REAL Women supports Russian "family values"

Harper campaigns to his cheering anti-gay base in Ottawa, April 2005 :

"Your beliefs, your values, our values, are the real Canadian values. And you know my position. You know the position of the Conservative Party of Canada. When elected Prime Minister at the next election, whenever that may be, we'll bring in legislation that will define marriage as the union of one man and one woman."

Well that was then, huh, Gwen?
Problem for you is Steve really really likes being PM. So he's cool with you helping him get elected and in return you got to help give out some medals and make the occasional ham and bigot sandwiches for the base : 

From the REAL Women newsletter, October/November 2011

Homosexuals Demand Changes to Criminal Code 

Members of the homosexual community have also long been agitating for unrestricted sexual access to minors. This requires an amendment to the Criminal Code, which now prohibits pedophilia.

REAL Women press release , Aug 7 2013 :

Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Baird, has abused his position as a cabinet minister to impose his own special interests in the foreign countries of Uganda, Kenya and Russia.
He awarded $200,000 of Canadian taxpayers’ money by way of the Department of Foreign Affairs to special interest groups in Uganda and Kenya to further his own perspective on homosexuality.

[snip] 

Last week, Baird admitted working extensively behind the scenes to prevent Russia from passing legislation designated to protect Russian minors from homosexual propaganda.

          [snip]

Gwendolyn Landolt, National Vice-President, stated, “Just who does John Baird think he is, using taxpayers’ money to promote his own personal agenda and endeavouring to set standards of the laws of foreign countries?  He argues that homosexual rights are a ‘Canadian value’, but this applies only to himself and his fellow activists and the left-wing elitists.  These are not conservative values and that of grass roots Canadians, who after all, pay the bulk of the taxes”.
Mr. Baird’s actions are highly offensive to conservative taxpayers.  He cannot and must not undermine other countries’ sovereignty and dignity, rooted in stable family structures and religious faith, in order to impose his own value system on them.

About that "sovereignty and dignity, rooted in stable family structures and religious faith", Gwen. 

Is that stable family structures and religious faith enough for you? 

Update : Apparently, Baird's office "has offered to meet with REAL Women representatives to clarify the government’s “principled position … against the suppression of fundamental freedoms around the world".
Oh please, please, let it be Baird who meets with them.
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The human rights fly in the CETA ointment

I'm sure Liberal Senator Joan Fraser was speaking for all of us when she expressed her displeasure at the idea that Europe seeks to link the Canada-EU trade deal to human rights.

Referring to the Strategic Partnership Agreement, CETA's parallel political companion, Senator Rivers explained : 

The SPA would enshrine "our common commitment to human rights, to certain common values and to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons," Liberal Senator Joan Fraser said in the Senate on April 18. 

However, "the problem is that in the European formula they want to include a clause that would make it possible for the trade agreement to be suspended if the Europeans judge that Canada had engaged in a serious violation of human rights, Ms. Fraser said. " 

Canada wants to keep trade and human rights separate ....
The Canadian government has "very properly and entirely appropriately refused" to link the two issues, trying instead to find other ways to "reassure Europeans on human rights," Ms. Fraser said.  

Damn straight. 

Just tell them none of our other trade agreements are linked to human rights.

China? You're kidding, right?

Colombia? Sure the US State Dept.'s  Colombia 2012 Human Rights Report refers to "the worst human rights record in the hemisphere" including :

"Corruption exacerbated by drug revenue; extrajudicial killings; insubordinate military collaboration with members of illegal armed groups; harassment of human rights groups and activists; trafficking in persons; illegal child labor; political killings; killings of members of the public security forces and local officials; widespread use of land mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs); kidnappings and forced disappearances; subornation and intimidation of judges, prosecutors, and witnesses; infringement on citizens’ privacy rights; restrictions on freedom of movement; widespread recruitment and use of child soldiers; violence against women, including rape and forced abortions; and killings, harassment, and intimidation of teachers and trade unionists."

But did we let that get in the way of signing off on the Colombia-Canada FTA two years ago, even though Canadian exports to Colombia only amounted to 0.15% ?

The hell we didn't. 

After Libs and Cons voted for it 183 to 78 in the House, CIDA backed Canadian extraction industries consultants to rewrite Colombian mining regulations, the Toronto Stock Exchange opened shop, Scotiabank started buying up Colombian banks, and just this January, Foreign Affairs Min  John Baird lifted the ban on Canadian arms manufacturers exporting assault weapons to Colombia, where we're sure they'll be put to continued good use securing the 40% of the country now under consideration for mining contracts by Canadian companies, as whole villages and local mining companies with the bad luck to be sitting on top the gold or oil need to be displaced, even if it means killing off the occasional protesting local priest.

Fun fact : The Canadian embassy in Bogata Colombia resides inside the Scotiabank building. 

So, EU, don't be bothering us about linking human rights to trade. 

As Senator Joan Fraser points out, in Canada we like to keep 'em separate :

The Canadian government has "very properly and entirely appropriately refused" to link the two issues.

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Steve flexes his sino-pecs from China

Star : Harper blasts foreign money in oil sands debate while welcoming China

        *cough*

Reuters : Canada PM vows to ensure key oil pipeline is built 


CBC : Harper ties China trade deals to Canadian values 

"Canada does not — and cannot — disconnect our trading relationship from fundamental national values."

Meanwhile ...


CTV : Chinese dissident writer gets 7 years' jail for poem

"a poem he wrote urging his countrymen to gather at a public square"

Sinopec seeks appeal in oilsands death case

A Chinese state-owned corporation wants the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn an Alberta court judgement ruling that would force it to stand trial in the deaths of two oilsands workers and 53 safety charges.

Patrick Brown : Harper in China : Great, Glorious and Always Correct 

In the Great Hall of the People, Harper told Premier Wen Jiabao that Canada and China enjoy “a strategic partnership based on respect and admiration.” Wen answered that Harper’s visits “opened a new page in our bilateral relationship,” which translated into English means, “We’re glad you finally got with the program.”

Then Harper said he would be raising human rights and consular issues. That’s when the journalists were ushered out of the room. It felt just like Ottawa.

Confused?
Mound of Sound explains : Okay, I Get It.
Harper Needs China to Buy Bitumen So Canada Can Buy F-35s to defend Canada Against China
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The Canada-Jordan FTA - a licence for human trafficking

On Monday the International Trade Committee heard devastating evidence from two witnesses warning that the Canada-Jordan Free Trade Act will merely provide cover for human trafficking and primarily benefit only China and large multinationals like Walmart and Kmart.

Tim Waters, Political Director of United Steelworkers :

"The U.S.-Jordan trade deal immediately descended into the trafficking of tens of thousands of foreign workers to Jordanian factories."

Waters said he had been a champion of passing the US-Jordan FTA in the mistaken belief that it would benefit both US and Jordanian workers and level the international playing field on tarriffs. Instead, on visiting Jordan, he found almost no Jordanians working in the factories there; over 90%, some 30,000+ workers, are all imported.

Factory owners from India, Sri Lanka, and China imprison 'guest' workers from Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, and the Philippines in compounds in Jordan where they are worked from 12 to 18 hours a day seven days a week in appalling conditions under constant threat of rape, beatings, and deportation.

Locked up after having their passports confiscated at the airport, these indentured labourers have no recourse to the law - despite Lib Scott Brison, FTA pointman for the Cons once again, echoed by Lib Martha Hall Findlay once again, laughably touting the FTA in the House as ensuring :

"following the precedent set by the U.S.-Jordan FTA ... the right to freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, the abolition of child labour, the elimination of forced or compulsory labour, and the elimination of discrimination."

Moreover, said Waters, although human rights provisions embedded in the core of the US bill were ignored in Jordan despite the US wielding the big stick of foreign aid, the similar but weaker Canadian safeguards stand to be even less enforceable as they are only part of a side agreement to Bill C-8.

Gosh, another dubious LibroCon labour rights side agreement - just like Brison's previous precious - the Canada-Colombia FTA.

Waters begged the committee members not to make the same mistake in trusting foreign corporations based in Jordan to police their own human and labour rights standards, a decision his union "deeply regrets". It simply does not work, he said.

Charles Kernaghan, U.S. National Labor Committee executive director :

"When the workers signed their three-year contract to go to Jordan, they were told they'd get free food, free health care, free housing --all of it decent. That is not true.

We've seen that with a Canadian apparel company, the Nygard company. It was producing at a factory called International British Garments. In April, when we investigated that factory, 1,200 workers had been stripped of their passports. They were working from 7 in the morning until 11 at night: 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. For the 110 hours of time they were at the factory, they were paid less than half of the minimum wage. They faced sexual harassment, filthy dormitories, and bedbugs."

On top of all that they are charged for their food and have no access to medical attention.

The response to this testimony was about what we've come to expect from this committee.
Liberal MP and moral idiot John Cannis :

"What you're saying is that it's okay if the rest of the world goes and puts on paper firm guidelines and agrees to the wording, and it's firm and it's strong and so on, and says, “Canada, you continue being the boy scout, and we'll continue doing business”.

Waters :

"With all due respect, I don't think that argument holds, simply because you can't say that since everybody else is wrong and everybody else is doing it, then we should too. Had we [United Steelworkers] known what was going to happen, we never would have supported this, okay? We supported it only because we took the deal at face value."

He went on to say that aside from the garment-producing multinationals, the other beneficiary of slave labour in Jordan is China - where the fabric is imported from.

"The U.S.-Jordan free trade agreement actually benefited China more than anyone else: we estimate about $100 million a year in tariff breaks for their textiles to enter the United States. ... By contrast, benefits to US workers were negligible."

Con Gerald Keddy pretends to miss the point that the US-Jordan FTA labour regs are being entirely ignored along with Jordan's own labour laws, and goes with the "mistakes were made" defence :

"You can't come to us and tell us we have to change the rules. Under our agreement on labour cooperation, we have put some very strict guidelines in this agreement. This does not apply simply to Jordanian workers; it also applies to migrant workers and migrant labour. It is under the International Labour Organization's international guidelines and, quite frankly, it recognizes that some of the migrant worker regulatory regime in Jordan has been less than perfect, that there have been some abuses and some mistakes made ...

In our agreement we also have the ability to facilitate the dissemination of information--specifically labour information--to guest workers and migrant workers so that they actually do understand their rights."

Yeah, Keddy, that's the ticket. A pamphlet drop.

Kernaghan responds to Keddy :

"We asked the Jordanian government to allow NGOs in from the countries where the workers are from, from Bangladesh and from Sri Lanka--and that would be the single biggest element--so that the workers would have advocates. They flat out refused."

Con Ed Holder waxes interminably about all the wonderful benefits that will accrue for Canada, despite total trade in merchandise between Canada and Jordan standing at a measly $82 million.

Waters:

"The benefit was for the garment producers in Jordan to have duty-free access into the U.S. market. 86% of the exports from Jordan to the United States are garments. They're at the table here because they want the same duty-free access to the Canadian marketplace that they have to the U.S. marketplace."

Bill C-8, the Canada-Jordan FTA, passed second reading in the House on Sept 27 and is well on its way to being blessed into law by the ConservaLiberal coalition. The International Trade Committee consists of 6 Cons, 3 Libs, 2 Bloc, and 1 NDP, with all 3 Libs having pledged to support it.

Irony Alert : Yesterday Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced proposed legislation to crack down on human trafficking in Canada.

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This is what real journalism looks like

On June 26th Toronto Mayor David Miller exhorted Torontonians to put the previous day's G20 violence behind them and get out into the streets to enjoy their city. Theatre director Tommy Taylor took Miller's words to heart.

This is his story of his day. Arrested with his girlfriend for singing "Give Peace a Chance", held for more than 24 hours in handcuffs in a 10 by 12 by 20 foot cage along with 40 other men, wet and cold, standing room only, no phone call, having to beg for a few sips of water, eventually passing out on the filthy floor.
One of the most compelling accounts on any subject I've read in some time, not least of all for his sympathy for the police forced into this position. This is what real journalism looks like :

How I Got Arrested and Abused at the G20 in Toronto, Canada
by Tommy Taylor

via Back of the Book and Boris.

Sign the Canadian Civil Liberties Association Petition calling for an independent inquiry and "Law reform to ensure that the Criminal Code provisions relating to “breach of the peace”, “unlawful assemblies” and “riots” are brought in line with constitutional standards.
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Canadians Demanding a Public Inquiry into Toronto G20 - 41,000 members
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First they came for KAIROS ...

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Gerald Caplan, G&M:
The Harper government, women’s rights and the cost of speaking out
The Tories are playing punishment politics with Canada’s progressive NGOs – and eroding civil society in the process

"Despite the chill on speaking out, this week the Canadian Council for International Co-operation announced its fear that its funding is likely to be cut. CCIC is Canada's preeminent coalition to end global poverty. Some 90 Canadian non-profit organizations, including most of the well-known ones, come together under the CCIC umbrella to monitor federal policies on foreign affairs, aid, trade and peace-building."

Betty Plewes, former CEO of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, is not afraid to speak out. She wrote in Embassy Mag in May :

"At Foreign Affairs, the past year has seen the entire division focused on women's rights and gender equality eliminated.

In Pakistan and Kenya, two countries where women's rights violations and violence against women are profound and systemic, CIDA has cut funds that were explicitly dedicated to gender equality. In Canada, Match International, the only international
development organization devoted specifically to women's equality, has lost its funding.

Within CIDA, there is a noticeable retreat from gender equality work. Staff have recommended to NGOs that they remove the words "gender equality" from their proposal if they want a chance at funding."

This is what Senator Nancy Ruth was talking about when she recently advised NGO's to "Shut the fuck up" about abortion funding overseas. "If you push it, there will be more backlash," said Nancy Ruth.

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Antonia Zerbisias covered much of this ground recently in Is Ottawa leaving women behind? with a great quote that "the women's movement is the canary in the coal mine" :

"Canadians are snoozing while they are losing their country,” says [Liberal SWC critic Anita] Neville.
“I don’t think people know or understand what’s going on. I don’t think they will realize it until it hits them personally."

Yeah, that's how it usually is - women and children always go first.

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Laurie Hawn's "gold standard"

On CBC radio's The House this morning, Laurie Hawn, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence and the lead government MP on the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan, said that his government had fixed the faulty Afghan detainee agreement they had inherited from the Liberals and then made the following statement about the current treatment of Afghan detainees :

"Our detainee arrangement is the new gold standard. Taliban prisoners are treated like gold."

Well so much for the U.S. State Department's 2009 report on Afghan human rights then :

"Human rights organizations report local authorities tortured and abused detainees. Torture and abuse methods included ... beating by stick, scorching bar or iron bar, flogging by cable, battering by rod, electric shock, deprivation of sleep, water and food, abusive language, sexual humiliation and rape."

This is Laurie Hawn's "gold standard".

We should just "move on" he said, backed up by a sound clip from Afghan occupation promoter Terry Glavin, who deemed the parliamentary Afghan committee's attempt to get documents necessary for their work "a kangaroo court".

Hawn also repeated his favorite little chestnut about "some Taliban being hit with a shoe".
Does ex-Canadian Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Laurie Hawn not realize what a real disservice this statement is to the Canadian troops who have not only documented abuses but refused to hand over prisoners that they were convinced were just going to be killed?

This is why we can't "move on". Despite reports like the 2009 US State Dept report, the Cons are still in denial and refuse to release even independent human rights reports to the parliamentary committee charged with oversight of our "mission" in Afganistan.
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h/t Croghan at Bread and Roses for The House link.
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Putting a 'happy face' on war crimes

... updated below ...
A month ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time Peter MacKay , and Minister of Defence at the time Gordon O'Connor all denied ever seeing any of the 16 reports "circulated widely throughout the Foreign Affairs and Defence departments and also shared with senior military commanders in Ottawa and Afghanistan" warning that Afghan authorities were abusing detainees handed over by Canadian forces.

How did they all manage to miss all those reports from Richard Colvin, the second in command of Afghan reconstruction at the time? we asked ourselves, somewhat rhetorically.

Murray Brewster, CP :

Canadian diplomats in Afghanistan were ordered in 2007 to hold back information in their reports to Ottawa about the handling of the prisoners, say defence and foreign affairs sources.

The instruction — issued soon after allegations of torture by Afghan authorities began appearing in public — was aimed at defusing the explosive human-rights controversy, said sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

There was a fear that graphic reports, even in censored form, could be uncovered by opposition parties and the media through access-to-information laws, leading to revelations that would further erode already-tenuous public support.

(Ed. : Yeah. Requests for boots to wade through blood and feces will do that.)

The controversy was seen as “detracting from the narrative” the Harper government was trying to weave around the mission, said one official.

“It was meant to put on happy face,” he added.

The instruction was passed over the telephone by senior officials in the Privy Council Office and reinforced in follow-up conferences between Ottawa and Kabul, as well Ottawa and Kandahar, sources said."

Military Police Complaints Commissioner Peter A. Tinsley, chair of the derailed hearings looking into this, and Richard Colvin, First Secretary at the Canadian Embassy in Washington and the diplomat who sent those 16 reports three years ago, will be witnesses at the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan today.


With 6 Cons, 3 Libs, 2 Bloc, and 1 NDP on the committee, the Cons will go for that elusive war crimes 'happy face', aided in no small part by the looney antics of Laurie Goldie Hawn(Con), but Paul Dewar(NDP) uses his scant ten minutes questioning time on this committee brilliantly.
It's listed as a public meeting - wonder if they'll change that? - see you back here later after I've watched it.
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UPDATE : A big storm passing through here is intermittantly knocking out the power and making listening to the committee rather difficult so in the meantime here's what others have reported :
The wonderful Murray Brewster/CP :

"[Colvin] says all of the prisoners Canada handed to Afghanistan’s notorious intelligence service in 2006-07 were tortured — and many of them were likely innocent … farmers, truck drivers and peasants "in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"In other words, we detained and handed over for severe torture, a lot of innocent people."
In a blistering indictment of Ottawa’s handling of prisoners, Colvin said the Red Cross tried for three months in 2006 to warn the Canadian army in Kandahar about what was happening to prisoners, but no one would “even take their phone calls."

He said he was ordered not to write about prisoners, and soon afterward reports from the field began to be "censored" and revised to the point where diplomats could "no longer write that the security situation in Afghanistan was deteriorating."

"all of the prisoners" That's new.
Interesting also that Gordon O'Connor's bogus and already debunked Red Cross alibi in the House was not only not an alibi but he made it while the Red Cross was attempting to bring the torture to his attention.

CBC :

"Colvin said Canada was taking six times as many detainees as British troops and 20 times as many as the Dutch.
He said unlike the British and Dutch, Canada did not monitor their conditions; took days, weeks or months to notify the Red Cross; kept poor records; and to prevent scrutiny, the Canadian Forces leadership concealed this behind "walls of secrecy."

He said the most common forms of torture were beatings, whipping with power cables, the use of electricity, knives, open flames and rape."

Parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs Peter Kent said "since the new transfer agreement was signed, the government has received no complaints of torture."
L. O. fucking. L.

Kady liveblogs the committee.
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WED 10:00PM PST- Colvin speaks to the committee live on CPAC right now.
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Wow. More of the smearing of witnesses we've come to expect from the Cons in committee.

~ Cheryl Gallant. Although Richard Colvin took pains in his opening statement to make clear that he had nothing but admiration for the brave Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, none of whom to his knowledge had anything to do with torturing Afghans, Cheryl Gallant used her allotted time to lecture Colvin on how Canadian soldiers had nothing to do with torturing Afghans. She also chastised him for "fanning the flames of outrage" and lectured him on how "planting stories" is in the "Al Qaida handbook". Wanker.

~ Laurie Goldie Hawn, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence Peter MacKay. Colvin never witnessed torture first hand - so take that, Red Cross. Torture was probably self-inflicted and isn't it suspicious that of all the public servants who were bullied out of testifying by the Cons, Colvin is the only one with the guts to torpedo his own career by coming forward. Yes, Goldie, obviously Colvin is up to something. Wanker.

~ Peter Goldring. Ditto Goldie but more pompously. Wanker.
~ Jim Abbott. Ditto Goldie, plus if our record-keeping and monitoring of prisoners was so bad, how do we know any of this even happened? As Kady pointed out in the link above, Abbott clearly thinks this is his 'Columbo' moment on committee.

I don't know how to explain their shocking behavior other than to guess they all saw the movie High Noon as kids and somehow thought Gary Cooper was the bad guy, taking the townspeople for their role models instead.
Will the rest of Canada stand up for Richard Colvin? He's going to need it.
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Canada's first-ever corporate social responsibility counsellor

Today is the first day on the job for Canada's first-ever corporate social responsibility counsellor.
Marketa Evans, founding director of the University of Toronto's Munk Centre on International Studies, will help Canadian mining and energy companies in countries like Colombia improve their social and environmental standards.

The Munk Centre is named after Peter Munk, chairman and founder of the world's largest gold-mining company Barrick Gold, who contributed $6.4 million to its construction.

.... a post-doctoral fellow was stopped from organizing a panel on mining issues at the Munk Centre that would include discussions of Barrick Gold's operations.

Corporate social responsibility counsellor Evans will report directly to Trade Minister Stockwell Day, does not have the power to mediate disputes, and is not allowed to investigate cases without first obtaining agreement from all parties involved.

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Oh, well done.

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The CSR counsellor's mandate was much discussed during debates on the Canada-Colombia FTA, with the Bloc and NDP noting a certain lack of toothiness.

Just before the Thanksgiving break, the Libs supported a Con motion to prevent any further amendments to the Colombia agreement, so as the House resumes sitting today, the NDP and Bloc insistance on further debate is the only thing preventing this appalling piece of legislation from reaching second reading.

Lib MP Scott Brison, Sept. 14 :

"If we isolate Colombia in the Andean region and leave Colombia exposed and vulnerable to the ideological attacks of Chavez's Venezuela, we will be allowing evil to flourish."

Brison, who is on the trade committee, and Bob Rae say they just want to see the bill go back to committee where - hello! the membership consists of 6 Cons, 3 Libs, 2 Bloc, and 1 NDP - or odds in favour of it passing - 9 to 3.

Meanwhile, irony-deficient Government House Leader Jay Hill, master of the Cons' 2007 dirty tricks manual on "how to unleash chaos while chairing parliamentary committees", is complaining that NDP opposition to the bill "is making Parliament dysfunctional".
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Canada Colombia FTA : How much for the little girl Part 2

The second item on the agenda when parliament resumes on Monday is the second reading of the Canada Colombia Free Trade Agreement, Bill C-23.

The Dominion posts that :

"There are strong indications that the Liberal Party are intending to support the bill. We managed to back them off once before - we need to do so again."

and provides email addies of the relevant Lib MPs, including former human rights activist Michael Ignatieff. Go.

This can only pass with Liberal support, the Bloc and NDP are opposed.

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Yesterday the US State Department ok'd $32 million that Washington had previously withheld due to human and labour rights abuses, bringing to $545 million the total going to Colombia this fiscal year to fight gangs and drug smugglers buy access to Colombian military facilities.

"A U.N. human rights investigator reported separately in June that soldiers had killed hundreds of innocent civilians, falsely identifying them as guerrillas slain in combat to boost body counts. Officials have vowed to eliminate that practice."

Oh well then.

Of course these 'practices' have been ok with Harper since way back in 2007 :

"When we see a country like Colombia that has decided to address its social, political and economic problems in an integrated way, that wants to embrace democracy and human rights, then we say, 'We're in,' he said."

"We are not going to say fix all your social, political and human rights problems and only then will we engage in trade relations with you. That's a ridiculous position," Harper said.

and at last year's Leaders' Summit :

"if the United States and our allies turn their back on an important ally in this region, that will have long-term security consequences for all of our countries in North America."

Not to mention putting a serious crimp in the planned relaunch of the Free Trade Area of the Americas Plan B, aka "Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas".

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Two days till C-23 hits parliament. Send a freakin letter to the Libs now. GO.

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And I suppose you could also drop a note to Steve :

How much for the little girl?

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Update : Pogge's letter :

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To: IgnatM@parl.gc.ca, RaeB@parl.gc.ca, MinnaM@parl.gc.ca, CanniJ@parl.gc.ca, BrisoS@parl.gc.ca, SilvaM@parl.gc.ca

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Dear Honorable Members:

The Conservative government has placed Bill C-23, the legislation to implement the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, on the order paper for this Monday the 14th of September. As I'm sure you are all aware, the Parliamentary Committee on International Trade has recommended that this legislation not be implemented until an objective third party does a thorough assessment on the human rights record of the Alvaro Uribe government which, by many accounts, has the worst human rights record in the western hemisphere.

I would ask that you please honour the recommendation of the committee and vote no on Bill C-23.

Yours truly,

[... ]

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I'm betting Pogge wouldn't mind if you sampled it.

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The dark side of Canadian foreign policy

The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy

by Yves Engler , Fernwood Publishing

A 2007 poll that Engler cites found "84% of Canadians believed Canada played a positive role on the world stage while 10 percent felt it was negative."
Being peacekeepers is a big part of the Canadian national identity.

We are at pains to differentiate ourselves from US corporate colonialism and we are pissed with Steve for his Cold War era mongering and his nonsense about "putting Canada back on the world stage." We never left, we say.

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In his new book to be launched May 3, Engler asks us to take another look at that mythology of Canadian foreign policy in dozens of countries in South America, the Middle East, Caribbean, Africa, and Palestine.

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Via The Dominion, a book review at Canuck Media Monitor.

The entry on Colombia [as the Cons shepherd the Canada-Colombia Free Trade bill through the House] :

"Colombia Canada's closest ally in Latin America is the country that has consistently had the worst human right record in the Western Hemisphere.

In 1997, Ottawa initiated a re-write of Colombia's mining code.
CIDA worked on it with a Colombian law firm and the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI). The proposals became law in 2001 and offered a familiar list of goodies to mining corporations: the weakening of environmental and labor laws, reduced royalties paid to the government, tax exemptions, and added years to mining concessions.

In the resource sector, the link between profiteering and massive human rights abuses, especially forced displacement, is very obvious. Colombia's population of internally displaced persons (3 million as of 2008) is second only to that of Sudan. Engler described how two Canadian companies, BFC Construction and Agra-Monenco, contributed to human rights violations in northeastern Colombia:

"With $18.2 million from EDC [Export Development Canada] the companies' Urra dam submerged over 7,400 hectares, including old-growth forest as well as the
lands and homes of 411 families, all of whom were without individual legal land titles, only having collective indigenous land rights. About 2,800 people were forcibly resettled to make way for the Canadian companies' project and a further 70,000 people were directly impacted. Predictably the community resisted the dam. According to Amnesty International, six indigenous people protesting the project were killed and ten additional members of the community were disappeared by paramilitary and guerrilla forces."

When Canada opposed a 2007 UN General Assembly declaration on the rights of
Indigenous people, it was not only facilitating the ongoing dispossession of indigenous peoples in Canada. It was protecting Canadian companies that have trampled on the rights of indigenous peoples around the world."

Chile? We sided with the US to cut off IMF funds to Salvador Allende but after the 1973 coup, endorsed sending Pinochet $95 million of IMF funds. By 1978 direct investments by Canadian companies in Chile totaled $1 billion.

Iran? We tried to sell them nuclear power.

Iraq? Them too.

Colombia we can still do something about. Go.

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The Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement - A licence to kill

I'm trying to imagine how well it would go down in Canada if we passed a law providing for a token fine to be paid - on a purely voluntary basis -whenever the government combined with Canadian corporations to murder union workers. Not too well I think.

So why are we again considering promoting this behavior from the over 20 Canadian mining and oil and gas operations already in Columbia, including Nexen, Enbridge, Petrominerales, Coalcorp and Vancouver's B2Gold?


In July 2007 Steve stood next to President Uribe of Colombia and proclaimed it would be "ridiculous" to refuse to enter a free trade agreement with Columbia based on the latter's abysmal human rights record - a record which is even worse in 2008 than it was in 2007.

In November 2008 Steve and Uribe shook hands on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
Coincidentally this was the same month the world heard about high-ranking Colombian army officers involved in “false positives” - the execution and dressing up of civilians as FARC guerrillas and claiming they were killed in combat in order to collect a body count bonus.

On March 26, 2009, the Canada-Columbia Free Trade Agreement passed first reading in the House as Bill C-23.



Some notes from the excellent MAKING A BAD SITUATION WORSE -
AN ANALYSIS OF THE TEXT OF THE CANADA-COLOMBIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

Canadian Council for International Co-operation
Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers
Canadian Labour Congress
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

• Extrajudicial executions by security forces : 2007 - 330; 2004 to 2006 - 220; 2003 - 130 ; 2002 - 100.


• 270,675 people have been forced to flee from their homes in the first quarter of 2008 - the highest rate of internal displacement since 1987


• 1,015 people have disappeared over the past year – more than four times the total for 2007 and a 1300% increase over 2005. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, members of the country’s armed forces are suspects in more than 90% of the cases it is investigating.


• Fewer than 1% of Colombian workers enjoy the right to collective bargaining, hampered by the introduction of anti-union legislation
• Over 60% of the more than 3 million internally displaced people in Colombia have been forced from their homes and lands in areas of mineral, agricultural or other economic importance.
• As of October 2008, more than 60 parliamentarians – most of whom are part of President Uribe's governing coalition in Congress… were under formal or preliminary investigation for their suspected links to paramilitary groups..., several have either pleaded guilty or have been found guilty of association with paramilitary groups, electoral fraud, murder, and the organizing, arming and financing of paramilitary groups.”

In Feb. 2008, Daniel García-Peña, VP of the leftist opposition party in Colombia came to Canada and explained why a free trade agreement would be "very negative for Canada and Colombia." :

"Canadian companies would be attracted to Colombia for all the wrong reasons, namely to take advantage of the country's weak labour, human rights and environmental laws. Many companies will come to bypass the laws Canada has and take advantage of Colombian standards, which are much lower. In many ways [this could] promote the exploitation of workers."
Furthermore, Mr. García-Peña says, a trade deal could destroy the livelihoods of many small Colombian farmers by flooding the market with subsidized agricultural imports. "The small peasant farmer would be unable to compete with the cheap imports of food," he says. "[This] would wipe them out."
Those who would benefit, he says, are the large agro-businesses in Colombia that would buy up the land of destitute farmers for the production of biodiesel, palm oil and beef for export.
Worst of all, Mr. García-Peña adds, these large agro-businesses have ties to the paramilitary squads at the heart of the ongoing rights abuses and violence in the South American country."

Please join NDP MP Peter Julian in sending Michael Ignatieff a note asking him to do some credit to his former reputation as a human rights activist : IgnatM@parl.gc.ca
Top Ten Reasons Why Canada Should Cancel Harper's "Free Trade" Deal With Colombia.
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UN report on torture and rendition cites Canada

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism,
Martin Scheinin*

The Guardian : "While the practice of extraordinary rendition was put in place by the US, it was only possible through collaboration from other countries, the report says. It identifies the UK, with ­Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, ­Georgia, Indonesia, Kenya, Macedonia and Pakistan, as countries that provided "intelligence or have conducted the initial seizure of an individual before he was transferred to (mostly unacknowledged) detention centres in Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Thailand, Uzbekistan … or to one of the CIA covert detention centres, often referred to as 'black sites' ".

The Independent :
"Grave human rights violations by states such as torture, enforced disappearances or arbitrary detention should place serious constraints on policies of co-operation by states, including by their intelligence agencies, with states that are known to violate human rights," he said. "The prohibition against torture is an absolute and peremptory norm of international law. States must not aid or assist in the commission of acts of torture ... including by relying on intelligence information obtained through torture."

In his Nov 2007 ruling on the Safe Third Country Agreement, Justice Michael Phelan of the Canadian Federal Court ruled that "The U.S. does not meet the [UN] Convention Against Torture prohibition." That ruling was subsequently overturned.
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The report notes that "lack of oversight and political and legal accountability has facilitated illegal activities by intelligence agencies", and is exacerbated by "increased cooperation between intelligence agencies" when "condoned or even secretly directed by government officials".

The phrase "sentiment analysis" was new to me on the issue of racial/ethnic profiling.

"While data mining is not prohibited as such, it should not be allowed to include variables that result in compromising the right to non-discrimination.
Data-mining software that performs “sentiment analysis”, which extracts and summarizes opinions from unstructured human-authored documents on the Internet in order to create a terrorist profile - and which is apparently used by intelligence agencies in the United States, Canada, China, Germany, Israel, Singapore and Taiwan - must not be used as the basis for deprivation of liberty or inclusion on "watch lists".

And I was surprised, although I probably should not have been, by this statistic :

"On the introduction of a profit motive into situations which are prone to human rights violations ... 70% of intelligence activities of the U.S. are being outsourced to private actors."

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Haaretz : Gaza - over 1000 dead, one third children

All the following four news items are from today's Israeli paper Haaretz. The Israeli paper Haaretz. What an embarrassment it is to compare its coverage and analysis to that of the sorry mealy-mouthed apologetics coming from our Canadian media and politicians.

Gideon Levy : The IDF has no mercy for the children in Gaza nursery schools
"About a third of those killed in Gaza have been children ... out of the 1,000 total killed as of Wednesday. Around 1,550 of the 4,500 wounded have also been children according to figures from the UN, which says the number of children killed has tripled since the ground operation began.
But the horrifying proportion of this war, a third of the dead being children, has not been seen in recent memory. About half of Gaza's residents are under 15.

The public's shocking indifference to these figures is incomprehensible. A thousand propagandists and apologists cannot excuse this criminal killing.
They did not die because they were used as human shields or because they worked for Hamas. They were killed because the IDF bombed, shelled or fired at them, their families or their apartment buildings. That is why the blood of Gaza's children is on our hands, not on Hamas' hands, and we will never be able to escape that responsibility."


Israel Foreign Ministry preparing for 'day after' IDF leaves Gaza
"The Foreign Ministry has created a special task force to prepare for the aftermath of the Israel Defense Forces' Gaza operation. The team will submit proposals for two of the army's main concerns - Iran and Hamas taking control of Gaza's postwar reconstruction, and the harm the offensive might cause to Israel's image abroad.

The ministry hopes to avoid a situation similar to the one in southern Lebanon after the 2006 Second Lebanon War. There, Iran sent hundreds of millions of dollars to Hezbollah to transfer to families whose homes had been destroyed, burnishing the militant group's reputation among the population.
Israeli officials believe after the fighting stops and foreign journalists are allowed entry into the territory that negative sentiment toward Israel will only grow as the full picture of destruction emerges.

The task force's preliminary recommendations highlight the need for Israel to project two kinds of messages abroad. The Arab world must receive a deterrent message indicating Israel will not accept a reality in which its civilians have to endure rocket fire.
The Western world, however, must be presented with the message that despite the scale of destruction rained on Gaza, Israel is a democratic state with a similar worldview to countries in Europe and the United States.

Still, Foreign Ministry officials are convinced that these public relations efforts will not suffice to restore Israel's image and will need to be backed up by diplomatic progress with the Palestinians."


U.S. may cut $1 billion in loan guarantees to Israel over West Bank settlements
"The United States administration plans to cut about $1 billion from the balance of its loan guarantees to Israel because of its investments in the settlements.
Israel has used about $4.4 billion of the $9 billion in loan guarantees extended by the U.S. in 2003.
The loan guarantees arrangement specifies that the U.S. will reduce the guarantees by the amount the Israeli government spends on settlements in the West Bank. The U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv monitors that spending and the administration informs Jerusalem of the amount it is holding back from the guarantees."


ANALYSIS / Egypt's Gaza truce plan is mostly bad for Hamas
"After 19 days of fighting and more than 1,000 Palestinian fatalities, the first significant signs that Hamas is breaking could be seen Wednesday night. Hamas representatives to talks with Egypt announced an agreement in principle on Wednesday to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal.

The Egyptian proposal is mostly bad for Hamas. It doesn't let the organization bring the Palestinian public any political achievement that would justify the blood that has been spilled, and even forces on it the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, in the form of its renewed presence at the Rafah crossing (as a condition for its reopening).

Once the cease-fire is reached, the IDF will withdraw from the positions it captured in Gaza, and only then will the two sides begin to discuss the opening of border crossings and removal of the blockade, which was the reason Hamas gave for waging war.

Hamas representatives did say on Wednesday night they had not yet accepted the Egyptian proposal, but in the same breath they said it was the only proposal on the table."

And from the Jerusalem Post :
Israeli groups: Probe IDF 'war crimes'
A forum of Israeli human rights organizations on Wednesday called on the country's political and military leadership to launch a domestic probe into "suspected war crimes" committed during Operation Cast Lead.
Text of their letter here.

Canada : Israel firsters

Maps of Palestinian loss of land, 1946 to 2000.
Israel is about the same size as Vancouver Island; Gaza, that little green strip on the coast, is a little more than twice the size of the District of North Van, or a little smaller than Seattle.


Yesterday Canada stood alone in voting against a UN human rights resolution "adopted by a roll-call vote of 33 in favour, one against and 13 abstentions" which :

"strongly condemned the ongoing Israeli military operation in Gaza, which had resulted in massive violations of human rights of the Palestinian people, and demanded the occupying power, Israel, to immediately withdraw its military forces from Gaza".

The resolution also called for

"the end to the launching of the crude rockets against Israeli civilians that resulted in the loss of 4 civilian lives and some injuries"

Full UN text here.

Yes it was heavily weighted against Israel, causing European nations and others to abstain from the vote, but Canada's stated reason for voting against it merely repeated the US/Israeli line that Israel didn't start it (italics:mine):

"MARIUS GRINIUS (Canada), speaking in an explanation of the vote before the vote, thanked the Palestine delegation for its consultations, but said the draft text still failed to clearly recognize that rocket fire on Israel had led to the current crisis. It also used unnecessary, unhelpful and inflammatory language. Canada therefore called for a vote and would vote against the resolution."

According to Reuters : "The resolution, whose wording diplomats said had been softened at the request of Palestinian envoys in an effort to get a consensus in the Council, was opposed outright by Canada."

So what did Hamas want?
Khalid Mish'al, head of the Hamas political bureau, speaking in Damascus on January 11, 2009 :

"Concerning us, we want the immediate and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the lifting of the unjust siege on Gaza that has led to the current situation.
Our other request is the opening of all border crossings including the Rafah border crossing.
We, with an open mind, will deal with any initiatives and decisions based on these three requests.

Therefore, we will not accept any negotiations for a truce in the light of and under the pressure of a military campaign and siege.
Let the military campaign stop, let the Israelis withdraw, and let the rights of our people be admitted to, let them recognize our rights to live without a siege and closed
border crossings, just like other humans, then we are ready to discuss a truce, just like we did before.
We will not accept a permanent truce, because it will take the right of resistance from the Palestinian people. The resistance is against occupation and military campaigns and therefore as long as occupation exists, resistance will too…"

Canada's Dept of Foreign Affairs , via The Star :

"The resolution wholly failed to acknowledge Hamas's continual rocket attacks on Israel that brought about the current crisis, and ignored a state's legitimate right to self-defence," a spokesperson said in an email.
"Canada remains deeply concerned about the ongoing hostilities ... and encourages all diplomatic efforts to achieve an immediate, sustainable and durable ceasefire. But first and foremost, Hamas's rocket attacks must stop so that a ceasefire can be realized."

In May last year, a month before he received the B’nai Brith International President’s Gold Medallion, Stephen Harper said :

"... anti-Israeli sentiment is really just as a thinly disguised veil for good old-fashioned anti-Semitism"

In October 2007 Stockwell Day and Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter signed an interim mutual cooperation agreement on homeland security "to enable cooperation in the fields of combating terror and border security".
Dichter laid out guidelines to the Canadian public security committee for a Canadian-Israeli security cooperation similar to the Israel US Homeland Security Pact he signed in February in Washington DC.
The Canada Israel Declaration of Intent was signed on March 23, 2008.

Harper and Uribe shake hands on free trade deal

The handshake that represents Harper's decision to help Uribe in his war against his own people.

The handshake that would allow Colombia "to pay a token monetary amount into a ‘cooperation fund’ when a Colombian trade unionist is murdered".

The handshake that would "destroy the livelihoods of many small Colombian farmers by flooding the market with subsidized agricultural imports", thereby paving the way for large agro-businesses in Colombia to buy up the land of destitute farmers for the production of biodiesel, palm oil and beef for export.

The handshake that supports the use of paramilitary organizations who have forced 4 million people off their land for the benefit of Canadian transnational mining and natural gas companies.

Some of these companies have even supplied the necessary military equipment.

The handshake that ignores involvement of Uribe's top aides in the killing of more than 800 union workers, teachers and journalists over the past six years.

In July 2007, Harper was in Colombia subbing for Bush.

There, with President Uribe at his side, he explained his position :

"When we see a country like Colombia that has decided to address its social, political and economic problems in an integrated way, that wants to embrace democracy and human rights, then we say, 'We're in,' he said."

"We are not going to say fix all your social, political and human rights problems and only then will we engage in trade relations with you. That's a ridiculous position," Harper said.

G&M, last night : [nice to see the Cons still adhering to late friday news dumps!]

"A Canada-Colombia free-trade agreement was announced Friday shortly after Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived in Peru.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said the deal “builds greater trust among investors.”
The agreement lifts tariffs on 98 per cent of Canada's exports to Colombia, including wheat, barley, lentils, peas, beef, paper products and machinery and equipment.

In their free-trade deal, Canada and Colombia agreed their laws must adhere to principles set out by the International Labour Organization. If Canada or Colombia violates the labour organization's principles, they will have to pay into a fund aimed at strengthening workers' rights."

This is known as the "kill a trade unionist, pay a fine" clause.

Not even Bush could get this one past Congress.

Canadian parliament will have their chance to reject it sometime in January.

Bring Omar Khadr home

All together now :
1."Mr. Khadr faces some very serious charges."
2. "the government has been assured he is being treated humanely" and
3. "any effort to act on his case while he is still before the courts would be premature"

Today MP Jason Kenney became the eighth Con podperson to repeat - without mistakes! - the three immortal phrases previously parroted by Maxime Bernier, Marjorie LeBreton, Deepak Obhrai, Eugénie Cormier-Lassonde, Kory Teneycke, Alain Cacchione, and, of course, Steve - the last head of state on the planet to publicly support Guantanamo Bay.


Dear Prime Minister Harper,

I am deeply concerned that Canada has not sought to repatriate Omar Khadr, the only Canadian and the youngest detainee held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

While the accusations against Omar Khadr are serious, he has spent more than a quarter of his life in U.S. military custody, where he has been subjected to repeated abuses and may have been tortured.

Interventions from Australia and Britain have resulted in the successful repatriation of their citizens from Guantanamo Bay. I call on you to petition the U.S. government to repatriate Omar Khadr to Canada, where he can be tried fairly.

I look forward to your prompt reply.

Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]

Via Kathleen Ruff at RightOnCanada

Steve gets a medal

Prime Minister Harper receives international human rights award :
"the B’nai Brith International President’s Gold Medallion, in recognition of the Government’s efforts to fight discrimination and uphold human rights in Canada and around the world."

In presenting the award, the B'nai Brith international president cited four "actions the Prime Minister and the Government have taken to advance human rights and oppose discrimination".

Of the four, two concern support for Israel, one is "unequivocally supporting Canada’s role in the UN-sanctioned mission in Afghanistan", and the fourth ... the fourth is "delivering a heartfelt apology" to the First Nations.


Irony could not be reached for comment.


And from NaPo : PM calls UN conference an 'anti-Western hatefest'
"Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a delegation of B'nai B'rith members yesterday that Canada is refusing to participate in a United Nations conference on racism :
"We will not be party to an anti-Semitic and anti-Western hatefest dressed up as an anti-racism conference."