Kory, the NRA, and the long gun registry vote

Photoshop inspired by Steve Harpo : "From my clammy pudgy hands"

(h/t Antonia Z)

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Here's Steve's former communications director Kory Teneycke on CBC's Power and Politics, Sept 3, 2010 (Time mark : 6:50), comparing the Avaaz petition against a must-carry licence for Teneycke's Fox News North to a 'hypothetical' case of the NRA meddling in Canadian politics :

"We're having a debate on gun control right now in Canada on the long gun registry, a very hot debate. What if the NRA came into Canada with petitions and advertising campaigns, trying to influence Canadian policy and Canadian decisions? People would be outraged. People. would. be. outraged."

OK, Kory, let's go with that.

From the NRA website : Standing Guard by Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive VP :

"If all goes well in the Canadian parliament, Dominion gun owners will be freed from 14 years of living under the crushing weight of a bureaucratic, scandal-ridden, wasteful, invasive, $2 billion, error-ridden and inarguably worthless long gun registry."
"The NRA of America supports and endorses the work done by the CILA [Canadian Institute for Legislative Action] and strongly encourages all Canadian firearms owners to become CILA supporting members."

Tony Bernardo, head of CILA :

"We have been working hand in hand with the NRA regarding international issues for the past three and a half years...in fact, the NRA was instrumental in the formation of CILA…the NRA provides CILA with tremendous amounts of logistic support."

Foreign Policy, July 2006 :

In December, an NRA official was scheduled to offer a "legislative training workshop" at the annual meeting of CILA's parent organization.
"How do we protect our rights?" went the promo for the event. "By being more politically active and effective at the grassroots [level]. And who better to show us how than the most powerful lobby group in the world, the National Rifle Association and their Institute for Legislative Action."

CBC, today : NRA involved in long gun registry debate

Bernardo, a frequent guest on NRA chat shows updating U.S. gun owners on the fight to kill the Canadian registry, said the NRA was instrumental in helping him set up his Canadian lobby group, CILA, the lobbying arm of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association (CSSA), and a mirror group of the Institute for Legislative Action, the NRA's lobbying arm.

The CSSA's communications director, Brant Scott, was previously an aide to Con MP Garry Breitkreuz, featured here on the NRA website.

CSSA media release, June 8, 2010:

"While Brant was working with Garry Breitkreuz, he acted as liaison with the CSSA on a variety of gun-related issues, including the long-gun registry. The CSSA worked with the MP's office on Bill C-301 and later Bill C-391," explains Bernardo."

Garry Breitkreuz is chair of Canada's parliamentary Public Safety and National Security Committee.

Back to the CBC :

Michael Bryant, formerly Ontario's attorney general, said the NRA has been agitating in Canadian political backrooms for years.
Canadians need to know the role the NRA has played in the gun registry debate, Bryant said.

"For a lot of people in Canada, if they knew that the NRA was part of the effort to get rid of the gun registry, they would think more about their views," he said.
"And they would think, 'well, wait a minute, I thought this was about, you know, wasting taxpayer dollars. The NRA's involved? Really? That makes me very uncomfortable … ' "

So. "Uncomfortable" or "outraged"? Your call, Kory.

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G&M tonight : Tories deny NRA 'conspiracy theory'

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Yep, I'll bet you're really really sorry now you reminded us of the NRA's reach into Canada, what with the Cons precious, the long gun registry vote, coming up on Sept 21st and all.

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h/t Dammit Janet

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Q & A with Mr.Bin Laden and Mr. William Elliott

Last October, RCMP Commissioner William Elliott addressed a meeting of security intelligence peeps about Canada's current terrorism environment :

"As far as Al-Qaeda is concerned, Canada is the enemy.
We recall Osama Bin Laden’s famous communiqué to America’s allies in November of 2002, in which he asked:

“Why are your governments, especially those of Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia, allying themselves with America in its attacks on us in Afghanistan? This is injustice. The time has come to settle accounts. Just as you kill, so you shall be killed; just as you bomb, so you shall be bombed. And there will be more to come.”

To answer Mr. Bin Laden's question, here's David Rothkopf, Bill Clinton's Deputy Undersecretary of Commerce and former managing director of Kissinger Associates, from Empire : Superclass, posted here on Saturday (mark 18:31) :

"If there were no oil in the Middle East, the United States wouldn't care about the Middle East, it wouldn't care about Israel, it wouldn't care about Palestine, it wouldn't care about social development in Iraq, it wouldn't care about the Taliban. If there were no oil and the interests who benefit from that oil and advocate for that oil, and who have done so and who have shaped American policy over the course of the past 70 years as a consequence of that oil, are big businesses."

Call me crazy, Mr. Elliott, but I think not helping the US occupy a country for oil bidness would go some distance towards not attracting unwanted attention from Mr. Bin Laden and his new friends here at home.
Back to Elliott's address :

Canada does suffer an image problem with some Americans as a safe haven for terrorists. We must work to overcome that perception ... demonstrate a more proportional and comprehensive commitment to not only fighting terrorism but to advancing our shared security interests more broadly.

I note that this year the RCMP’s strategic priority of “Terrorism” will be expanded to “National Security” which is consistent with this broader objective.

More criminal prosecutions for terrorist offences would certainly be one step to enhancing security relations with the United States.

And just where are we going to find "more criminal prosecutions for terrorist offenses" for the benefit of the US?
Junkies rebranded as terrorist financiers for the war on drugs.

Put succinctly, Canadian criminals and Canadian drug users keep Afghan and Pakistani heroin traffickers in business and contribute to the continuation of a serious threat to the West, and to Canada and Canadian interests.

Proving such linkages in court would mean that drug couriers and their associates could face terrorism financing charges. That would help send a strong message to the world [aka the US] that we are serious about prosecuting accomplices to terror.

Perhaps it also explains why someone decided to send a strong message to the RCMP in BC to stand down from its presser with Insite one month later.

Elliott wraps up with a pitch for an expanded RCMP "capacity to conduct and support extraterritorial investigations" in national security:

I believe the time has come for law enforcement to be even more active in the realm of national security. We need greater capacity to put more terrorism cases before the courts and more terrorists in jail.

And voilà! - Project Samosa. Hope our new alleged terrorists appreciate their important role for us in "enhancing shared security relations with the US".
I know Osama Bin Laden does.
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Canada to stage Afghan war porn attack in Washington

G&M : Canada to stage mock Afghan attack in Washington

"The Canadian embassy in Washington plans to build a faux Afghan village in the embassy courtyard, populated by Afghan actors, and set of fake IEDs, in an effort to show American opinion makers they're doing all they can to win the war in Afghanistan.
The Taliban will attack an Afghan village set up in the heart of Washington courtesy of the Canadian Forces, who will send in a medic in a dramatic effort to save a civilian crippled by the explosion.
At least four times over two days this month, simulated IED blasts will bring the Afghan war – and Canada's combat role in Kandahar – home to Americans if an elaborate scheme based on modern training realism attracts widespread attention, as is hoped."

Meanwhile, in the real world, same paper, same day :

Afghan officials say 90 dead in NATO air strike

"An American war jet blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan on Friday, killing up to 90 people, including insurgents and dozens of civilians who had rushed to the scene to collect fuel, Afghan officials said.

NATO officials initially insisted that there were no civilians in the area when the attack occurred about 2:30 a.m., but alliance chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen later acknowledged some civilians may have died."

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Update : After reading in the Globe and Mail about the Canadian embassy's plan to stage mock explosions in downtown Washington DC, DefMin Peter MacKay put the kibosh on it, perhaps due to two other recent ill-advised WTF? warporn exercises:

On 9/11 this year, a US Coast exercise involving mock firing on an intruding speedboat on the Potomac coincided with President Barack Obama heading across the river to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks:

"The Coast Guard exercise so rattled other security agencies that nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport was briefly closed and high-level officials spent much of the day apologizing and explaining to a rattled public.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was said to be incensed that the Coast Guard planned a mock attack, including reports of shots being fired, on 9/11.

That brouhaha echoed another military embarrassment earlier this summer when Air Force One – the Boeing 747 the carries the president – flew low over Manhattan pursued by a pair of U.S. airplanes, all for a photo opportunity.
Nervous New Yorkers fearing another attack were enraged, and the White House
apologized."

Seriously, WTF?
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Day pushes for new free-trade talks with U.S.

When I replaced my ancient stove with something slightly less antiquated, I phoned Dave our local garbage contractor to pick up the old one. Dave, you see, knows who best to pass it on to - whether that be a scrap metal joint, a dangerous appliance refurbishing business, or just someone looking to build stovehenge in their backyard.

Dave knows this valuable info because he lives here. Somehow I suspect that the International Waste Management Consortium in Houston Texas is not as up on the day-to-day requirements of the local stove-stacking crowd, so it's a good thing that our local municipality gets to Buy Local and give the contract to Dave instead.
In fact the Foreign Affairs page on "Assessing Government Procurement Under Canada's Trade Agreements" explicitly states that WTO, GATs, and NAFTA do not apply.

Day pushes for new free-trade talks with U.S.
... in which the same government that formerly freaked at the idea of revisiting a single page of NAFTA to prevent bulk Canadian water exports is now hoping for a whole "new chapter of free trade" to "ease the tendency by states, provinces and municipalities to favour local companies". Provinces and municipalities would allow US companies to bid on local contracts and in return Canadian businesses get to bid on theirs.
Notwithstanding that the US Fed has already misplaced its ability to account for trillions of their bailout money, why would US taxpayers go for this?
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One North American economic security perimeter : it's not a new idea and "a feared rise of protectionist Buy American measures" is just the latest justification for giving it another push.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to call up Dave. The more I think about that stovehenge idea...
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Petey "Airshow" MacKay, um, scrambles

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

Here's a little musical accompaniment to Dave, Boris, and Ed's posts today on DefMin Pete "Airshow" MacKay and the timely fashion in which he, um, scrambled Canadian jet fighters to save Obama from the Russkies in, um, international airspace, um, three days before Obama even arrived here.

MacKay : "I'm not going to stand here and accuse the Russians of having deliberately done this during the presidential visit, but it was a strong coincidence, which we met with a presence, as we always do, of F-18 fighter planes."

The Star :

It's not clear why Canada chose yesterday to draw attention to what is a fairly common occurrence.
A senior government official said highlighting the mid-air meeting was a good way to show the worth and relevance of NORAD while its commander, U.S. Gen. Victor Renuart, was visiting Ottawa.
It's also a good way to "get some ink" for Canada's contribution to continental security, the official said.

Awesome.

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Help Abdelrazik get a ticket home

Following yesterday's post on the plight of Abousfian Abdelrazik and the new catch-22 conditions our government has seen fit to impose on his return to Canada, Sumeet Jain, a member of BASAS, left the following comment.

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[BASAS, the British Association of South Asian Studies, is, according to their website,"the largest UK academic association for the study of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and the South Asian Diaspora."]

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Mr Jain's request :

"See the facebook group I have set up to support Abousifian. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=69034411293
I am asking everyone to send him a token donation to get a ticket home and to protest the Canadian government’s stand that anyone who supports him is a supporter of terrorism."

Quite right. Both Sudan and the RCMP have already cleared Abdelrazik of suspicion :

"The RCMP conducted a review of its files and was unable to locate any current and substantive information that indicates Mr. Abdelrazik is involved in criminal activity,"wrote Mike McDonell, the force's assistance commissioner for national security criminal investigations, in a Nov. 15, 2007, letter that formed the basis for the government's request that Mr. Abdelrazik be taken off the UN blacklist.
However, that request was blocked by at least one member of the UN Security Council – presumed to be the United States."

It is appalling that this has been allowed to drag on for more than five years, leaving Abdelrazik destitute and living in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum. If he is guilty of anything other than being on a no-fly list, bring him home and charge him.

Mr. Jain's facebook link above. Go.

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Update : Dr. Dawg's letter to Mr. Abdelrazik.

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The "Afghanistan job fair"

is all about attracting more federal public servants to Afghanistan:

"Serving in Afghanistan is a unique and rewarding experience," the memo reads.
"Canadian public servants in Kabul and Kandahar are at the cutting edge of Canada's international work in challenging environments and their contributions will shape Canada's approach to engaging the world for a generation to come."

John Manley's 2007 Afghanistan Task Force advisors, headed by David (no relation) Mulroney and his merry band of 24 experts, are still toiling away at the Privy Council Office and, according to some, sucking all the oxygen out of any other DND, CIDA, or Foreign Affairs project.

Fen Hampson, director of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University explains it's all about Obama :

"Canada's major foreign policy priority is going to be to make inroads with the new administration," he said. "The fact that we are one of the major players in Afghanistan, alongside the Americans, is a very important card and, I would say lever of influence with the incoming Obama administration, Mr. Hampson believed.

"We're not just investing in Afghanistan's future, we're also investing in the Canada-U.S. relationship and partnership. So when you do the accounting you have to include that political calculation into the equation."

No mention of public servants requiring special boots to prevent "blood and fecal matter" from being "tracked into personal quarters" this time round so maybe it could really be fun!

Thanks, Fen!

via Ottawonk whose forays into a possible career change were abruptly brought up short by a question on the RCMP application :
"-Have you ever engaged in bestiality?"
Never mind, Ottawonk. Hey what about Lion Tamer? They must be needing lion tamers in the public service by now.