians as unfortunate, he said, "I think anybody who knows Mme. Jean would know that it was for family reasons, to give her daughter the advantage of dual citizenship and to support her husband. That's a natural thing in a marriage."

"But when you're going to be representing the head of state and carrying out functions in the name of Canada," added Aimers in an interview with CTV News, "any ambiguity that can be removed is only a good thing. And people will salute Mme. Jean for having done that." [emphases added]

Now, we are not at war with France. We enjoy excellent relations with that country, in fact, and have for decades. Yet the idea of dual citizenship, conveying the notion of dual loyalties, is here shrouded with negative connotations--it's strange and ambiguous and unfortunate.

To use the academic lingo, we need to interrogate the construct of loyalty. At present, it seems to constitute a barrier between human beings, a source of division rather than the solidarity that it allegedly promotes.

Turning now to "plurality," a particularly sniffy editorial in the Globe also caught my eye this morning. The International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development has been in the news recently. Stressed beyond endurance by the dysfunctionality of the Centre's Board, apparently precipitated by some recent Harper appointments, the President died a few days ago of a heart attack.

The entire staff--management and labour--has signed a letter calling for the resignation of three individuals, including the Board Chair. The employees complain of constant harassment, ideological snooping and racial profiling. The late President has allegedly been subjected to a relentless, vindictive campaign. The last few months have seen continual disruption, sounding suspiciously like a scenario from the Conservative playbook for sabotaging parliamentary committees. Two distinguished foreign appointees to the Board have walked out in protest.

The anonymous Globe editorialist's response? The government has a "right to appoint people with divergent views to the boards of federally-funded organizations without such actions being construed as part of a nefarious conspiracy." The Centre is at fault, supposedly, for not handling a "plurality of opinions" with "aplomb." Then this:

The litmus test for appointees should be their qualifications to serve, not whether they support the status quo opinion of the board. Conservative appointees who hold PhDs in international relations and practice international human rights law are qualified to serve. Their differences of opinion should have led to a healthy and vigorous debate, not outrage because they fall outside a preconceived consensus.

And here is the smarmy final paragraph:

If organizations wish to be free of divergent views, views that nonetheless are part of the broad Canadian discourse, they should cut ties with the government and raise their own funds, thereby maintaining control over future board appointments. Otherwise they must accept appointees whose ideas may be different from their own.

There is enough straw in all this to threaten a major conflagration. The suggestion is that the trouble was caused by incumbents unused to having their ideas challenged, as though they formed some kind of monolith before the new arrivals, and who wanted to be "free of divergent views." But there is no evidence of this in any reports that I have seen to date. And the fact that the entire staff is up in arms about harassment indicates that far more is going on here than differences of opinion at the Board level.

The suggestion that the Centre might consider cutting ties with government indicates a level of fatuousness not easily achieved even by newspaper editorial writers. The Centre is more than a "federally-funded organization." It is, in fact, an arms-length government body, created in 1988 by Brian Mulroney. It is legally required to report to Parliament annually. The government, under the Act that established the Centre, appoints ten of the thirteen Board members. The Centre could no more legally "cut ties with the government" than could the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. To attempt such a thing would be a remarkable case of lèse majesté.

Plurality of opinion is obviously something to be desired. But as we bloggers know full well, there is a difference between spirited, even heated, discussion, and abusive, divisive behaviour. To blame the less recent members of the Board for what has transpired, and to ignore the plea of the Centre's staff for an end to what they unanimously regard as months of on-going harassment, is to be somewhat less than candid--in fact, disingenuous. "Plurality" does not entail the meek acceptance of disruption, incivility and persecution. But in this case the word has been misused to defend, at least in effect, precisely that.