Oct. 24 - I wish I could report on official Canadian reaction to the Mehlis Report but thus far there hasn't been any. The rest of the world isn't waiting for Canada, though, and Detlev Mehlis, who was commissioned by the U.N. to investigate the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, will be addressing the United Nations Security Council tomorrow. It seems likely that the imposition of sanctions on the Assad government will, at the very least, be brought up (U.S., Britain press for action against Syria) :

Diplomats at the United Nations and in Washington said U.S. and French officials have been talking with Russia and other nations about anti-Syria resolutions to put before the Security Council, including the possibility of punitive economic sanctions.

It's not really so surprising that Canadian officials haven't commented yet, especially as you'd never know the Mehlis Report was all that damning if you read the CBC webpage today (nor would you find a link to an earlier story on that report.) But you can trust the CBC to emphasize the anti-American element in the following story: pro-government demonstration in Syria today:

In a country where protests are rare, a rally in support of the Syrian government virtually shut down central Damascus Monday.

Among the hundreds of thousands of people at the rally – and a similar event in the northern city of Aleppo – there were government employees let off work for the occasion and students released from classes with the government's blessing.

They chanted anti-American slogans to protest a United Nations report released last week that said Syria and Lebanon played roles in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14. (Emphasis added)

The CBC fills us in on more items from the report:

The same report also scolded Syria for its less-than-full co-operation with the United Nations investigation.

[I deleted intervening paragraphs which are not about the report's contents but the CBC report is copied in full in the extended entry for your reading pleasure.]

Syria vigorously denies the allegations in the U.N. report, dismissing its contents as politicized gossip.

Imperative No. 1 at the CBC is to suppress any news that makes the U.N. look bad or, failing that, downplay it. (Imperative No. 2 is to hype news that makes the U.S.A. look bad; note the lead picture on their Indepth Lebanon page!) That's part of the reason why some of us are somewhat cynical when CBC reporters are named to the Senate or appointed Governor-General. When your job as a reporter includes tainting the news or even failing to report the news, The News Canadians Trust isn't very trustworthy and neither are its reporters.

Although the news report says that there have been calls for U.N. sanctions, no specific country was named (the article does quote President Bush's response to the report, though.) I think it odd that the CBC completely ignored the involvement of both the French and the British not only because of the shared British and French heritage of Canada but also because the two countries are permanent members of the UNSC. Some might think that when 3 out of 5 permanent members are attempting to build a U.N.-based response against Syria that such an event would be newsworthy.

Same old, same old. For the CBC, it's always All. About. America. and not about, say, the Lebanese (or the Iraqis, for that matter) unless it's about a Syrian response which is All. About. America.

The CBC was so anxious to be even-handed that it didn't even mention the response in Lebanon to the report, unlike the AP, Michael Totten and Expat Yank Robert (and the latter has posted some very moving photos of the commemorative ceremonies at Hafrik's grave that were held last Friday.)

14:25: This CTV report on the Syrian demonstrations contains considerably more information about the Mehlis report although no names of suspected perpetrators are mentioned nor is the revelation that the report was altered to removed key names.

There's also a sobering analysis over at Canada Free Press by J. Grant Swank, Jr.: Syria: Murder & mayhem, but who cares? in which he expresses why he believes the Syrians will not be rising up to oust Assad. He makes several good points and, when you come right down to it, this isn't really about internal matters in Syria but that country's behaviour in Lebanon over the past few decades as well as their support of terrorist groups that attack Israel and (I suspect) Iraq. more...

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Oct. 21 - On the one hand researchers claim that working women are too stressed to to add frozen vegetables to boiling water, and on the other hand someone who said that proper child-raising and rising to the top ranks in the advertising industry are incompatible goals has been forced to resign (Top ad guru quits amid sexism furor.)

Mr. [Neil] French confirmed yesterday that he has quit as worldwide creative director of WPP Group PLC, the world's second-largest marketing company where he oversaw famous agency networks including Ogilvy & Mather, JWT, Young & Rubicam and Grey Worldwide.

But Mr. French -- famous both for his brilliant work as a copy writer and his politically incorrect views -- stands by controversial comments he made in response to a question from the audience at a Toronto event sponsored by ad industry Web site ihaveanidea.org. The comments circled around the world after being reported last week in The Globe and Mail's Nobody's Business column.

"The woman asked why there are so few women creative directors. I said because you can't commit yourself to the job. And everyone who doesn't commit themselves fully to the job is crap at it . . ," Mr. French said yesterday in an interview.

"You can't be a great creative director and have a baby and keep spending time off every time your kids are ill. You can't do the job. Somebody has to do it and the guy has to do it the same way that I've had to spend months and months flying around the world and not seeing my kid. You think that's not a sacrifice? Of course it's a sacrifice. I hate it. But that's the job and that's what I do in order to keep my family fed."

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Oct. 21 - I must be getting old because I thought this was already well known but evidently the issue is that the knowledge has received official confirmation! Or maybe the issue is that Canadians participating in the "insurgency" tends to minimize the claim that said "insurgency" is an Iraqi-based resistance.

Seems that according to the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, James Judd, some Canadians are taking part in Iraqi insurgency. (Gasp!)

According to Keith Boag, the CBC's Ottawa bureau chief, the Prime Minister's Office was "flabbergasted" that such sensitive information could be released by the head of the spy agency. "They didn't know it was being spoken about publicly and for that they [the PMO] are very angry."

"The prime minister never comments on intelligence matters and they were under the impression that CSIS didn't either," said Boag.

Acknowledgment that Canadians are fighting in Iraq raises a number of questions, such as what will their status be if they decide to return to Canada.

"It raises the longer-term question of what do they bode for the future?" Judd said.

The Kitsilano lawyer [Gail Davidson] got the ball rolling against Bush as soon as he set foot on Canadian soil for his November 30, 2004, visit. As a private citizen, she charged him with seven counts of counselling, aiding, and abetting torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at CubaÂ’s Guantanamo Bay naval base. She had her charges accepted by a justice of the peace in Vancouver Provincial Court.

Bush faces prison time if the case goes to trial and he is found guilty.

On December 6, 2004, Davidson was at Provincial Court to fix a date for the process hearing. However, Provincial Court Judge William Kitchen promptly ordered a Straight reporter and other observers from the courtroom and cancelled the charges, declaring them a “nullity”. The meeting was deemed to be “in-camera” and Kitchen concluded immediately that Bush had diplomatic immunity during his two-day visit to Canada because he was a head of state.

(Links via Neale News.)

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Oct. 21 - David Dingwall explains his expenses and in one respect he is entirely correct: his expenses were approved by the Canadian Mint's Board of Directors.

But that's the point! The fact that those "expenses" were "approved" is a real scandal as much as is the appointment of political hacks who feel it necessary to pad their income by lobbying for contracts for which lobbying is forbidden.

So why is Dingwall getting severance pay instead of jail time? (I know why; just let me emote!)

Patronage appointments lead to corruption. The resistance by the political parties to legislate having such appointments be made strictly on merit and qualifications is why many are indifferent or even hostile to politics, and when the argument devolves to "give the other side an opportunity to appoint their own thieving cronies" then we are well past cynicism and apathy and into a level of contempt that can kill the heart of a country.

Shoot. For. The. Stars. Demand competence, accountability and honesty from all appointed officials. Taxpayers deserve no less.

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Oct. 21 - Operation Rudolph - as in guiding Santa's team to deliver packages to Canadian Forces personnel in Afghanistan (link via Newsbeat1.)

There's no nice way to say this: public support for Canadian troops up here is all talk and no show. Yes, everyone shows up at the local Cenotaph once a year on Remembrance Day, stands around solemnly and intones "Never Again!" but when it comes to actually giving something (and we won't even go into federal funding for the troops) there isn't the kind of personal, local support here as there is in the U.S.A.

No one's asking you to "give 'till it hurts" (that right is reserved for the taxman) but maybe you can send a thank-you note. Or a donation (tax-deductible, no less!)

I'm as guilty as anyone up here of doing little to support the Canadians in Afghanistan, but then my energy and money go to supporting my people in my army in the U.S.A. What's your excuse?

By the way, before anyone sneers at the Canadian presence in 'stan, they might want to read Canadian forces offer first peek at JTF2 mission in Afghanistan from Sept. 21. (Run the complete headline through google for article.)

Also, read Postcard from Kandahar over at Small Dead Animals.

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(Sent via email by a friend out West.)

Sorry about the no blogging - I feel asleep early and woke up late.

Tim Horton's, for any readers who may not know, is a huge chain of donut shops up here and most have drive-through service. Many a person arrives to work with a Tim Horton's cup in hand.

Tim Horton was a legendary hockey player who, for most of his career, played for the Toronto Maple Leafs and he may have been the strongest man to ever play in the NHL. Story has it that he didn't fight - he just bearhugged 'em. He last played for the Buffalo Sabres and was killed in a car crash on the QEW in the 1974.

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Oct. 18 - From rogue civil servants to rogue lobbyists - which in turn poses the question as to who, exactly, was roguely lobbied if not rogue civil servants? After all, if certain kinds of contracts and grants are not supposed to be lobbied for wouldn't the person(s) being lobbied know that?

Four lobbyists investigated for possible ethics breaches:

Mr. Nelson said he cannot comment on the investigations, but confirmed that he started them in the past month, although he said that the activities that are being probed are not necessarily that recent. Officials said the investigations cover the activities of four lobbyists.

[...]

"I have initiated eight investigations into potential breaches of the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct," Mr. Nelson said. "That may not seem like a large number . . . but in contrast, since the code of conduct came into being in the late 1990s, there has not been one investigation."

Mr. Nelson's office, which until last year came under the purview of the prime minister's ethics counsellor, Howard Wilson, has been criticized for what has been perceived as inaction in enforcing the law and code governing lobbyists. The Lobbyists' Act was amended in June to include wording changes proposed four years ago after prosecutors asserted that they could not successfully prosecute René Fugère, an unpaid aide to former prime minister Jean Chrétien, for failing to register to lobby on behalf of companies that paid him a 5- to 10-per-cent commission to obtain government grants.

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Oct. 18 - I am genuinely sorry that Carolyn Parrish is not running for re-election (Parrish not retiring-in any sense) and my reason isn't all that complicated. For all her faults, she had one redeeming virtue: she was honest, even if that included being outspoken as to her attitude toward the U.S.A.

My own experience tells me that she expresses the truth as to how many Canadians (at least here in the Greater Toronto Area) feel about us and our president. I prefer her upfront, in-your-face brazenness to the smile-in-their-faces-and-stab-them-in-the-back type of creature PM Paul Martin epitomizes.

I do realize that many Canadians consider her to be an embarrasssment, but what real value is there in pretending that the U.S.A. and Canada are bestest buddies? It does not serve American interests (we already came to terms with the peridy of the French) and, although it may appear to serve Canadian interests, how does being dishonest really serve Canada? It seems to me that being two-faced can only inspire contempt from Americans and, to this American mind, better straightforward honesty to blowing smoke up our as*es.

I don't have to like what someone is saying but at least say it openly. Yet with such honest dealing a deeper chasm would be revealed because many Canadians do not agree with the the Liberal government's attitude toward the U.S.A. That is the debate the Liberals continue to avoid.

However, despite the revision of recent history, Caorlyn Parrish was actually booted out of the Liberal Party for remarks she made about Paul Martin, not those she made about President Bush, and she used this interview to remind us of that. That Martin - with the complicity of the news media - tried to turn it around later and pretend that she was expelled for for her anti-Bush antics pretty much says everything there is to say about this government and its media apologists.

I wonder, did Martin hire Earnscliffe to conduct a public opinion poll to ascertain if Canadians would stomach him dropping Parrish for stomping a Bush doll on public TV or if charging her with lese majesty would be preferable?

Her comments in the interview about Paul "Dithers" Martin reflect what many have observed:

"One of my major disappointments in my whole life, and it will turn out to be one of the major disappointments of most Canadians, is Mr. Martin's leadership. He has been so fragile and he's been so tentative," Ms. Parrish said in her first interview since it was announced that she would not be running in the next federal election.

Paul Martin is "too keen to sit on the knee of the American President. He's been weak on softwood even though he's running around making noises now. He's been weak on beef. He's been weak on caucus management. He's got a whole bunch of yes men sitting in the front row. He is thoroughly intimidated by someone like me -- and I am really not a scary guy."

[...]

"I expected so much out of him. He's a very charming man but he's almost like a deer in the headlights. He looks old and he looks tired and he looks frightened."

So long, Carolyn. Too bad the Liberal Party doesn't have a big enough tent to allow for a little honesty.

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Oct. 16 - I'm super late posting on this, but an important private members bill has been submitted to Parliament calling for the closing of a tax haven for Canadian businesses.

A detailed report can be read at Frost Hits the Rhubarb: Proposed Amendment: Income Tax -- Note, CSL.

It is despicable that tax dollars are spent on contracts with firms that dodge paying business taxes in Canada - or in the U.S.A., for that matter. Let's hope this bill gets some support.

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Oct. 14 - Testimony previously under publication ban has been released by Judge Gomery which gives a closer look at the financial relationship between Jean Brault and Chuck Guite (Money bound Brault and Guite) all of which seems to be in line with the "rogue civil servant" explanation:

Both men said that after he left the federal civil service in 1999, Guite collected thousands of dollars for advising Brault on how to boost his business, often at the expense of taxpayers.

Guite and Brault are now charged with conspiracy and defrauding the government of nearly $2 million. Their trial is set for May 2006. The testimony made public Friday does not touch on any of the contracts that resulted in criminal charges.

[...]

The testimony illustrates the cosy, back-scratching environment that exploded into the $250-million sponsorship fiasco, which featured ad agencies and other middle-men collecting $100 million, often for little or no work.

[...]

According to Brault's testimony, his involvement began at the Vancouver Molson Indy auto race in 1995 where Guite taught him how federal sponsorships were really run.

"That's where he showed me that there was a sponsorship the government gave to (advertising company) Lafleur, and by spending three days in jeans with a beer in hand it's much easier to establish contacts," Brault said in the testimony.

"It was the first time that I would say I sowed, as we say in the business, a little seed to get one of these non-conventional contracts."

Both Guite and Brault reaped the harvest. While Brault gathered millions in ad contracts through his firm Groupaction, Guite picked smaller fruit at first.

Both men say Brault gave Guite high-performance Pirelli tires in 1997 for his brand new Ford Mustang. Brault's company billed the sponsorship program more than $1,300 for the tires. A few months later, Brault bought the car from Guite for $35,000 after Guite decided he was too old for a sports car.

[...]

Guite testified that Groupaction purchased expensive tickets for him and his family for the Italian Grand Prix in 1998.

Guite said that once he left the public service in 1999 he worked on contracts for Groupaction, receiving $76,000 from the company through August 2000.

Brault said he had put Guite on a $10,000 monthly retainer by 2001 for his "vast knowledge of ... the potential of different organizations working on communications in Canada."

According to Brault, his company gave more than $136,000 to Oro Communications, Guite's firm, from 1999 through 2002.

Guite said he borrowed $25,000 from a Groupaction subsidiary, Alexism Inc., to purchase a boat in 2001.

Guite was to repay the money from a $125,000 commission he was to receive later that year from Brault on a handshake deal. The repayment plan was interrupted when the sponsorship scandal broke and became a criminal case.

Guite said he still intends to repay the money, with interest.

Other testimony released Friday highlighted other aspects of the sponsorship file:

--Paul Coffin, the first man convicted of fraud in the sponsorship program, testified that Guite told him to fabricate invoices to cash in on sponsorships. Coffin pleaded guilty to several counts of fraud earlier this year and received a sentence to be served in the community. The sentence is under appeal.

-- Brault testified that Guite pressed him into making a $50,000 donation to Jean Charest's provincial Liberals through ad agency Groupe Everest in 1998. Brault said Guite named Charest, saying "We must send $50,000 to Charest." Brault later qualified the statement by saying Guite was talking about the Charest campaign, not Charest personally.

Guite denies the accusations.

(Link via Neale News.)

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Oct. 13 - Interesting poll results (Canadians value diversity, demand loyalty: poll):

The majority of Canadians believe the country's multicultural society helps guard against extremism, a new survey shows. However, most respondents also believe Canadians should be loyal first and foremost to Canada, not their countries of origin.

The results may indicate where a country that prides itself on multiculturalism is prepared to draw the line on tolerance.

To me this poll simply indicates that most Canadians have common sense.

As an aside, I've been doing a marathon thing at work (we call it "gearing up for Christmas") but things are expected to return to normal next week (that's the official story, anyway.)

(Link via Neale News.)

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Oct. 7 - I can't be the only person in Toronto who has taken the alert for New York subways as a warning to up my own Awareness Meter when riding the subway here (Official: Threat cites this weekend) so, in the immortal words of Sgt. Phil Esterhaus, Let's be careful out there.

I have to work again tonight but before I head out I want to wish all of you in Canada and the members of the Canadian Forces around the world - including Afghanistan - a blessed Thanksgiving weekend.

We do have a lot to be grateful for. I know I gripe a lot but I also live in a country where I can do so publicly.

Mark, on the other hand is not grateful. The BoSox were eliminated and he's temporarily inconsolable.

(Please let the Angels win. I don't think Mark can handle it if they blow a 5-0 lead over the Yankees.)

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October 06, 2005

October 05, 2005

October 04, 2005

October 01, 2005