The pale one expels:Harper noted Canada is a land of refuge, but when hundreds of people come to the country outside the proper channels, it leads to “significant security concerns,” he said.I might suggest that it is a "significant security concern" when our government is only able to cling to power by subverting the proper channels. Cathie has more. …
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When I was about 10 or 11, "Arthur", a refugee boy from Sri Lanka of about my age came to my school. He couldn't speak more than a few words of English, and was so 'different' from the rest of us kids as to be a circus act. In the playground that first day it was him standing alone at one end near the fence, with the rest of us in a group. We weren't mean, we had just never seen anyone like him (we were by and large of European and Chinese descent) before and because none of us spoke his tongue, we didn't know how to interact with him. So we more or less just stood there as a pack and talked …
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So, you want to tighten Canadian law to discourage desperate people fleeing their homeland for fear of persecution?How many of their lives is it worth to score a few points with your frothing xenophobic base? The existing benchmark sits at just over a quarter of the embarked migrants (254/900).What's the Conservative figure, Vic? Go on, tell us. …
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I've been watching with disgust Vic Toews spew his rotten rhetoric about "terrorists" into the ship load of Tamil migrants now being dutifully processed by Border Services and Immigration people. I don't know what exactly it is about the dark-skinned, usually desperately poor "other" that froths up Conservative mouths and minds, but it is ubiquitous. Australia saw the same thing around MV Tampa nine years ago and their resident nativists hissed and spit and sputtered invective. I suppose it's something that the government hasn't made a big show of grossly mis-deploying the SASR JTF-2 to show …
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We'll know Ἔρεβος or whatever incubus of the abyss he serves has recalled him to explain this small show of weakness:"Pursuant to new advice from the new chief statistician, as well as our own government's desire to do the right thing, we are migrating two questions over to the short-term census," Clement said Wednesday in an interview with the CBC's Evan Solomon. The 2011 census will now include the following questions, with the second one as a two-parter: Can this person speak English or French well enough to conduct a conversation?What language does this person speak most often at …
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Some more food for thought.The 2006 Census marked Statistics Canada's first use of Lockheed Martin Census Systems product for the technical design and implementation of the census. Census staff were Statistics Canada employees, and did not work for Lockheed Martin. The aerospace and defence corporation provided the system for data collection and analysis but Canadian's personal data remained with Statistics Canada.Statistics Canada field-tested Lockheed Martin's product before the 2006 Census was launched. I cannot find any information on the results of those field-tests. However, my own …
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Dave is right on the mark.I've done the long-form census. It's a real pain in the ass. When the census taker came for a visit and had a talk with me about it I was more than reassured. No threat was ever issued. Guarantees, however, were very much in the forefront. As were the explanations and the reasons. And, just so we're all clear here, the point that I could identify with any group within a reasonable level of accuracy as I wished. Therefore, if I wanted to state that I was a Jedi Knight, that was entirely my decision. I told Statistics Canada that I worshiped the gods of the …
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For some reason this,Officials estimate at least fifty cars and trucks have been left in the woods and swamps around the city. Most are stolen and have been burned. Many are leaking fuel. reminded me of a quote:"We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck" on their airplanes because it's obscene!" - Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now …
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I hear it went something like this. …
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Procastinating this afternoon and looking to hang more cheek on Doris, I found myself searching for clips from the film adaption of Philip K Dick's "Minority Report" and came upon an essay by an EK Harris, English prof at the University of Northern Iowa. Seductively titled " "The Precognition of Crime: Treason in Medieval England and Terrorism in Twenty-first Century America"" this clever little paper links Arthurian fiction from 1485 (Malory's 'Morte Darthur') about an invisible and murderous knight and the Lance, Gwen and Art triangle, to the logic Bush era practice of pre-emptive arrest …
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...about unreported crime. I mean, it isn't a stretch to think that public perception of the police may have moved into the negative under the Conservatives' watch. It is thus plausible that a lack of confidence in the police might lead people to not report crimes.However, we won't know that for certain until well, uh, the Statistics Canada surveys that track unreported crime are completed and released. So while there are grounds for a spike, the fact that Stockwell cannot yet know this that means he's still full of it.That said, I'd love to see the Conservatives try to explain away a rise in …
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This one is worth the read....Everyone wants to cut and run from a disaster. But nobody wants to cut and run too quickly, lest they be accused of what they are doing -- cutting and running. So the sleight of hand begins. The Americans and British have changed their exit deadline to 2014, which is somehow meant to answer the criticism that their counter-insurgency strategy couldn't be taken seriously if they were going to leave in 2011, as President Obama had previously promised....Is there really going to be a U.S. "surge" this fall that will magically defuse the Taliban, given …
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...to happen when lines are blurred.Defence Department computers in Ottawa have been used to alter information on a Wikipedia page critical of the Conservative government’s decision to spend billions on a new stealth fighter. Nine attempts have been made to change the online encyclopedia’s entry on the Joint Strike Fighter, including the removal of any information critical of the Harper government’s plan to spend at least $16-billion on the new aircraft. Defence Department computers were also used to insert insults, aimed at Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, into the Wikipedia …
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Been a coupla months since the bards at Canadian Cynic went on holiday. An aeon in blogtime. Since then we've had fighter debacles, Census scandals, emerging RCMP scandals, G8/20 scandals, and 90 000 scandalous documents from the big dusty place across the sea. And some others that don't immediately leap to mind.There's no blog in the blogsphere that quite captures the essence of the all that political muppetry with same incisive wit and snark as the the CC crew, but they are nowhere to be found save for one brave soul making a twitter stand. But that's just not the same.Just sayin' maybe …
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Take it away, Steve V.Today's release of ninety thousand confidential documents on Afghanistan by Wikileaks was the subject of today's appearance by Hawn. These documents are quite damaging, painting a bleak picture of the mission in Afghanistan. With that in mind, note Hawn's comments, wherein he tries to fluff off the documents:"A lot of them are dated, so it's really information that might make a good story but isn't that relevant to what is happening today. You know, it needs to be fairly immediate information to have a huge impact"That's right, like other mission defenders, …
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I have no reason to doubt the nobility of your intentions when you lept into the moving water in an effort to save. It shows you to harbour a fundamental and selfless, if foolhardy, decency toward your fellow human that sets you apart from some of your partisan supporters and colleagues (just read CBC.ca article comments if you doubt me).However, at the risk that you again encounter a similar situation, I might suggest that you consider taking a Swiftwater Rescue course or at least gain some empirical experience learning to assess and effectively swim in moving water to the point where you …
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NaPo.So now it’s time to talk to the Taliban. Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon told reporters on Tuesday that the Taliban has an important role to play in laying the foundations of a new Afghanistan. “We encourage a reconciliation process that is inclusive of all Afghans, no matter their ethnicity,” he said. Now cup your hand to your ear and listen for the caterwauling of the uber patriots here on the home front decrying the minister’s capitulation to the enemy. Hmm. Oddly quiet. Could this minster really represent the government that so cravenly branded NDP …
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at the expense of a Mr. Gibson. (h/t Coyne) …
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I don't recall any biblical stories where Jesus was a misogynistic prick, so why must you be one?The Vatican today made the "attempted ordination" of women one of the gravest crimes under church law, putting it in the same category as clerical sex abuse of minors, heresy and schism.Keep it up though. The way you're going, in a few decades you'll consist of Mel Gibson and four or five other lonely old male assholes and perverts living in a shack in California. …
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Earlier today defence analyst Mercedes Stephenson and yours truly had something of an exchange following my rather blunt critique of some of her comments on CBC. I subsequently posted her rebuttal to my words that she was most generous enough to provide. What follows is an adaptation of my email response to the points included in that note.Need for a CF18 replacementYes, I agree on the need to replace the CF18 fleet as per the needs of the Canada First defence strategy or whatever a new government comes up with. I do think there are other strategic issues emerging that will impact the …
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Earlier today, I criticised comments made by Mercedes Stephenson in a CBC article regarding the F35 fighter purchase announcement. Ms. Stephenson graciously privileged me with a rebuttal, despite my harshness in that post and an earlier one involving her. I am happily humbled and grateful to reproduce her note below. Dear Boris, Scott kindly suggested that I read your blog and post a response since you're addressing some of the comments I made on CBC today and since he and I had the opportunity to have a very productive discussion earlier today about the F-35. I think we agree that Canada …
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So I just watched the full Stephenson interview on CBC, and it dawned on me that Lockheed Martin played the laundry list of countries involved for suckers with the F35. First, offer everyone a cheap buy in. Let them sign MOUs. Then raise the incentive by letting them buy to become "level 3" or higher partners. Pay more, get more. Like input on development and benefits to domestic industry on component bidding. Credit cards scales and mobile phones contracts come to mind. Do this with lots of countries and you have a investor network like a mobile phone company with a monopoly on service …
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You're being just a little disingenuous when you refer to Mercedes Stephenson as simply a "military analyst":Military analyst Mercedes Stephenson told CBC News that the purchase is “absolutely necessary."We have to have fighter jets. Canada is a massive country and when you think purely about response times, there is nothing else that can get across the country as fast as a fighter jet," she said. "Also, when you are dealing with the Arctic, there is very little that has the kind of survivability of a fighter jet in the air under those kinds of harsh conditions." She added that the …
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Yes, the CF18s need to be replaced (contingent on maintenance of the existing organisation of our armed forces). The oldest in the fleet are approaching 30 years and will near 40 by the the time they use up their latest life-extension. The physics of airframe fatigue and the like demand they stop flying at some point, regardless of any defence white paper. It's better when we voluntarily retire them, versus having them retire themselves by falling from the sky.But do we need to replace them with F35s? Well...thats' partly a boffin argument that would have to weigh features of the F35 against …
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Via Kady.As per an SO 106(4) request filed earlier today, the chair is now obliged to convene a special meeting of the committee within the next five days "in order to examine all issues surrounding security at the G8 and G20 summits, including but not limited to, the conduct of security personnel, violations of civil liberties, violence and property destruction and the decisions that led to these problems." Good news. But I expect the Harper government to follow SOP and not cooperate. You know, national security and all - 'we don't want the black bloc to know how we didn't arrest them!' …
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Oh she's at it again. Maybe not as pornographic as her comments about police, but there she is nonetheless.The 17, including a group of four alleged leaders from the Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance, are facing charges of conspiracy to commit mischief, conspiracy to assault police and conspiracy to obstruct police.Conspiracy? So the charges do not appear to include items involving the actual commission of mischief, assault and obstruction, only conspiracy to do so. If, as she suggests, police were monitoring this group before the protests, then it might be a fair question as to whether …
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In the wake of the Somalia debacle in the 1990s, the public and government started asking very serious questions about the system that produced the perpetrators involved in that nasty bit of national disgrace. Hazing videos surfaced, testimony was heard. Eventually an entire Regiment was struck off, and measures meant to change the internal culture of the armed forces were introduced. The actions of a few people had spotlighted the darker side of military culture, and the public was naturally incensed.The net result of the ISU stunt in Toronto may end up being analogous to what happened to the …
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Once again, I am no lawyer nor do I play one on TV, but I think those that do call this sort of thing "precedent". …
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Below I reproduce a modified version of a comment I left at BCL regarding a costs as a hidden rationale for eliminating the long form. I think it's worth some discussion. I don't think the individually mailed out long form would incur a great deal of extra cost outside of extra printing and postage on the front end for much of the nation. However, there are places where the long form is used almost exclusively and administered in person by enumerators for sampling validity in terms of both response rate and population characteristics. These include remoteness, community size, existence of …
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Back here I echoed Big City Lib in highlighting the plans for virtually eliminating the "long form" the 2011 Census. And here Dave pointed out the borrowed rationale for doing so, paraphrased by a spokesboffin for Industry Minister Tony Clement:"This change was made to reasonably limit what many Canadians felt was an intrusion of their personal privacy," said Erik Waddell, a spokesman for Industry Minister Tony Clement (Statistics Canada falls under the purview of Industry Canada).I actually partially agree with this statement. The long form is a very intrusive survey. It contains questions …
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Stageleft experiences police on Canada Day in the wake of the G8/20.I don't know what bothers me more about the exchange, the series wired cops growing dimmer by the second as they process the simple equation of 'man + bandana' and come up with 'probable window smasher'. Or their abject rudeness of the sort that makes you want to take them apart at the seams. …
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It looks and smells a lot like the ISU and anyone else invovled engineered the situation in Toronto to maximise the chance of mass arrests. They built enough detention cages and such to house a 1000 arrestees, finagled a secret law, lied to the public from the get go, and I'd be really surprised if there weren't agent provocateurs and riot facilitating restraint in order to maximise police justification for their later actions.It's probably safe to say that public trust in the police is compromised in the worst way.The Miami method police provocation is less likely to work next time, but I'm …
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Is there anything about your conduct around the G8/G20 that doesn't amount to a fucking lie?----------------I had another thought in the wake of this post.Could police statements about not giving a damn about our rights, and the secret law passed to "limit" those rights, and lies from the Hogtown police chief on down be grounds for some sort of legal challenge or legitimate resistance to arrest?I am no lawyer, but it seems reasonable to me that in era of secret laws, police lies and abitrary detention and search, a private person might reasonably conclude that there could either be secret laws …
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Some reflections on this weekend's events in Toronto:There's an equation of sorts that emerges from these organise protests.1. There will always be masked window smashers and rock chuckers. If they are absent, Montebello has shown the police are quite willing to provide their own.2. The presence of a reactionary few will be used as justification for police actions against the many.3. The police don't play fair and will create the circumstances that justify their use of force. See number one and this.4. It's getting worse. Government and police have demonstrated they are willing to pass secret …
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Lesson One from the G8/G20 protests: The police and the political support behind them, don't give a good goddamn about such quaint things as rights or whether your protest is peaceful. Even Five Feet of Fascist was shocked to learn that police ignorance and condescension also applies to rightwingers. …
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And he's pissed....Bloody hell, all it took was spending billion dollars on a couple dozen international political leaders and several thousand riot cops in his fair city. …
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A couple of law blogs have discussed the apparently legality of the move to embed a modification in the Public Works Protection Act 1939 to allow warrantless search and arrest within five metres of designated security perimeter.Law professor James Morton minimises the impact of the law and suggests that the it might actually fall within Constitutional wiggle room and apparently isn't as bad as it looks.It's probably constitutional as a small infringement on rights for legitimate goal -- the Supreme Court has ruled protection of foreign officials is a valid public goal. (It may be …
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Earlier today I found the Privy Council Office link describing the combined Olympic-G8/G20 security planning structure.Now, as more unfolds about the unprecedented legal end-run around the Constitution over police powers, I think we're alse seeing a big more of Rev's rat.Consider the party membership of the PCO (note this particularly angry old man), their party's recent tradition of Constitutional malfeasance in other contexts (including the intentional disregard of the Constitutional rights of other Canadians), and the outline of a particular sort of rat emerges. …
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Drawing on POGGE and Greg, there's another set of questions around the G8/20 security Frankenstein that haven't been addressed and probably won't.How did the powers that be come up with the $1.2 billion, Constitution trumping gong show that we're watching unfold?It didn't come out of thin air, people had to do a security analysis and figure out what resources they would need, and how they ought to deploy them. Who does this? And how? Oh.The Office of the Coordinator for the 2010 Olympics and G8 Security coordinates the Government's response to the security tasks of hosting three major …
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