A word from our new Ambassador of Religious Freedom

"Religion, artificially divorced from the public sphere, makes for an impoverished politics at best, and a benighted political class at worst."

Our new Ambassador of Religious Freedom, Andrew P. W. Bennett, 2 years a dean of Augustine College,  is passionate about returning religious discourse to public life.
Our "official secular religion", he argues two years ago here, "violates freedom of religious expression." 

Huh.

In April 2011, ImmMin Jason Kenney announced that Canada's religious freedom office "would be modeled after the Office of International Religious Freedom within the US Department of State," whose head is styled as an ambassador. 

Two days ago, in announcing our ambassador for the new Office of Religious Freedom within Foreign Affairs, Harper "denied the office would be modeled after its U.S. counterpart, which has been accused of being biased towards Christians". 

Really?
A closed-door ORF Stakeholders Conference in 2011 chaired by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and the following four out of six Christian panelists advised the government 

• Thomas Farr, the State Department's first director of the U.S. Office of International Religious Freedom. Catholic
• Father Raymond De Souza, Roman Catholic priest, NattyPost columnist, and on the Board of Directors at The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs
• Anne Brandner, former policy analyst with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada., which "promotes Biblical principles on matters of public policy"
• Don Hutchinson, vice-president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, who yesterday suggested : "A key part of the ambassador’s job should be to help formulate immigration policy."
• Frank Dimant, CEO of B'nai Brith Canada and Chair of the Department of Modern Israel Studies at Charles McVety's Evangelical Canada Christian College .
• Susanne Tamas of the Baha'i Community of Canada.

Our Ambassador of Religious Freedom has a Ph.D in political science and has been a policy research & analysis manager at Natural Resources Canada and senior political risk analyst at Export Development Canada. He is currently working part-time towards a theology degree in Ottawa.

Which of the above credentials do you think will be most useful to him in defending "freedom of religious expression" against our "official secular religion" ?

Update -- DJ : 'Acids of Modernity' at a Christian Finishing School Ha!
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CCC : a Crown corporation arms dealer

 "There is no better trade show for defence equipment than a military mission."  

~ Marc Whittingham, CEO of the Canadian Commercial Corporation, the crown corporation that acts as Canada's global military sales agency.

But just in case demonstrations of Canadian military equipment against the 90% civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq are insufficiently compelling, the publicly funded CCC also rents a trailer with Export Development Canada at the big yearly CANSEC arms dealer trade show, which is where Embassy Mag caught up with its enthusiastically entrepreneurial CEO.

 CCC sees 'untapped market' for Canadian arms

"You wouldn't know it from the lack of news coverage, but the Canadian Commercial Corporation has been transformed from a low-profile Canadian intermediary agency to a major player in promoting Canadian global arms sales.

The Crown corporation, often referred to simply as CCC, is best known for its primary job, selling Canadian military technology to the US Department of Defense under the 1956 US Defence Production Sharing Agreement, which today works out to about $1.4-billion worth of product flowing south. 

But in the last few years, as the US defence industry began cooling after years of growth, CCC began talking to foreign governments about whether it was feasible for them to fill what was seen as a yawning gap by emulating some of the actions of the US defence department's Foreign Military Sales program.

The answer was a resounding "yes," and CCC realized it was sitting on a lucrative market. Now, Canadian defence contractors say they are increasingly turning to CCC to help them sell their technology to foreign militaries, and CCC is looking at $10.3 billion in contracts for 2010-11."

Apparently the yearly US Foreign Military Sales in arms is $35 billion, but world demand on them is $50 billion so a combination of $15.6 million per year of tax dollars plus CCC's sales commissions filled that "yawning gap" in making the world a better place for arms dealers.

According to CCC's 2010 annual report : "CCC charges fees for service only on its non-DPSA transactions, as its DPSA transactions are funded through parliamentary appropriations" - meaning that you and I are underwriting their fees on contracts with the US military, contracts which account for 80% of their business.
The CCC Corporate Plan 2010/2011 to 2014/2015 notes the "CCC manages between $1 billion and $1.7 billion annually with the U.S. DoD."

CCC CEO Whittingham, formerly the Assistant Deputy Minister of Public Affairs at Public Safety Canada, explains CCC's new direction :

"We are Canada's global defence sales agency. And so we then moved from being an organization that was largely reactive to Canadian industry ­and we would have done, and have done certain deals in defence ­but we didn't have a proactive strategy ourselves, internally, that said we need a business development capability ... we have a business line dedicated to that now. We are small and nimble, and we are able to charge a smaller fee, obviously, for being a Canadian government element within a transaction."

Obviously.

We have a vice-president of business development and sales, a director of global defence sales. Our board of directors is very enthusiastic about it."

Among them - Andrew Saxton Sr, father of North Van Con MP Andrew Saxton Jr.

Back to the CCC Corporate Plan :

"CCC, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT) and Export Development Canada (EDC) make up Canada’s International Trade Portfolio. In conducting its business, CCC utilizes DFAIT’s Trade Commissioner Service (TCS), which has a well-established international footprint with representation in over 150 embassies, consulates, high commissions and trade offices worldwide.
The Corporation’s mandate... directs CCC to play an integral role in helping the government of Canada achieve its overall goals.

The Corporation’s two business lines are structured to support Canadian companies contracting into the defence sector, primarily with the United States, and into emerging and developing country markets.

CCC’s commercial trading transactions over the next five years will [show] a 90% increase from the last five years. The Corporation’s fees will increase from $7.6 million in 2008-09 to $11.0 million in 2009-10, and to $20.4 million by 2014-15.

Strategic goals :

• Serve as a foreign policy instrument for the government of Canada

• Contribute to the development of public policy & programs that support Canadian exporters. 

The Defence Market 

According to the Stockholm International Peace Institute, global military expenditure in 2008 was estimated to be $1.46 trillion USD. This represented a 45% increase from 1999.

Major spending was mainly due to : foreign policy objectives, including the War on Terror; real or perceived threats; armed conflict; and policies contributing to multilateral peacekeeping operations.

From time to time the CCC website site presents a success story, like a $2B DND and Bombadier joint-procurement deal to provide the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Royal Saudi Air Force with a "program for Aviation and Technical Training".

And above a truly lovely photo of a sunny backlit forest :   Corporate Social Responsibility

"At CCC, we commit to operating in an environmentally, socially, and ethically responsible manner, and to respect Canada's international commitments..."

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Librocons : Soft on corporate welfare and off-shore tax havens

A week ago Stephen Harper pledged to go after some 1,800 Canadian foreign bank accounts in Switzerland in a crackdown on off-shore tax evasion, amounting to an estimated $1 billion in lost federal tax revenues. The Cons - tough on white collar crime.

Meanwhile back in the House, Lib and Con MPs are taking turns congratulating each other for their mutual enthusiastic support for the speedy implementation of the Canada-Panama Free Trade Agreement.

Such passion for a deal covering what amounts to less than 1% of Canadian exports seems odd till you recall that according to the U.S. State Department, in addition to being the largest drug money laundering state in the hemisphere, Panama has more than 350,000 off-shore companies with accounts hidden at over 300 Panamanian banks where they face no taxes or legal trail at all.

Currently, $200-billion taxdollar corporate welfare bailout pig, AIG, is suing the U.S. government for $306 million in back taxes based in part on the fact one of its corporate ops based in Panama is AIG's largest shareholder.

So just how easy is it to set up a corporate tax dodge in Panama?
Jessica, a 20 year old intern at Public Citizen, shows you how it's done.



An emailed copy of your passport, a couple of hundred dollars, and voilà -
32 hours later you're now the proud owner of an off-shore company in a country where the president just passed a law to criminalize union activity and public protest this past June.

But no worries. Canada has included yet another "kill a trade unionist, pay a fine" provision in a side agreement to this FTA which asks each country to abide by its own labour laws and to "voluntarily practice corporate responsibility".
Last week Export Development Canada opened an office in Panama City.


The Lib MPs are all very scornful of Bloc/NDP arguments against ratifying this FTA without ensuring stronger labour rights for a country which already has one of the worst wealth distribution rates in the region.
"Just pass it through second reading and send it back to committee for revision," mock the Libs.

The committee in question - International Trade - is comprised of 6 Cons, 3 Libs, 2 Bloc, and 1 NDP. All three Lib committee members have already spoken in support of the agreement in the House.

Chalk up another one for the Librocons.
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Rights and Democracy - remember them? - and the Canada-Colombia FTA

The Canada-Colombia-how-much-for-the-little-girl?-Free Trade Investment Agreement, or Bill C2, will pass third reading later today just as Martha Hall Findlay begins to get the feeling back in her lower jaw.

Last fall the parliamentary Trade Committee recommendations on C-2, then known as C-23, included one for an independent human rights assessment before the deal passed. Last fall this recommendation was considered integral to passing the agreement. This year the Libs don't much care for it, having jettisoned it in favour of Lib Scott Brison's preference for hearing about human rights abuses after they occur.

From 2007 through 2009, one of the recommendations read :

"that an independent, impartial, and comprehensive human rights impact assessment should be carried out by a competent body, which is subject to levels of independent scrutiny and validation; the recommendations of this assessment should be addressed before Canada considers signing, ratifying and implementing an agreement with Colombia."

And who was to do this human rights assessment?

"The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada draw on the work of the organization Rights and Democracy to give an independent body the mandate to conduct studies regarding the impact on rights and the environment when it is negotiating economic agreements with countries at risk, as in the case of the agreement with Colombia."

And look what happened to them.
They got a new chairman, a new president, four new board members, and a new mandate at the bottom of Steve's sock drawer.

What sort of work might R&D have recommended on a potential trade agreement with Colombia if they hadn't been gutted?

R&D Feb. 1, 2007 :

"Colombian paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso’s recent admission that he facilitated the disappearance and killing of celebrated indigenous leader Kimy Pernia Domico, winner of Rights & Democracy’s 2003 John Humphrey Freedom Award, raises new concerns that justice for victims of human rights abuses will not be served by Colombia’s current demobilization process.

R&D goes on to note that Kimy Pernia Domico had come to Canada years before to give testimony to Members of Parliament about :

"the devastating effects of an internationally-funded hydroelectric dam on the Embera-Katio’s traditional lands and livelihoods, a project which received $18.2-million in funding from Export Development Canada."

Say, how did that work out?

Land and Life, a 2007 doc film from Kathy Price, former CBC foreign affairs producer :

"examines the devastating impact of a hydroelectric project on the Embera Katío Indigenous people and raises disturbing questions about a Canadian crown corporation that provided financing."

Was the gutting of Rights and Democracy only about protecting Israel from criticism?
Maybe not. Maybe it wasn't supposed to blow up like that. Maybe, as they could not have forseen the death of Remy Beauregard, staff were not expected to rebel.
Maybe Steve thought the addition of a few new board members was all that was needed to get R&D to write him up some really enthusiastic reports on Colombia's remarkable progress in reducing poverty by 1% per year while simultaneusly increasing the gap between rich and poor for the benefit of whichever oil or mining project we are funding there this week.

That appears to be Scott Brison's job now.
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Bill C-300 : In the minefield of the International Trade Committee

Canada is #1 in the world in mining and extractive industries in foreign countries. With over a thousand mining and exploration companies in 100 countries - about 5,000 projects - Canada has well over 50% of the global exploration and mining companies. There have been noises about human rights abuses.

On March 26, 2009, the Cons tabled a policy to deal with corporate social responsibility abroad : a "centre of excellence", a voluntary industry compliance strategy, and a Con-appointed corporate social responsibilty official, Marketa Evans, who will report to the minister of trade once a year. She has no power to investigate abuses if the corps in question do not agree to it.
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International human rights standards, however, refer to people, not corporations.
Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries, attempts to provide a mechanism for dealing with environmental and human rights violations supported or perpetrated by Canadian companies abroad.
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From the Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development :
Oct 8 : A Canadian copper mine in the Philippines was dumping mine waste in the ocean. Its earthen dams broke, inundating villages below with toxic mine waste. Parents of dead children were paid $23 per child.
In Ecuador a Canadian mining company's paramilitary agents issue death threats to local villagers opposed to the mine.
In Tanzania, a Canadian gold mine is leaking cyanide into surrounding rivers.
Norway's government pension fund has dropped its shares in a Canadian mine in Papua New Guinea because it "dumps its tailings and its waste directly into a huge tropical river system".

Oct.20 : A Canadian mining company in Papua New Guinea :

Numerous accounts of rapes show a similar pattern. The guards, usually in a group of five or more, find a woman while they are patrolling on or near mine property. They take turns threatening, beating, and raping her. In a number of cases, women reported to me being forced to chew and swallow the condoms used by guards during the rape.

Oct 22 : A tailings dam failure in Guyana in which the Canadian gov refused to hear the suit, a large cyanide spill at the EDC-supported mine in Kyrgyzstan, irreversible damage to local glaciers in Argentina, troops kill artisan miners in Tanzania to make way for a Canadian gold mine. Etc etc through about 30 countries.
Lawsuits are tried in the US courts because there is no opportunity to try them in Canada.

Export Development Canada is a crown corporation export credit agency, providing 8,300 Canadian companies operating abroad, mostly mining companies, with advice, debt insurance, and start-up financing money.
In response to questions about the need for Bill C-300 to safeguard human rights, Jim McArdle, a lawyer for EDC, explained that EDC is concerned that C-300 would force them to yank funding from Canadian corps found to be committing human rights abuses, and this would have a chilling effect on companies considering applying to the EDC for assistance. Despite already having their own CSR (corporate social responsibility) advisory group and a compliance officer, EDC has yet to yank funding from a single Canadian corp for any violation.

Further, McArdle said Canada adopting C-300 would "take Canadian companies out of the game", give other countries an unfair advantage, and likely result in our companies relocating to another country with less stringent rules.
Hey, I guess that's why we're currently #1.

Peter Goldring, Con, suggests that with its emphasis on international human rights standards, this bill "amounts to a limit on Canadian sovereignty."

Kevin Sorenson, Con Chair, suggests Bill C-300 would pave the way for "frivolous lawsuits"

CIDA : Not our job to handle complaints!

Deepak Obhrai, Con, says the definition of what precisely constitutes a human right is very open to misinterpretation and will hurt our mining companies.

Tell you what, Deepak, let's just start off by dealing with the raping, killing, and displacing of brown people in the way of our profits and work back from that.

Another concern voiced was that the media would carry stories of abuses as soon as investigations began, thereby putting a potentially innocent company under a cloud until the issue was resolved. Yeah, just like people.

Every committee has at least one Con whose job is to ask leading questions about how wonderful the Con gov is. This job just requires stringing together a number of non-sequitors in the form of a question. Or not.
John Weston, Con, my MP :

"I would appreciate more specific comments on what the government is doing now. In other words, this is not a government that's oblivious of human rights concerns. We created serious impediments for mining companies, with some of the things we've done in the name of human rights. We're doing that to try to open up the competitive capacity of the mining companies. If you can't do business and you don't pay your taxes in Canada, then we can't maintain our social safety net."

Thanks for that, John.

On April 22, 2009 Bill C-300 passed second reading in the House by a mere 4 votes. With all Cons voting against it, it is now struggling its way through the minefield of the Foreign Affairs and International Development Committee - 6 Cons, 3 Libs, 1 Bloc and 1 NDP. Excellent work from Paul Dewar with Bob Rae looking for the middle ground.

Time to fire off a letter. Over at The Beav I've posted the email addies of the 20 Libs and 7 Dippers who missed the vote last time. They could use a note too.
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Canada's "shock doctrine" in Honduras

On June 28th, 200 soldiers of the Honduran military kidnapped the president, Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, and flew him to Costa Rica. His attempted return 4 days ago was unsuccessful.
The coup d'eat was roundly condemned by the UN, the EU, the Organization of American States, and rather more tepidly by the USA; the EU pulled its diplomats; the World Bank suspended aid; and all called for the return and reinstatement of Zelaya.

Amidst this near-universal condemnation, on Saturday Canada's Minister for the Americas, Peter Kent, recommended that ousted President Manuel Zelaya delay his planned return to the country, saying the "time is not right". When 2 of 100,000 Zelaya supporters waiting for his plane to land at the airport were shot by the military, Kent went on national tv to blame Zelaya for their deaths.

What is he on about?
Corporate interests and the fear of united social reform in Latin America.
After a devastating hurricane destroyed most of Honduras' crops and infrastructure in 1998, Canada offered millions in aid in return for opening up the country to Canadian mining interests.
Canada and the US also took advantage of this disaster/opportunity, as they did in Colombia, to rewrite Honduras mining laws, granting Canadian corporations tax breaks and land rights to mineral extraction over the rights of local communities. Canada is now the second largest "foreign investor" in the country.

Ashley Holly at The Tyee : Shame on Canada :

"Currently, Canadian companies own 33 per cent of mineral investments in Latin America, accumulating to the ownership of over 100 properties. Export Development Canada contributes 50 per cent of Canadian Pension Plan money to mining companies, which offered upwards of $50 billion in 2003. Goldcorp alone has received nearly one billion dollars from CPP subsidies.

Although EDC is responsible for regulating Canadian industry abroad, it has been accused of failing to apply regulatory standards to 24 of 26 mining projects that it has funded.

In February 2003, nearly five hundred gallons of cyanide spilled into the Rio Lara, killing 18,000 fish. The mine in San Andres uses more water in one hour than an average Honduran family uses in one year. In that same year, mining companies earned $44.4 million, while the average income per capita in Honduras in 2004 was just $1,126USD."

Zelaya has been moving steadily left ever since his election : doubling minimum wage from $132 per month to $290 ; proposing nationalization of energy production and reforms to make government more transparent and accessible; joining Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Nicaragua and Venezuela in the left-leaning ALBA, formed to counter imperialism in the region; and - oh yeah - banning new mining concessions.

Canada's training of Honduran military personnel through its Military Training Assistance Programme is really paying off for Canadian mining corporations here. According to the MTAP Directorate, officials from DFAIT, DND, and CIDA combine to "promote Canadian foreign and defence policy interests," using "the mechanism of military training assistance to develop and enhance bilateral and defence relationships with countries of strategic interest to Canada."

As this Guatemalan newspaper asks : Will President Colom of Guatemala, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, or President Funes in El Salvador be next?

Zelaya discusses the coup with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now today.
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