Seven months after Steve and Barry signed off on Beyond the Border last year, agreeing to improve cross-border investigations and share more info on Canadian travelers with Homeland Security, US AG Eric Holder explained to the Northern Border Summit that while Canada and the US already had an "excellent relationship" on  "cooperation in criminal investigations and prosecutions", " certain sentencing laws – and information sharing policies and practices – should be updated." Uh-oh, I wrote at the time, here comes Operation Doobie - the source of Steve's hardon …
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In 1973 the federal LeDain Commission called for the end of marijuana prohibition, and since then public opinion polls show a majority of Canadians of all ages and political stripes from right across the country agree.How we doin' with that?In 2010, nearly four decades later, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police handed Canadian pot activist Marc Emery over to the entirely discredited US War on Drugs machine to serve a five year prison sentence in Mississippi for selling seeds through the mail in Canada.According to StatsCan, over 75,000 Canadians were busted for pot last year (56,870 …
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Why this matters in Canada : Michael Geist :Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, WordPress, and BoingBoing, will go dark tomorrow to protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).My blog will join the protest by going dark tomorrow. While there is little that Canadians can do to influence U.S. legislation, there are many reasons why I think it is important for Canadians to participate.First, the SOPA provisions are designed to have an extra-territorial effect that manifests itself particularly strongly in Canada. As I discussed in a column last …
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From Matt Price @ HuffPost, who in turn credits Deep Climate and DeSmogBlog for the researchMeanwhile, about that "foreign money" and "foreign special interest groups" that Steve and Joe are so worried will influence what should be a purely Canadian decision on the Enbridge Northern Gateway project : Enbridge would like you to know that only its Chair and 6 out of 12 of its directors are American.. …
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Two Brazilians who have never even heard of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway tarsands-to-tankers pipeline appear to have been signed up as applicants to speak at the hearings. A Calgary Herald editor confirmed their applications were fake by simply pulling their names off the National Energy Board list, phoning them up in Brazil, and asking them.And right about now I'm guessing you're remembering Kory Teneycke and the Snuffaluffagus hoax.On Sept 3 2010, former Harper director of communications Kory Teneycke was striving to get his dream of a Fox News North up and running in Canada just …
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Tonight on As It Happens, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver continued on with his rant published in today's G&M against the "foreign special interest groups" and "jet-setting celebrities" that use "a quintessential American approach" to "hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.""The system is broken," he wrote. "It is an urgent matter of Canada's national interest.""Canada's national interest" here being the proposed Enbridge tarsands project and the Cons need to derail the shitstorm of protest coming down the pike at them …
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G&M : 'Foreign money' could gum up pipeline approval, Harper warns"Stephen Harper is warning about the possibility that hearings into Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline will be "hijacked" by foreign interests. The Prime Minister is threatening to prevent foreign environmental interests from delaying the approval of a pipeline that would take bitumen from the Alberta oil sands to the West Coast for shipment to Asian markets."Ok then, let's have a look at some of those 'foreign interests' which have applied for intervenor status at the Enbridge hearings due to start in two days, …
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[Tuesday update below]Campaign Research client and House Speaker Andrew Scheer ruled it "reprehensible" while Campaign Research client and Con House Leader Peter Van Loan defended it as "vital free speech", but Campaign Research cofounder Nick Kouvalis put it best when he described his firm's now infamous phone calls to Lib MP Irwin Cotler's constituents :  “We’re in the business of getting Conservatives elected and ending Liberal careers. We’re good at it.”Since 2003. For 39 Conservative candidates in the last federal election alone.Kouvalis, who managed …
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Rabble : Compare and contrast: Those Attawapiskat numbers vs. Toronto numbers. …
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The European Monetary Unionwas born of countries pegging theirexchange rate to Germany's so all countries would have the same inflation rate of2 %. The EMU gave those countries a formal voice.The plan was to have each European country’s wages rise inline with their own productivity plus 2%, ie living according to your means– not above it, not below it.Just before the euro was implemented, Germany cut wages tobring down unemployment, deviatingdownward from the agreed-upon 2%, resulting in the beggaring of all itsneighbours by making German products cheaper and wiping out its EMU …
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In this week's episode, Steve lays a cunning trap for Barry. In exchange for agreeing to pass travel and "informal" info about Canadians on to Homeland Security, Steve gets Barry to promise to maybe match $1-billion in Canadian taxpayer dollars to fund some pilot projects sometime in the future that will principally benefit the 40% of Canada-US corporations that rely on a cross-border supply chain. Will Barry take the bait?Well you can clearly see the advantage to Canada here. If US security dudes are openly operating in Canada, never again will the RCMP suffer the …
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"I'll see your liar, liar, pants-on-fire," the Honorable Minister Peter MacKay told the House of Commons yesterday, "and raise you an easy peasy lemon squeezy.""Neener, neener," added Steve. …
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Steve very unhappy about Attawapiskat housing crisis and "missing" dough :"This government has spent some $90 million since coming to office just on Attawapiskat," he told the Commons on Tuesday. "That's over $50,000 for every man, woman and child in the community."Yeah, Steve, it must be their own fault they're living in tents and sheds without electricity or running water or indoor plumbing. Better punish them for embarrassing you. And how's that school coming along after 10 years? Ah - next year, is it?But according to Aaron Wherry's breakdown of the figures, the housing budget is …
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Under this PM the state is everywhereIndustry Canada documents show 'Harperization' of government communicationsHarperized : Rebranding the federal governmentThe Politics of DestructionPM Harper takes communications strategy to new levelA Convenient Anti-Semitism.Given the final word at the end of CBC's Harperized debate on today's The Current linked above, Con MP Dean Del Mastro stated :"People at home are not concerned about this.". …
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In response to media reports that CSIS had been complicit in the detention of Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik in Sudan, outgoing CSIS director Jim Judd requested that CSIS watchdog and review panel, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, "investigate and report on the performance of the Service’s [CSIS's] duties and functions with respect to the case of Abousofian Abdelrazik at the earliest opportunity". That was in March 2009.Three months later Federal Court Justice Russel Zinn ruled that CSIS was indeed "complicit in the detention" of Abdelrazik in …
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The JIG is up. An RCMP 'joint intelligence group' - comprised of federal, provincial and municipal police - infiltrated activist groups prior to the G20 and Vancouver Olympics in what they call "one of the largest domestic intelligence operations in Canadian history".Constable Bindo Showan of the Ontario Provincial Police, one of the two principal undercover Ontario spies, is a stunning example of their intelligence at work.Earlier this fall, Showan told the court about how he attended a meeting prior to the Toronto summit. There, a protest-planning …
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Canada, the US and the UK announced sanctions against Iran today :"in an effort to pressure Tehran to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program. The British announced the first measures, declaring they would cut off all financial ties with Iranian banks to stem the flow of funds for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs."Although Haaretz reported this wee additional morsel about slightly more selective US sanctions :"One U.S. official told ABC that Iran’s Central Bank and oil and gas sector would not be targeted in this new round of sanctions out of fear that these measures would lead …
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As appalling as the first few seconds of this video are - UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike casually walking along a line of seated students and pepper-spraying them point blank in the face - it's worth watching to the end to see how brilliantly the students handle it.Human microphone : "Mike check ...  mike check .... We are willing ... to give you a brief moment ... of peace ... so that you may take your weapons ... and our friends ... and go. ... Please do not return ... We are giving you a moment of peace ... We are giving you a moment of peace ... You can go ... and we will not follow …
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Actual Harper quote : "I remain optimistic that the project will eventually go ahead because it makes eminent sense."I'm surprised that TransCanada's forays into eminent domain -  a corporations' state-sanctioned right to expropriate private property for the public good - and you're not fooling us with that jobs, jobs, jobs crap, btw - has not made more of a splash with the property rights crowd up here. It certainly was the key to opposition to the pipeline south of the border.NYTimes, one month ago :A Canadian company (sic) has been threatening to confiscate private land from South …
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Ever since Patrick Muttart left the PMO war room under a cloud back in April for sending a photo of an Iggy look-alike posing in full combat gear in Kuwait to SunNews during a Canadian election while working for a US PR firm, Steve has been struggling along without a proper planning director.Beginning next month, fresh from his fabulously successful stint promoting the Keystone XL tarsands pipeline as the "no-brainer" ethical oil alternative to 'conflict oil', Ethical Oilster Alykhan Velshi will be in charge of planning new things for Steve. From an intern at …
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Former U.S. ambassador to Canada David Wilkins calls it "catastrophic", FinMin Flaherty said "the delay may kill the project" so Canada will look into sending our oil to China via BC instead, and TransCanada Corp is "deeply disappointed". So goes the official reaction to the US State Dept decision to delay Keystone XL for further examination.But the vast majority of comments from the public under these news stories boil down to this : Why doesn't Canada do its own tarsands refining? Why isn't Canada building its own refineries and keeping the jobs here rather than just shipping the raw …
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Telegraph : Thousands of U.S. warplanes, ships and missiles contain fake electronic components from China, leaving them open to malfunction, according to a US Senate committee.In total, the committee said it had found more than a million fake parts had made their way into warplanes such as the Boeing C-17 transport jet and the Lockheed Martin C-130J "Super Hercules".... each of which Canada has recently signed on to buy more of : a $1.4-billion contract for 17 Lockheed Martin C-130J-30s, and a $869-million for four Boeing C-17s.No worries though - the Senate Armed Services Committee …
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Gary Mason, Globe & Mail :"The weekend death of a female protester at the Occupy Vancouver site has done incalculable damage to a global protest campaign that suddenly finds itself at a crossroads.Increasing problems at the sites are now overshadowing Occupy’s root cause and tarnishing the image of the entire movement. Its future gets cloudier by the day."See, Gary would really like to support the movement but because 22 year old Ashlie Gough selfishly died at Occupy Vancouver instead of a few blocks away in the Downtown Eastside where these things go unreported, sadly he now finds …
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Ethical Oil's new spokesy Kathryn Marshall had a little think yesterday about whether the tarsands are still ethical even if bits of it are owned by China and its unethical oil company, and even if Ottawa and Alberta are successful in their bid to hawk the stuff to communist China."Is Canadian oil suddenly less ethical, " she asks, "when it's produced and used by unethical countries?"No! she answers, it's still ethical! You're shocked, I'm sure.Meanwhile, over at the Christian Science Monitor :"The whole notion of ethical oil sets up a false dilemma because the very …
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Hey, did you think TransCanada, the company intending to extend the Keystone XL pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta to the Free Tariff  Zone refineries in Texas, was a Canadian company? Me too. Must be something about the name. And the fact that articles about TransCanada always refer to it as "Alberta-based".However TransCanada's own K-XL Know the Facts webpage begs to differ. Debunking the "Myth" that  TransCanada is a foreign company operating in the US :"Like many American companies with operations in Canada, we are incorporated and registered in both Canada and …
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Harper-appointed Senator Nicole Eaton is calling for a private members bill to replace the beaver with the more "stately" polar bear as the national symbol of Canada.In her remarks to the Senate, the former National Post gardening columnist from the Eaton department store family referred to the beaver as "a has-been", "a dentally defective rat", and "a big rat that doesn't reflect our new values".Apparently overlooked in the flurry of CBC, G&M, CTV, National Post, and Vancouver Sun coverage of her remarks is the source of her enmity for beavers and …
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.... last Friday, “Never again will Gadhafi be in a position to support terrorism or to turn guns on his own citizens."No, because as you can see from the pictuure above, that was our job.. …
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Never mind that rifles and shotguns are the weapon of choice for spousal homicides (71% in the last decade, of which the majority of victims are women), or that 14 of the last 18 officer shooting deaths were committed with a long gun, or that the long gun registry last year cost less than 40 Gazebos ($1Gazebo =$100K) and less than one one-hundredth of what just one of the Cons nine new war on invisible crime bills will cost next year ($4M vs $458M) .... the important thing for Steve is that the long gun registry is a nice wedge issue with which to divide the official opposition and a fuck you …
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As already noted by Pogge, Campbell Clark at the Globe and Mail is just awesome proud of Steve winning his first ever war of his very own  :  With Libyan liberation, a political victory for Harper"Stephen Harper’s first war victory was clinched in a few sudden hours when Moammar Gadhafi was captured and killed and his last bastion of Sirte fell.  Although Mr. Harper has led a nation with forces in combat since he took office in 2006, this was not a war he inherited but one he chose ..." Clark then quotes from Steve's victory speech :  “Our …
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On Tuesday AgMin Gerry Ritz stood in the middle of a suburban Ottawa farm behind a desk hung with the sign "Marketing Freedom" and announced the end of the Canadian Wheat Board single desk monopoly.             " ... freedom to choose ... marketing freedom ... market forces ... jobs, jobs, jobs ... "There were questions.Chris Rands, CBC : "Back in 2007 the prime minister was in Churchill and he said the fate of the Wheat Board is in farmers' hands, so why aren't you opening up to the farmers to have a vote to say whether the wheat board should be removed …
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[updated below]And hey, you could win a CBSA cash reward!George W. Bush in Surrey Thursday Oct. 20Tickets - $599 per head. No media allowed.Thursday, October 20, 11:00 amGather at the parking lot outside the Bay, Guildford Mall, SW corner of 152 St. & 104 Ave.If you are coming from Occupy Vancouver at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Amnesty International is organizing a contingent leaving from there at 9:15am at taking the Skytrain to Surrey.Transit :Take the Expo Line to Gateway Station in Surrey, then the 332 bus to Guildford, exit 104 Ave and 150 St. , walk to 152 St.But remember …
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From Garnotte at Le Devoirh/t Lagatta at Bread and Roses. …
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Dan Gardner blasts the Cons' proposed 'war on drugs' mandatory minimum sentences for growing pot :Six months mandatory jail time for growing six pot plants.Nine months mandatory jail time for passing a joint from one plant grown in the privacy of your own home if you are a renter.I assume this represents the Cons' attempt to 'harmonize' Canadian policy within the security perimeter deal, or as US AG Eric Holder put it in his "Beyond the Border" speech : the need for "certain sentencing laws" to be "updated".This, even as more than a dozen US states are currently repealing mandatory …
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h/t BorisBut that's just the US, right? No reason for us to protest up here in Canada, origin of the Occupy movement.NOW Mag : The Arsenal of Corporatocracy : Why We Should Occupy Bay StreetA person making $45,000 a year and a person making $1 billion essentially pay the same tax rate.A person making $130,000 a year and a person making $1 billion a year pay the exact same tax rate.A person making $45,000 a year pays a higher tax rate than a multi-billion dollar corporationMuldoon began this by lowering the corporate tax rate from 36% to 28%. By next year it will be down to 15%, for those that …
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                                                                      [updated below]A New York subsidiary of the Toronto-based Canadian asset management company that owns Zuccotti Park has written to the NYPD asking them to evict the Wall Street protesters who have occupied the park since Sept. 17.Commissioner Raymond W Kelly                           …
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Yesterday CBC continued its ongoing snide, dismissive, and condescending coverage of the third week of Occupy Wall Street with an interview with author/activist/Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges on its "inside the business world" show, the Lang and O'Leary Exchange.  After the by now obligatory opening protestations of puzzlement as to what OWS is all about - "low budget" and "pretty nothing burgers" as blowhard host Kevin O'Leary described it - he then responded to Hedges' patient explanation by calling him "a left wing …
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Occupy Wall Street Arrests; Fox 5 Crew and Protesters Hit by Mace, Batons: MyFoxNY.com.Yeah, that terrifying-looking kid definitely needs arresting.h/t enigma4everDitto this armless man.So what is it they want? a puzzled media asks over and over again. What are their demands?After a 30 second ad - sorry! - and a quick rundown on the events of Day 19, Keith Olberman reads the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City, voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street on Sept 29. Dear thickie media : Hope this helps ....Update : Great pix at Cryptome …
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