Fetus Festivus on Parliament Hill

21 Canadian MP's await their turn to address the crowd at this year's annual Fetus Festivus yesterday on Parliament Hill :

Rod Bruinooge, Chairman of the Pro-Life Parliamentary Caucus, Harold Albrecht, David Anderson, Leon Benoit, Kelly Block, Royal Galipeau, Dean Del Mastro, Ed Komarniki, Guy Lauzon, Pierre Lemieux, Gurbax Singh Malhi, Phil McColeman, Dan McTeague, Lavar Payne, Paul Szabo, Brad Trost, Tim Uppal, Maurice Vellacott, Mark Warawa, Jeff Watson, and Stephen Woodworth.

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Bruinooge says this represents only part of their 30-40 member anti-abortion Parliamentary Caucus which is pretty much still stuck at the loose tea stage and does not include any Bloc or NDP members.

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Invited leaders of American fetus fetishist sects praised their junior Canadian counterparts, Catholic high school children were specially bussed in for the occasion, and the Supreme Grand Knights and Primates sported swords and ostrich feather hats.

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Best "When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbour" moment in a speech?

Bishop Nicola de Angelis of Peterborough : "God created life. God did not create death."

Bishop Nicola was not about to allow a little thing like Genesis to spoil Fetus Festivus for everyone.

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Buh bye till next year.

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More : Fern and JJ and Pogge.

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Harper's war on women

Last July in Embassy Mag, Foreign Affairs officials accused political staffers within the ministry of quietly adjusting Canadian policy by eliminating phrases like "gender equality" from foreign policy missives.

Today, just weeks before the G8 leaders gather in Ontario to adopt Harper's action plan on maternal health, Embassy Mag reports :

"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."

To be filed alongside the 11 womens programs eliminated in the past few weeks.

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Goldman Sachs to plot sale of Ontario public assets

Ish Theilheimer at Straight Goods wonders why there has been no public outcry about McGuinty's decision to hire Goldman Sachs to come up with a privatization blueprint for 49% of Hydro One, Ontario Power Generation, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, and the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

The LCBO, OLG, Hydro One and OPG provide more than $10 million a day, totalling $4.1 billion in profit last year to fund social services for Ontario - making Bay Street's usual privatization argument pretty weak here - but, um, Goldman Sachs?

Ish : "In the USA, for instance, the company has supervised highway privatization deals in which it acted as a financial advisor to the state at the same time as it invested in companies vying for the highways."

In Goldman Sachs : The Great American Bubble Machine, Matt Taibbi describes the corp as

"a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money..."

"the heads of the Canadian national banks are Goldman alums, as is the head of the World Bank, the head of the New York Stock Exchange, the last two heads of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York - which, incidentally, is now in charge of overseeing Goldman ..."

Following its part in managing the recent financial collapse of Greece, the Vampire Squid is being investigated for fraud by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading its own clients and encouraging them to invest in a product that was destined to fail.

Canada doesn't have a national securities regulator. In announcing plans to put one in place on May 3rd, Fin Min Jim Flaherty said that Canada is not directly probing Goldman Sachs because any probe of Goldman would fall under provincial jurisdiction.

Oh, go, McGuinty!

Fun facts : Vampire Squid corporate tax rate in 2008? One percent.
Fin. Times : "Goldman Sachs Group Inc and 22 European banks were the major beneficiaries of US$93-billion in payments from AIG -- more than half of the U.S. taxpayer money spent to rescue the massive insurer."
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Banksy comes to TO

presumably to hype the opening of his "documentary" film Exit Through the Gift Shop, "the world's first street art disaster movie".

The Torontoist is following the appearance of new pieces on walls around Toronto over the weekend, and their just as sudden disappearances.

Last call on the Canada-Colombia FTA

There's a rumour going around that tomorrow Con Gerald Keddy, Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, will move to shut down the International Trade Committee's hearings on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. On April 29 committee chair Lee Richardson opened the day's hearings by stating he wasn't going to allow a whole lot of witnesses to testify just so they could put it on their resume.

C-2, as it is known, passed second reading last month with the help of the following Liberal MPs :
Ignatieff, Dion, Rae, Bagnell, Brison, Bagnell, Belanger, Crombie, Cuzner, Dryden, Kirsty Duncan, Easter, Eyking, Fry, Garneau, Goodale, Holland, Hall Findlay, LeBlanc, MacAuley, McCallum, McGuinty, John McKay, Mendes, Shawn Murphy, Murray, Oliphant, Proulx, Ratansi, Regan, Rota, Russell, and Trudeau.

Those Libs need to know we will be watching them tomorrow.
Sign and send a letter here tonight.
People in Ottawa will be filling the Parliamentary Trade Committee hearing room at 3:30 for a Tweet-In.

It's complete bullshit that two years ago all the parties agreed to an independent human rights assessment before the deal was implemented and now they don't even want to hear from the witnesses in committee, but considering what they have been hearing from witnesses so far, it's absolutely unconscionable.
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Tuesday night update : The tweeters in attendence report there was no motion to quash today.
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Defense Dept. bans reporters from Gitmo

The US Dept of Defense has banned four reporters from Gitmo for divulging the names of two witnesses at Omar Khadr's kangaroo show trial. The reporters are Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star, Steven Edwards of Canwest, Paul Koring of the Globe & Mail, and Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald.

Well it's a wee bit late for that, isn't it? Michelle Shephard already published part of an interview with one of the witnesses in The Star nearly two years ago :

"Sgt. Joshua Claus was a slight, blond soldier with little experience and lots of responsibility when he became Khadr's interrogator in the cavernous U.S. prison in Bagram detainees nicknamed "The Barn."

Claus would later be convicted for his role in the death of another detainee at Bagram – an innocent Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar. Claus pleaded guilty to maltreatment and assault in return for a five-month jail sentence in 2005. The 2,000-page confidential army file on the investigation into the case, obtained by The New York Times, quotes another soldier saying that Claus twisted a hood over Dilawar's head the day he died. "I had the impression that Josh was actually holding the detainee upright by pulling on the hood."

During the only interview Claus has granted, he told the Toronto Star any allegations of Khadr's mistreatment were false. "They're trying to imply I'm beating or torturing everybody I ever talked to," Claus said.

"Omar was pretty much my first big case," Claus added. "With Omar, I spent a lot of time trying to understand who he was and what I could say to him or do for him, whether it be to bring him extra food or get a letter out to his family ... I needed to talk to him and get him to trust me."

Khadr also described his interrogations, but the U.S. Department of Defense has censored some of the details in his sworn affidavit.

"During this first interrogation, the young blond man would often (censored) if I did not give him the answers he wanted," Khadr claimed. "Several times, he forced me to (censored), which caused me (censored) due to my (censored). He did this several times to get me to answer his questions and give him the answers he wanted."

Later he writes: "I figured out right away that I would simply tell them whatever I thought they wanted to hear in order to keep them from causing me (censored)."

A week ago reporters were ordered out of this same Gitmo courtroom while 'classified' video of an interview with Khadr was shown. The reporters adjourned to the media room and watched it on youtube instead.

Skdadl's source at Empty Wheel sums up the reporter ban : "So DOD is basically saying that once a reporter agrees to go to Gitmo, they lose the ability to report on stuff they have already reported on."
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Shut the Fuck Up - The Prequel

If there's one thing Steve does really well, it's using hot button issues to sew strife and division among his enemies.
Within a day of Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth's tactical warning on Monday to NGOs that their insistence on having access to abortion included in Steve's maternal health initiative for developing countries risked blowing the whole thing up, proponents on the pro-choice side were at each other's throats.

Progressive Bloggers featured a whole page of moronic posts denouncing the pro-choice Nancy Ruth, founder of LEAF ferchissakes, for "intimidation" and calling for her dismissal. A quick check just now reveals those "intimidation" posts are still coming.

The Liberal Party immediately dashed off a fundraising letter to supporters :

So this is how the Conservative government treats those who work with women and children in some of the world’s poorest nations?"

Shut the f—- up on this issue," Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth told international aid workers who gathered on Parliament Hill earlier today to express their concerns about the government’s maternal health policy. She then warned them the organizations they represent risk losing their funding, or worse, if they continue to speak their mind. "If you push it, there will be more backlash," she said.

We cannot let the government treat Canadians this way. Their contempt for the public has reached a level you and I just can’t tolerate.

The men and women who were insulted and threatened today have every right to be deeply concerned about this government’s backwards approach to maternal health, which departs from over twenty years of established Canadian policy supporting women’s rights to access safe, legal abortion and the full range of family planning services.

And when they say they find it tougher to do their jobs effectively under Stephen Harper, we believe them.

Thanks, Libs. You know what would have counted? Showing up in the House to vote for your own party's motion to include contraception and the unspoken word 'abortion' in Steve's wee world stage gambit.

Over at Rabble, the regulars are busy announcing their intention to pull financial support for any aid group that buckles under Harper's pressure - you know, the aid groups that have been working for years to get some kind of maternal health funding - any kind of maternal health funding going - for the women and children in poor and war torn countries.

It's principle vs pragmatism for the aid groups.
Pragmatism : If they insist women in poor countries are accorded the same rights women have in Canada, they risk losing their funding - and the desperately needed aid they can provide - after the G-8 spotlight moves on. In fact Harper cut funding for 11 women's groups in just the last two weeks, although I see Wycliffe Bible Translators and Chakam School of the Bible will still be getting their funding.
Principle : Experience shows shutting the fuck up is indistinguishable from compliance - it just encourages the bastards, and your silence will not protect you.

JJ, Just Another Willy Loman, and Dave at TGB have already advised not to shoot the messenger, Nancy Ruth, and to take note of the end of her warning :

"Canada is still a country with free and accessible abortion. Leave it there.
Don't make this an election issue."

Today JJ takes it further : It's a trap.

"... eventually the spiraling debate over funding abortion as part of foreign aid would boomerang as the focus inevitably shifted back to our own domestic policies."

Yes. It may have started with funding abroad but now it's on its way home.

I don't think Steve intended his moms and tots feel-good world-stage initiative to blow up in his face this way, putting the spotlight on Canada as the most backwards nation in the G-8. No.
But never underestimate Steve's ability to turn a seeming loss into an opportunity to set his enemies against each other to quietly further his agenda.

For weeks leading up to this, various noosemedia editorials, polls, and live "discussions" have noted the fact Canada doesn't really have its own codified abortion law.
Seriously, who the fuck wants one? Who wants government interfering in this in any way at all?
Speak out for all the aid groups forced to struggle with an unnecessary principle/pragmatism divide imposed by Harper.
Speak out against being silenced with threats.
But when it comes to reigniting the abortion debate here in Canada, which it will, could everyone please just shut the fuck up.
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The Bloc! Booga booga!

The Sun :

"The Tories’ house leader Jay Hill told QMI Agency the government has not agreed to allow members of the Bloc to review confidential documents related to the transfer of Afghan detainees."

Haven't said no; haven't said yes.

"Bloc MPs would "have to swear allegiance to Canada and the Queen" if they want access to sensitive information, said Manitoba Tory MP James Bezan.
"If they are not prepared to do that, then I don’t see any way that we can give them the documents," he said."

Take it away, M. Duceppe... (h/t Maclean's)



I'm really fed up with the Cons' sly frogbashing and the anglo media ignoring the Bloc altogether unless it's to remind everyone of how the Bloc was part of the really scary coalition to replace Steve. Gosh, looking back on it, how terrible for Canada that would have been.

As someone who watches parliamentary committees on a regular to sporadic basis, I can tell you that many issues concerning social justice and individual freedom would get scant airing in committee if not for the dogged and fearless determination of Bloc committee members to ask hard questions of witnesses and not dither away their time scoring meaningless political points like our friend Bezan here. And they don't take any crap from anyone. Would they were a federalist party; I'd probably vote for them.
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Khadr - The show trial must go on

Skdadl reminds us that Harper sent a wee tepid request to the US government asking that the Khadr kangaroo show trial :

"not use as evidence in legal proceedings there any evidence collected at GTMO by Canadian agents and representatives, which the Supreme Court of Canada has said (2008) was collected in violation of Omar Khadr's rights."

Steve to Obama : nudge, nudge, wink, wink

What to do ... what to do...

McClatchy :

"Earlier Saturday, officers cleared reporters and observers from the hearing to screen a 2003 interrogation video that they said was classified, though it was made public by Canada's Supreme Court two years ago and is available on YouTube.

The video shows the Toronto-born teen weeping in a Guantanamo interrogation booth and pleading for help from his Canadian interrogator.

Reporters locked out of that portion of the hearing watched the video on YouTube in a media center in a crude abandoned airport hangar below the hilltop tribunal chamber."

The other bizarre incident of the day was testimony from the Army Special Forces officer, an assistant police chief in civilian life, who initially reported that the person who threw the grenade at Army Sgt Speer died in the firefight. This is the crime Khadr is charged with. If the grenade thrower died, it couldn't have been him.

Defense lawyers discovered this report had later been altered to say that Khadr survived - what they termed "manufactured evidence" - but it turns out to have been just an honest mistake :

"W said he didn't realize that he got the report wrong until some investigators preparing for Khadr's trial visited him “a few years later.” So he opened it up on his computer and fixed it."

Just like that. Even though, according to Paul Koring , "he had known within days of the original firefight that Mr. Khadr had survived. "

Well alrighty then. It seems to me that there have been hundreds if not thousands of people not in uniform in Afghanistan who either have or have not thrown grenades at the US troops occupying their country. Where's their show trials?
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Spill, baby, spill

In Australia last year a massive blowout caused a rig to catch on fire and spew thousands of gallons into the sea for ten weeks.

At a hearing into the accident, the federal U.S. Minerals Management Service faulted the work of Halliburton's cement workers for failing to properly pump cement into the well.

According to a 2007 study by the same Minerals Management Service, out of 39 rig blowouts they studied in the Gulf of Mexico between 1992 and 2006, cementing was a contributing factor in 18 of the incidents.

Fastforward to today. AP :

"In a statement, Halliburton said workers had finished a cementing operation 20 hours before the rig went up in flames. But the company said it was "premature and irresponsible to speculate" on what caused the disaster.

BP profit in the first quarter of 2010 : $5.6 billion

Cost of the acoustic switch to shut off rig blow-outs that BP has to use in the rest of the world but not in the US : $500,000.

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