June 2009 Archives

If you've been waiting to hear that Abousfian Abdelrazik is actually back in Canada rather than assuming that our government — or possibly someone else's government — wouldn't find some other way to keep him stranded in Sudan, you may now breathe a little easier. According to the CBC, Abdelrazik is now in Toronto and will shortly be on his way to Montréal to be reunited with his family.

His ordeal isn't over, though.

Paul Champ, one of Abdelrazik's lawyers, said being on the UN no-fly list means more than travel restrictions.

"It's not simply a no-fly list. I guess you can call it a UN black list. That means an asset freeze," Champ told CBC News. "When he gets back to Canada, he's going to be subject to all kinds of conditions.

"He's unlikely to be able to open a bank account. He likely will not be able to have a job, because anyone paying him or giving him money in any way could be regarded as a crime. So he's going to be living with some severe restraints that we're going to be working very hard to lift by whatever means possible," he said.

I can't say I was particularly a fan of Michael Jackson. The timing wasn't right. The Jackson 5 started having success on the Top 40 charts around the time I was snubbing AM radio in favour of the FM stations. But there's no denying the impact he had on pop music and pop culture.

This was the Jackson 5's first appearance on American Bandstand.

Former terror suspect may face difficult homecoming

The Foreign Affairs Department has been told that there is "reticence" in some quarters over Abousfian Abdelrazik's planned homecoming to Canada from Sudan, Canwest News Service has learned.

No country or individuals were named as the source of that sentiment, but a letter from the Justice Department to Abdelrazik's lawyer last week raises the possibility that the Sudanese-born, Canadian citizen might face obstacles on his journey back to Canada this weekend after his six years of exile in Sudan.

"I wish to inform you that DFAIT has encountered some reticence in getting assurances that your client will be able to board a flight," said the June 18 letter from the Justice Department to Abdelrazik's lawyer, Yavar Hameed.

What's missing is any assurance from these representatives of the Canadian government that since Abdelrazik is an innocent Canadian citizen — innocent as in "has never been charged with, or found guilty of, any crime" — they will do whatever they can to assist him in returning home.

It's actually come to the point of witnessing our own government issue vague threats against one of our own citizens. Because that's what this is. They're now trying to intimidate Abdelrazik into staying away.

This government embarrasses us all.

H/t to Dr. Dawg.

I've been noticing for a while now something I expected from the beginning: Governments talk about economic stimulus, but they don't for the most part mean it. It's a slogan that's been forced on them. And while they'll give lip service to the idea, they are much more enthusiastic about undermining it with typical "disaster capitalism" tactics.
I'm talking about using the recessions and financial disasters as a stick to beat workers with and further gut the welfare state, using layoffs and pressure for worker concessions on everything from wages and benefits to job security. The media has been talking gleefully about the need in these hard times for workers to make concessions, and nobody seems to mention out in the open the obvious point that laying off workers and cutting their pay kind of negates the effect of stimulus packages that create jobs and pay people.

In January of 2008, a blue ribbon panel chaired by John Manley and convened by Prime Minister Harper to review Canada's involvement in the NATO mission in Afghanistan issued its report. Among the key recommendations was this:

The Government must engage Canadians in a continuous, frank and constructive dialogue about conditions in Afghanistan and the extent to which Canadian objectives are being achieved...

I find it a bit difficult to reconcile that recommendation with this:

In a significant policy shift, the Canadian government now believes that telling the country's taxpayers the future cost of the war in Afghanistan would be a threat to national security, Canwest News Service has learned.

The Defence Department cited a national security exemption when it censored a request under Access to Information by the federal NDP for the military costs of Canada's military participation in the NATO-led, United Nations-sanctioned military mission to Afghanistan.

It should be obvious by now that Harper doesn't set these things up so he can follow their recommendations. He sets them up so he can defuse an issue and stall for time before doing exactly what he wanted to do in the first place with a minimum of political damage. So when Ignatieff agreed to a panel to review Employment Insurance as the price for allowing the Conservative government to survive until September, either he really hadn't been paying attention or it really was just theatre. Either way, I'm not exactly sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the results of the EI review.

It's been a sucky week so I'm going to indulge myself and open with an Eric Bibb clip I've been saving for just such an occasion.

I know. It's still hard to believe that one of Harper's ministers could ever choke out such an elegantly simple and principled statement. It happened yesterday as a rare bit of high drama one day before the Commons broke for the summer, and in the slightly delayed reaction at the end of this video, you can hear the opposition, put off only moments before by the Conservatives' standard immoral yawn over Omar Khadr, suddenly ambushed by joy to realize that Abousfian Abdelrazik will be coming home.

The speakers, in order: Irwin Cotler (L, Mount Royal), Deepak Obhrai (parliamentary sec'y to the minister of foreign affairs), Cotler, and Rob Nicholson, minister of justice:

Jeff Jedras (A BCer in Toronto), to whom we are grateful for so many of these videos, asks the first question that most of us are going to keep on asking until we see both justice and basic human decency extended to Omar Khadr as well: why is the Harper government complying with one clear court order and not another, at least as clear?

Then this doesn't mean a whole lot. All Ignatieff demanded after his weekend studying the latest government report card was a more detailed report card and the opportunity to talk about talking about doing some stuff instead of actually, you know, doing stuff. Which is why I haven't said much up until now. There was really nothing to talk about.

Ignatieff must think this little bit of theatre allows him to be perceived as holding the government accountable and makes it appear as though we have a system that works. But in fact, people who have recently lost their jobs and don't qualify for EI, or those who will lose their jobs between now and the end of September (at least) and don't qualify for benefits, are still out of luck. Ignatieff claims he got results but he didn't. He got an agreement to talk about maybe getting some results in three and a half months.

There was an opportunity to actually make a difference back in January and Ignatieff passed. He's done the same here because nothing has actually happened.

I'll start the evening by tipping my hat to regular visitor Some Old Guy for the introduction to Kelly Joe Phelps. And you'll see Phelps again because he also plays a mean slide and one of these Fridays I think I'm going to do an all-slide special. Meanwhile here's an original with the flavour of an old country blues. Edited to add: Something told me go do some more research on that. It has the flavour of an old country blues because it is one. It's called Country Blues and it was originally written by Moran Lee "Dock" Boggs.

Stranded Montreal man misses plane home

A Montreal man stranded at the Canadian embassy in Sudan for more than a year did not board a flight home today that had been paid for by his supporters.

The Canadian government did not issue the emergency passport Abousfian Abdelrazik would have needed to catch his flight to Abu Dhabi for the first leg of a journey home to Montreal.

...

Federal Court Justice Russel Zinn ordered the Conservative government on June 4 to ensure Abdelrazik returns home within 30 days.

...

A spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said the government is still reviewing the decision and would not divulge whether it planned to file an appeal.

Any comment I might add would be unsafe for work.

Further to the story linked to in the preceding post — the "made-for-TV presentation" as Impolitical puts it here — I'm reminded once again of the glorious days of yesteryear when the Harris Tories were in charge in Ontario, though at this point Harris had ducked out and Ernie Eves was in charge. Wikipedia has the story.

Concerned about returning to the Legislature, Eves' advisors instead hatched a public relations disaster. They convinced the Premier to have Minister of Finance Janet Ecker present the government's 2003 budget at a televised press conference at the headquarters of auto parts maker Magna International, instead of in the legislature. Magna's CEO was prominent Tory supporter Belinda Stronach, who later became a Liberal cabinet minister at the federal level. The "Magna Budget" resulted in accusations that the government was trying to avoid the scrutiny of the legislature and was flouting centuries of parliamentary tradition in favour of a PR stunt. Furthermore, the expense of this move was condemned as a waste of money considering that the legislative chamber was already equipped with video equipment for televised coverage. The "Magna Budget" was intended to launch a provincial election campaign, but was so poorly received that the election was delayed until the autumn. Attacks came from not only the opposition parties and the media but from one of Eves' own party members, Gary Carr. As Speaker of the legislature, Carr ruled that the government's actions were prima facie in contempt of the legislature.

In this case, the Conservatives are trying desperately to prevent an election campaign, not kick start one. I wonder if they'll get their wish.

I wonder how long ago Mike Duffy realized that his true calling is acting and not journalism.

H/t to Aaron Wherry.

That once breaking the taboo against torture had been justified because those being tortured were accused of terrorism, someone would get the bright idea that it was okay to torture for other reasons. Six Scotland Yard officers are accused of waterboarding four individuals who were suspected of drug offenses.

H/t to digby

Allow me to suggest that Lorne Gunter may not be the person to turn to for information and analysis on matters of public health. From yesterday's National Post:

Here's a fascinating fact about swine flu dug up by science writer Michael Fumento: While the official tally of Americans infected with H1N1 influenza has reached nearly 5,000, officials at the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate "the true number of infections at more than 100,000 nationwide."

That sounds serious, huh? Frightening even.

But as Mr. Fumento points out, there have been only five deaths from this strain reported in the United States. Since the typical seasonal flu "has a death rate of about 100 per 100,000, swine flu's death rate at this point is [just] 5% that of seasonal flu."

That's an interesting way to start. I'm not sure why it's necessary to turn to Michael Fumento for second hand information when you can use Google and in less than two minutes find yourself on this page on the CDC website. There you'll learn that as of 5:00 pm on June 4th there were 13,217 "confirmed and probable cases" resulting in 27 deaths. I think over five times the fatalities from less than three times the cases changes that ratio just a bit. And it's early days yet, an issue I'll return to.

That when the New York Times let Smiling Bill Kristol get away, in their search for "balance" they'd replace him with yet another lying clown.

Apparently the government of Ontario is paying $3,000.00 a day. I figure at that rate, I'd be happy to work three days a month and stay out of the way the rest of the time so that other people can have some work too.

Afterthought: There's also this from the Globe and Mail but I'm afraid it'll be behind the sub wall after a while so I went with the CBC story.

As I said in comments to the post immediately below this one, I don't expect to see Lisa Raitt's resignation as a result of the contents of that recorded conversation. If the behaviour we saw from Nunn and Clement during the original Chalk River controversy, and the behaviour we saw from Clement and Ritz during the listeriosis outbreak, wasn't enough to cost someone a cabinet seat then the bar has already been lowered. Regardless of the actual contents of the documents, if leaving a binder classified as "Secret" laying around in a television studio wasn't enough to cost Raitt her seat at the cabinet table, then I don't see how this is. The concept of ministerial responsibility just ain't what it used to be. I think Harper will try to brazen this out and succeed.

And when I say I won't be happy to be right about it, it's because that says something about the expectations that people have about government these days. The events referred to above didn't cause large numbers of people to show up at the parliament buildings carrying pitchforks and demanding satisfaction. Neither will this. People are that cynical about government and Harper and his crew know it. And based on this story from yesterday, the members of all the other parties know it, too.

Somebody make a liar out of me. Please.

I was at the website of the Chronicle Herald, hit refresh and there it was: the story so many people have been waiting for.

Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt called the medical isotopes crisis "sexy," said she wanted to take credit for fixing it, and expressed doubts about the skills of Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq on a recording obtained by The Chronicle Herald.

Ms. Raitt made the comments to her former aide, Jasmine MacDonnell, in a conversation that appears to have been inadvertently recorded by Ms. MacDonnell on Jan. 30, while the two were being driven to an event in Victoria, B.C.

Needless to say, the attempt to use the courts to block publication of the story failed.

It doesn't look like we can count on any of our political parties to take transparency seriously. Not when they can serve their own interests by keeping secrets.

MPs ink secret deal on cash

Members of Parliament have exempted the cash and benefits they receive from political parties and riding associations from restrictions and public disclosure under the House of Commons conflict-of-interest code.

The move was unanimously approved without a vote in the Commons after committee hearings conducted entirely in secret.

...

All four parties approved the change Thursday after a House rules committee and a subcommittee held eight meetings on the topic that were closed to the public.

If you read the rest of the article you'll find they also managed to co-opt the Ethics Commissioner by making her part of their secret process. Wouldn't that limit what she can say publicly in future cases where she has to review possible violations of the ethics code?

The next time any representative of any one of these political parties laments the cynicism of the public and the apathy displayed toward the political process, point to this and laugh in his face.

Greg Weston has been all over the Chalk River reactor story so it shouldn't be surprising that he's taken a close look at The Case of the Misplaced Briefing Binder. In that column, he goes beyond just the latest example to look at the whole issue of this government's handling and mishandling of information. And in the process, he accuses the Conservatives of politicizing the classification system, i.e. of slapping a "Secret" classification on documents because of the danger they represent to the Conservative party's fortunes, not the damage their exposure might do to our national interest.

It wouldn't surprise me to find that Harper and company are gaming the system to further their own ends. That's what they do. The breakdown of the Access to Information system has been going on for much longer than the Conservatives have governed but according to Weston, the number of outstanding complaints awaiting resolution in the office of the information commissioner since their first year as government has increased by 80%. And he reports that Information Commissioner Robert Marleau hasn't been shy about saying so.

I wonder why it's always those with 4 wheel drive vehicles with beefed up suspension systems who go to the greatest lengths to avoid speed bumps.

If you know who she was and you've already heard that Koko Taylor passed away on Wednesday then you won't be surprised to find out I changed my plans for this evening's post. This clip of Wang Dang Doodle is a little out of sync but this tune, written by Willie Dixon, was Taylor's first big hit.

Dear Minister Cannon:

I write in support of Abousfian Abdelrazik's constitutionally and internationally unchallengeable right to return to Canada.

I write also as a Canadian citizen whose conscience has been shocked by cascading revelations, in the courts and press of the U.S., the UK, and here at home, of the role played by Western governments, among them my own, in clear and extreme violations of international law, many of those violations rising to the level of war crimes.

Anyone with an internet account can discover in minutes that continuing American claims about Mr Abdelrazik rest on testimony from the Saudi Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah, who was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002, whose torture before and since has been attested to by the ICRC (pdf) and the FBI. The most credible FBI witnesses have also testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to their doubts about Abu Zubaydah's status with regard to al-Qaeda and about his mental capacity, even before he was tortured.

The UN Security Council's 1267 Committee have said that Mr Abdelrazik is free to fly home to Canada. We know that the only testimony against him is historically, tragically tainted.

I often wonder whether members of my own government or of the departments and agencies that act in the name of the sovereign citizens of Canada, all of us represented by our queen, and thus all of us more permanent than you, superior to you, have noticed the water rising about the ankles of American public servants, former and current, who seem to have grown up ignorant of the jurisprudence we inherited from Nuremberg 1945-46. Rationalizing war crimes itself becomes a crime, and I doubt that Canadians in time to come will judge anyone who committed such crimes in our name in kindly fashion.

Mr Abdelrazik has a paid airline reservation to return to Canada on 12 June, and an appointment with the Hon. Mr Justice Zinn (pdf) on 7 July. I appeal to you to respect both Canadian and international law, and to end the bizarre melodrama of my government's inexplicably duplicitous dealings with another Canadian citizen.

Please just stand aside, and allow Mr Abdelrazik to fly home.

Yours sincerely

real name plus real address

Please support Project Fly Home however you can.

Abousfian Abdelrazik is one of at least a dozen Canadians or other human beings who have been treated by successive Canadian governments and our curious agencies in suspect and disturbing ways, especially since 9/11 but not only since then.

The wrong that has been done to each of them should disturb all of us, on their behalf and then also because democracy -- here and in an international community of human beings committed to humane justice -- simply cannot survive elites who believe that they are above the law and that the rest of us should respect their quiet pacts to cover one another's hinder parts when we all suddenly realize that they have committed horrific crimes against innocents.

(Actually, horrific crimes against the not-so-innocent would still be horrific, and we know of some of those -- see KSM, eg.)

Justice ministers who think that "national security" means CYA for elite buddies in other countries who have broken the law -- especially elite buddies among the dead-enders of the Bush torture regime -- should no longer be justice ministers.

H/t to Alison at BnR for nagging me shamelessly to post before she does.

It looks as though the Conservative legislation imposing mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes is going to pass, courtesy of the Liberal party. Since the NDP and the Bloc both oppose it, Liberal support is the only way it passes.

Let's be clear. This isn't a money bill. It's not a confidence vote and it has nothing do with bringing the government down. The American War on (Some) Drugs provides roughly three decades worth of evidence that this kind of "tough on crime" legislation doesn't accomplish anything except possibly to provide economic stimulus for the corrections industry. We expect the Conservatives to put ideology ahead of actual evidence and pass legislation that won't solve anything. What's Ignatieff's excuse?

Hat-tip to Jacked Up.

Federal Court Judge Russell Zinn has ordered the federal government to allow Abousfian Abdelrazik to return to Canada, calling him "as much a victim of international terrorism as the innocent persons whose lives have been taken by recent barbaric acts of terrorists."

Justice Zinn also said that Abdelrazik is entitled to an appropriate remedy and I agree. But I suspect my appropriate remedy goes further than Justice Zinn is talking about, at least in public. If Abdelrazik finally does return to Canada, and I'm not assuming that this is the end of it, I fully expect to see him sue our collective butt off and I hope he wins. The rest of the remedy would be a full investigation into the actions of the government and its agents, and especially CSIS, by an independent body that can hold them accountable. Say, do you suppose this is what Peter Van Loan has in mind?

Update:

The decision itself is here (pdf). H/t to Benjamin at babble.

Jeff Jedras watches CTV so I don't have to and reports that in trying to deflect blame for the mishandling of sensitive documents from Minister of Natural Resources Lisa Raitt to a staffer, Stephen Harper has inserted himself into the middle of a mess.

It turns out the binder in question was the minister's personal briefing book and contained additional information of an even more sensitive nature than was initially reported. So if this incident was a staffer's fault, what was the staffer doing with the documents in the first place? And given the controls that are supposed to be in place, why did it take a report from CTV to bring it to the government's attention that the binder had gone missing?

And given those questions, why did Stephen Harper refuse Raitt's resignation when it was offered and think that he could throw a 26 year old staffer under the bus and get away with it? Jedras has more details.

The acronym stands for You're On Your Own. It's worth keeping that in mind because if you travel outside Canada and get into trouble, our government doesn't acknowledge any requirement that it come to your assistance.

Canada's legal duty to protect its citizens, even children, ends at the border and there is nothing in domestic or international law that obliges the government to seek Omar Khadr's repatriation, say federal arguments filed in court.

Isn't it comforting to know that when it comes to protecting Canadian citizens, this government will do the minimum required by law and not a bit more? It's not a total loss, though. They'll be happy to ensure your supply of magazines.

If this government intends to continue keeping things from us, perhaps they should stop writing them down.

Sensitive government documents left behind at a CTV News bureau reveal Ottawa has poured far more money into the aging Chalk River nuclear reactor than the public has been told.

The binder of documents was left nearly a week ago at CTV's Ottawa bureau by either Minister of Natural Resources Lisa Raitt or one of her aides. Some of the papers are clearly marked "secret."

You can follow the link to find out that AECL and Chalk River are an even bigger mess than we've been told. I may go read it again myself but I'm still shaking my head over the fact that apparently Maxime Bernier has set the standard for the way these people manage sensitive documents.

It may be that Greg is right and that talk of selling off the CBC and VIA Rail is just that: talk designed to placate the base. But as Paul Wells reminds us (his emphasis):

The feds are not only airily mulling an asset sale in the abstract, they've booked revenue from it in this budget year, and in succeeding years, to the tune of many billions of dollars in total sales.

And as one of the comments to that post reminds us, booking revenue based on deals that might happen for amounts of money that haven't been established yet isn't the way most organizations maintain their accounts. "Cooking the books" is indeed the right way to refer to it and that commenter is correct when he points out that Flaherty pulled the same nonsense here in Ontario. He was an incompetent hack then and he's an incompetent hack now. (Have I said that before?)

I've avoided making any criticism of Flaherty based strictly on the size of the deficit because I don't want to leave the impression that I think running a deficit is wrong in any circumstances and I'd like a deficit when appropriate to remain a politically acceptable tool in the government's toolbox. But this is yet another reminder that forecasts coming from Flaherty don't mean much. Since his projected deficit includes sales that haven't happened of assets that haven't been identified, even his latest projection is science fiction.

Must see TV? In the wake of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, Rachel Maddow interviews Frank Schaeffer, a former member of what I guess you'd call the "extreme pro-life anti-choice* movement." Schaeffer calls out those like Bill O'Reilly who demonized Tiller relentlessly and now claim that their extreme rhetoric had nothing to do with actual events.

Schaeffer confesses that when he and other leaders of the movement in the seventies and eighties were moving to ever more radical rhetoric and tactics, they knew perfectly well what they were doing in the process: egging on those who would do exactly what Tiller's murderer did.

H/t to matttbastard on Twitter.

*Edited 'cos JJ has a point.

Last Wednesday Federal Court Justice Simon Noël gave CSIS a bit of a public spanking. The "troubling situation" involved the case of Mohammed Harkat, the subject of a security certificate, and Justice Noël went public with accusations that Canada's national security intelligence agency may have disobeyed court orders by withholding information concerning the reliability of an informant. He issued instructions that previously secret information was to be shared with two lawyers who represent Harkat by 4 pm today and announced his intention to recall several CSIS witnesses.

Tonda MacCharles followed up with a piece in yesterday's Toronto Star in which she revealed that the information in question may have been withheld not once but five times and the informant in question is "key to the Harkat case." It's no surprise then that a number of sources MacCharles quotes suggest that the credibility of CSIS is on the line as is the credibility of the security certificate itself and the process surrounding it. Consider:

... [University of Ottawa law professor Craig] Forcese noted that if the same human source, or some of the same CSIS witnesses are involved in the other security certificate cases, there may be ripple effects on those as well.

And there's more.

That was my initial response on hearing that Paul Martin had signed us up for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. It certainly hadn't been an issue in the previous federal election campaign nor was there any public debate on it inside or outside of the House of Commons. And ever since, as much as our corporate overlords have been able to manage it, the way it originated has been the way it's been implemented: hidden away from the public eye and with as little fanfare and publicity as possible.

Alison at the Beav alerts us to the release of a feature length documentary by Paul Manly called "You, Me, and the S.P.P: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule." Here's the trailer:

If that looks like something that would interest you, you can find out more, order a DVD or check the screening schedule here at the website of Manly Media.

By now I'm accustomed to pundits like Rosie DiManno mindlessly repeating the received wisdom that any criticism of the state of Israel is indistinguishable from anti-semitism. But what really caught my eye in her reporting on the speeches at the Canadian Jewish Congress celebration held in Toronto yesterday evening was her quote from Michael Ignatieff, who said of Iran (among other things):

This is a state seeking weapons of mass destruction.

It's interesting that someone who finally had to issue a mea culpa in the matter of an invasion of Iraq based on lies about weapons of mass destruction would be so quick to repeat such an accusation. It's interesting that the IAEA inspectors who are actually on the ground in Iran can find no evidence of a nuclear weapons program and yet Ignatieff can see it all the way from Toronto.

Given the context in which this is being said — the rhetoric emanating from Benjamin Netanyahu's government threatening a military strike on Iran — Ignatieff's comment is dangerous and completely irresponsible. I expect this from the Conservatives but I keep hoping the Liberals will represent at least a marginal improvement.