Bill C-51 Senate Perp Walk of Shame

The Red Chamber of Sober Second Expense Accounts passed the anti-terrorism Bill C-51 by 44 votes to 28 yesterday. 

Below find those 44 Con Senators who voted YEA - along with their contact info/bios/pix - because I don't think these fine folks are well enough known to Canadians. You'll note some of them will still be in the Senate 30 years from now. 
All but three were appointed by Harper - two were appointed by Mulroney and one by Paul Martin. 

A full seven out of the 30 Harper's Perps with Perks are senators.

Name&contact info - Party affiliation - Appointed by - Province - Term of office

Ataullahjan, Salma  CON - Harper - Ontario - 2010 to 2027

Batters, Denise  CON - Harper - Saskatchewan - 2013 to 2045

Bellemare, Diane  CON - Harper - Quebec - 2012 to 2024

Beyak, Lynn  CON - Harper - Ontario - 2013 to 2024

Black, Douglas  CON - Harper - Alberta - 2013 to 2027

Carignan, Claude  CON - Harper - Quebec - 2009 to 2039

Dagenais, Jean-Guy  CON - Harper - Quebec - 2012 to 2025

Doyle, Norman E   CON - Harper - Nfld Labrador - 2012 to 2020

Eaton, Nicole   CON - Harper - Ontario - 2009 to 2020

Enverga, Tobias  CON - Harper - Ontario - 2012 to 2030

Fortin-Duplessis, Suzanne  CON - Harper - Quebec - 2009 to 2015

Frum, Linda  CON - Harper - Ontario - 2009 to 2038

Gerstein, Irving   CON - Harper - Ontario - 2009 to 2016

Greene, Stephen   CON - Harper - Nova Scotia - 2009 to 2024

Lang, Daniel  CON - Harper - Yukon - 2009 to 2023

LeBreton, Marjory  CON - Mulroney - Ontario - 1993 to 2015

MacDonald, Michael  CON - Harper - Nova Scotia - 2009 to 2030

Maltais, Ghislain  CON - Harper - Quebec - 2012 to 2019

Manning, Fabian  CON - Harper - Nfld Labrador- 2011 to 2039

Marshall, Elizabeth  CON - Harper - Nfld Labrador - 2010 to 2026

Martin, Yonah   CON - Harper - British Columbia - 2009 to 2040

McInnis, Thomas  CON - Harper - Nova Scotia - 2012 to 2020

McIntyre, Paul  CON - Harper - New Brunswick - 2012 to 2019

Mockler, Percy  CON - Harper - New Brunswick - 2009 to 2024

Nancy Ruth  CON - Martin (Lib)- Ontario - 2005 to 2017 

Neufeld, Richard  CON - Harper - British Columbia - 2009 to 2019

Ngo, Thanh Hai  CON - Harper - Ontario - 2012 to 2022

Ogilvie, Kelvin   CON - Harper - Nova Scotia - 2009 to 2017

Oh, Victor  CON - Harper - Ontario - 2013 to 2024

Patterson, Dennis  CON - Harper - Nunavut - 2009 to 2023

Plett, Donald  CON - Harper - Manitoba - 2009 to 2025

Poirier, Rose-May   CON - Harper - New Brunswick - 2010 to 2029

Raine, Nancy Greene  CON - Harper - British Columbia - 2009 to 2018

Rivard, Michel   CON - Harper - Quebec - 2009 to 2016

Runciman, Bob  CON - Harper - Ontario - 2010 to 2017

Seidman, Judith  CON - Harper - Quebec - 2009 to 2025

Smith, Larry  CON - Harper - Quebec - 2011 to 2026

Stewart Olsen, Carolyn  CON - Harper - New Brunswick - 2009 to 2021

Tannas, Scott  CON - Harper - Alberta - 2013 to 2037

Tkachuk, David  CON - Mulroney - Saskatchewan - 1993 to 2020

Unger, Betty   CON - Harper - Alberta - 2012 to 2018

Wallace, John D.  CON - Harper - New Brunswick - 2009 to 2024

Wells, David M.  CON - Harper - Nfld Labrador - 2013 to 2037

White, Vernon  CON - Harper - Ontario - 2012 to 2034

Mike Duffy, Patrick Brazeau, and Pamela Wallin didn't vote of course.

Here are the 28 Liberal senators who voted against the bill in the Senate, as opposed to the 33 Liberal MPs who voted for it at final reading in the House of Commons.


Although the Senate records "nil abstentions", Con Senators Raynell Andreychuk, Jacques Demers, Janis G.Johnson, Don Meredith, and Josée Verner did not vote ; 
nor did Liberal Senators George Baker, Colin Kenny, and Terry Mercer.

Open Media : Bill C-51 Just passed. Where do we go from here?

Fingus : How the Senate's failure to provide any second thought on C-51 may serve as the ultimate signal that it has nothing useful to offer Canadians.

Akin : Deafening disrespect of aggrieved senators

Update : Dear Open Media : In your Heroes and Zeros list, your attribution of Rivard and Larry Smith as Liberals is incorrect. They are Cons and were appointed by Harper in 2009 and 2011 respectively.
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Call for Heave Steve! National Campaign

Damn good tune. Yeah, it came out two months ago - keep posting it till everyone knows the words.

Then we need to pick a day for a national sing-along - I suggest the day the writ drops - with people right across Canada posting themselves with their own Heave Steve signs  - just like the folks in the vid - to some central site for possible re-mix including everyone if Lon Borgerson agrees to it.  Cross-party participation. So who's up for organizing this?

Lon Borgerson, NDP candidate for Prince Albert, and friends... 26,830 views, coming up on 500 "likes".  

Well, the ship of state is sinking and the seas are getting rough
The captain's drunk with power and we have had enough
He's cutting all our rations, pulling tricks out of his sleeve
Only one thing we can do, we've got to heave Steve

Heave Steve! Make him walk the plank
Heave Steve! He's gonna break the bank
Heave Steve! We'll have ourselves to thank
If we all join together and just Heave Steve!

The temperature is rising and the weather's no fun
The glaciers are melting and there's water on the run
We're burning up the oil when we've got the wind and sun
And with Stevie at the helm, nothing's being done

CHORUS

There's pirates down on Bay Street hiding treasure from us all
There's pirates getting richer while we all take the fall
There's pirates in the wheelhouse making robocalls
There's pirates in the statehouse helping Stevie run it all

CHORUS

And the ships don't get our grain cause they're waiting for the rail
And the economic action plan has built another jail
And Duffy's on the poop-deck, and seniors wait to no avail
Cause Stevie and his buddies won't deliver mail

CHORUS

So if you want a good voyage and a fair and equal boat
And you want all your mates to live long and stay afloat
You don't really need a sea, an ocean, or a moat
To throw Stevie overboard you just need to vote

CHORUS (Twice)
CHORUS (and Farewells)

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Stephen Harper and Saulie Zajdel in happier times ...

Stephen Harper seen here campaigning for Saulie Zajdel back in 2011. 

Saulie didn't win but he did go on to become a political aide to then Canadian Heritage Minister James Wilfred Moore - where he used his six-digit taxpayer-funded job in Moore’s office to undermine Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, the candidate who had defeated him in the election.

Campaign Research helped out with that.

Here Harper and Zajdel share a moment over brown paper bags. 

Not many Conservative politicians have the chutzpah to be photo-opped with a prop like brown paper bags ever since former PM Muldoon successfully sued Canada for $2.1 M for even mentioning them.


CBC, yesterday : Saulie Zajdel pleads guilty to corruption charges for real estate deal

"He had faced charges of bribery, breach of trust, fraud and corruption.  Zajdel's lawyer, Jeffrey Boro, told CBC News pleading guilty was a difficult decision for his client. 

"Mr. Zajdel has decided to turn the page, close that part of his life and move on," he said. He received a suspended sentence and was ordered to perform 240 hours of community service and donate $10,000 to a charity."

It was a difficult decision but Mr. Zajdel has decided to turn the page, close that part of his life and move on...  
Yeah, quite a lot of that going around ...
                                                                     

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Brown bag photo h/t : Robert Jensen2 via Holly Stick in old comments.
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Hard Workin' Steve - "It's hard work!"

It's attack ad season from now to Election 42!  

Steve isn't doing TeaPaw Pawlenty this time round, harkening back instead to earlier roots.

Con Party ad - not exactly as shown here.

Justin Ling on the whole batch : 

"... the Conservatives have another ad, featuring Sad Harper sitting at his desk, all alone, late at night.

But it'll be the Trudeau attack ad that you see again, and again, and again.

You know why? Because the Conservative Party has (and this is the proper accounting term) a fuckload of money.

By the end of 2013, the party had $11 million in unrestricted cash in the bank to spend. Since then, they've raised another $27 million."

Stephen Lautens nailed it.

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Election Day in Canada : The Rise of Voter Suppression

The Script&Film Company's EDayFilm "Election Day In Canada: The Rise Of Voter Suppression" is travelling across Canada visiting communities where live and robocalls were made to record the stories of the electors Elections Canada has abandoned. 

It kicks off at 6:30pm tomorrow Wednesday May 20 at the main branch of Public Library in Guelph with a presentation and a fundraiser. Free admission. More deets here for an event on the 21st in Waterloo and then back again to Guelph on the 23rd - Guelph where an estimated 7,760 robocall attempts were made.

Because isn't it time we had some answers about what happened with the robo and live calls in 237 ridings right across Canada in the 41st federal election before we deal with more of the same again in the upcoming 42nd election this fall? 

In November of 2012, nine months after the robocall story really broke open nation-wide, Elections Canada commissioned and published a survey which reported that 85% of electors polled said the 41st election "was fairly run". Subsequent missives from EC show they never wavered far from this comforting conclusion, despite the commissioner's own final report on the termination of any further investigation stating that 27% of the complainants they investigated received fraudulent calls. 

So it's up to us now.  

Support the film any way you can - with a donation, promoting it online, or organizing presentations in your community like the ones in Guelph.   

It really is up to us now.  

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Cons, Libs pass C-51 anti-terrorism law.

CBC, May 6, 2015 : Bill C-51 passes by margin of 183 to 96. 

"The federal government's controversial new anti-terrorism bill has won the approval of the House of Commons.The Anti-Terrorism Act, also known as Bill C-51, easily passed third reading by a margin of 183 to 96, thanks to the Conservative government's majority and the promised support of the third-party Liberals."

April 1, 2015 : 

"Not one of the more than 100 amendments submitted by opposition parties to try and change the government’s much-criticized anti-terror bill were adopted as a House of Commons committee wrapped up its study of the legislation." 

During a clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-51 that ran late into Tuesday evening, the public safety and national security committee voted down all the amendments proposed by the NDP, Liberals and Green Party. 

The bill on the whole was passed in committee with Conservatives and Liberals voting in favour, and the NDP against."

Justin Trudeau answering questions on his support for C-51 at UBC, March 4, 2015:
Transcript :

Trudeau : "I agree that Canadians have real concerns about this bill and that's why we're putting forward some very very clear improvements.  My hope, however, is that this government, the same way it did on C-31- the TellVicEverything Bill, and some other ones, that it actually realizes from public pressure that it is going to have to make significant amendments to this bill. But we know that tactically this government would be perfectly happy if the opposition completely voted against this bill. Because it fits into their fear narrative and let's people bash people on security. 

The fact is I don't want to encourage them to not make those amendments. If they think if they don't make the amendments that the Liberal Party won't support this bill, they can make political hay out of it and I do not want this government making political hay out of an issue - more than they're already trying to - out of an issue as important as security for Canadians. 

This conversation might be different if we weren't months from an election campaign but we are. And the fact is these measures - three measures in particular that I talked about - are going to keep Canadians safer in the immediate, deserve to be brought in. The bill needs to be fixed and if this government doesn't do it now, we will do it after the next election."

Q : "Ok, you yourself have expressed reservations about this bill. And yet you've already all but unconditionally guaranteed your support of the bill."

Trudeau : "That's the same question we had earlier."

Q : "It's not. You said I am hopeful that the government .... but if the government does not, I will still support the bill."

Trudeau : "Yes"

Q  : "Now if the government does not accept your amendments..." 

Trudeau : "If the government does not support my amendments, we're still going to support the bill.  We will be offering changes as part of our election platform because Canadians are asking for those changes and when we form government we will bring it in." 

Q : "Sir, I must say supporting a bill you know is dangerous while promising to reform it when you are elected to government is tantamount to holding our rights hostage where our vote is our ransom."

Trudeau : "Yes I appreciate that. [Applause]  Thank you for expressing your concern.  I've heard this - we've heard this from Canadians and I share those concerns about this bill and that's why the pressure that you and everyone else are putting on this government is getting them to understand that if they don't bring in oversight, if they don't bring in review, if they don't narrow the overly broad provisions in this bill, they're going to have a very difficult time in the next election campaign convincing Canadians that they're worthy of their trust.  And I think that that's a good thing - that Canadians are challenging them on this and I certainly hope that it will result in this government making significant amendments to this bill, but the fact is there are elements in this bill that keep Canadians safe right now, and I am not going to ...sorry?" 

Q: "Can you give examples?"

Trudeau : "Yes I can give three examples ... preventative arrests... Sorry, there's a whole bunch of people here with questions, ok? And i think I've been very generous - I've answered a couple of times on this one. I appreciate your presence here today. It's great to see you. Thank you very much for your support. I'm glad you're taking an interest in the process but I am going to get a few more questions in on this."  

45 of 48 witnesses who appeared before the House Committee criticized the bill.
The bill now goes before the Liberal and Conservative held Senate for an easy passage into law.

Below are the 33 Liberals MPS who voted in favour of C-51 May 6, 2015

Write to them. Tell them their peacetime consiglieri appeasing Harper aren't cutting it :

• Yes Eve Adams
• Yes Mauril Bélanger
• Yes Carolyn Bennett
• Yes Scott Brison
• Didn't vote Gerry Byrne
• Yes Sean Casey
• Didn't vote Arnold Chan
• Yes Irwin Cotler
• Yes Rodger Cuzner
• Yes Stéphane Dion
• Yes Emmanuel Dubourg
• Yes Kirsty Duncan
• Yes Wayne Easter
• Yes Mark Eyking
• Yes Judy Foote
• Yes Chrystia Freeland
• Yes Hedy Fry
• Yes Marc Garneau
• Yes Ralph Goodale
• Yes Ted Hsu
• Yes Yvonne Jones
• Yes Kevin Lamoureux
• Yes Dominic LeBlanc
• Yes Lawrence MacAulay
• Yes John McCallum
• Yes David McGuinty
• Yes John McKay
• Yes Joyce Murray
• Yes Geoff Regan
• Yes Francis Scarpaleggia
• Yes Judy Sgro
• Yes Scott Simms
• Didn't vote Lise St-Denis
• Yes Justin Trudeau
• Yes Frank Valeriote
• Yes Adam Vaughan
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Hey, federal political parties - this is how it's done.

In three days Albertans go to the polls. Here's how that's looking as of yesterday according to 308 :

May 5 Update : 308 has updated Vote and Seat Projections - now even higher for NDP.
    and the results :

As part of his election platform, Calgary-Klein Green Party candidate Noel Keough made a great case for raising corporate taxes in Alberta - the lowest in the country - by just 2% in order to raise $12-billion annually for Alberta's decimated public coffers : 



An environmental design prof at the University of Calgary, he also put forward solid policy on fossil fuels and advocates a PropRep voting system replacing first-past-the post - the better to more fairly represent Albertans.

But then he looked at the very close polling for his riding, and at an all-candidates debate in Calgary two days ago, Keough announced his decision to step out of the race and support his NDP rival rather than split the vote. Notable that he referred to this decision as a party decision. Keough : [bold:mine]

"So, with a heavy heart, but a firm conviction in my decision I am stepping out of the race immediately and putting my full support behind the New Democratic Party and their candidate Craig Coolihan. The policies of the NDP are not in perfect alignment with The Green Party but they are the most closely aligned. A win for the NDP in Calgary-Klein will advance Green principles and will make Alberta a better place to live."

Putting your constituency and province ahead of the party system - what a novel idea.
People have said the Greens couldn't have won the seat anyway. Not the point. Keough did the one thing he could within his power to help voters avoid splitting the vote by trying to guess how they should vote strategically.

Well, federal NDP, Libs, and Greens? We're waiting for a sign you plan to follow Keough's example here.

As Canadian Cynic observed : "forget strategic voting, here's strategic candidacy."

As for the rest of us, support for Prop Rep should be the line-in-the-sand litmus test for whether we support a local candidate.  Between election fraud and the Stephen Harper the Economist's disastrously incompetent corporate-driven fiscal policies, we just can't afford another unrestrained and poisonous first-past-the-post 24% minority misrule. 

FairVoteCanada is soliciting citizens in all ridings across Canada to get local candidates of all parties to sign a pledge to support PropRep so we'll know who we can afford to vote for before the next election. Go. Sign up to do it.

Meanwhile, a Globe and Mail editorial from the very paper which has endorsed Harper in every election since 2006 is now shilling for Prentice : For Alberta, Jim Prentice is the best choice.

I only mention this entirely unsurprising endorsement so you can enjoy the thorough shellacking they get for it in comments.

The Edmonton Journal editorial: 
In this election, we are picking a CEO for the province makes the same mistake and gets a similar shellacking.

And then there's the threat from five CEOs in the Edmonton Sun : Corporate business leaders warn of risks to Alberta NDP government : "We won't make donations to charities."
Think the commenters under that threat aren't pissed?

"In response, NDP leader Rachel Notley pointed out the donations of the five businessmen to the PCs in the past five years have topped $86,000 collectively."

ObligaTory shot of then Minister Jim Prentice with PMO fraudster and "special adviser to Minister Prentice" Bruce Carson above.

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The Duffy Tarsands Diaries

Never mind the Senate vagaries on where Duffy actually resides or whether other Senators  porking out at the public trough is criminal or just Senate-business-as-usual. Forget all that.  
Of the various narratives emerging from the Duffy trial, the story that should be getting a lot more attention is that Con Party fundraiser Senator Mike Duffy appears to have served as a behind-the-scenes go-between between Enbridge and Stephen Harper while simultaneously connecting up environmental charities attack dog Vivian Krause, referred to by Ezra Levent as Sun TV's "forensic environmental detective", for an energy sector speaking tour.

National Observer : Redacted diary reveals oil's hidden route to Harper :

"Redacted entries in Mike Duffy’s diary suggest he was in regular undisclosed contact with pipeline giant Enbridge during the height of the federal government's scorching attacks on environmental activists and charities in 2012.

The suspended senator’s journal shows a flurry of conversations and emails with or about top-level Enbridge executives, then PMO chief of staff Nigel Wright and the Prime Minister between January and June of 2012, just as the National Energy Board started its hearings on the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proposal."

CBC : "Duffy appears to be a fan of Krause's work, mentioning her at least 10 times in his daily diary and setting her up with an agent for speaking appearances."

Setting her up with an agent?
According to Krause, speaking fees for appearances before the resources industry now comprises over 90% of her income going back to 2012.

So what else we got on PMO/tarsands-related events which took place during just the first month of the Duffy Diaries' January to June 2012 time period.

January 6, 2012 G&M : Foreign money could gum up pipeline approval, Harper warns.

"The Prime Minister is threatening to prevent foreign environmental interests from delaying the approval of a pipeline that would take bitumen from the Alberta oil sands to the West Coast for shipment to Asian markets.

Kathryn Marshall, a spokesperson for EthicalOil.org. said Canadians have much at stake in the construction of the pipeline and “must take a stand against foreigners and their lobbying groups interfering in our decision.”

Cue Ethical Oil's Kathryn Marshall that same month with her "foreign special interests and their deep pocket puppets" :

"I'm just a student with a website", said Kathryn,whose husband Hamish Marshall was former manager of strategic planning in Stephen Harper’s PMO, and whose company Go Newclear Productions, created and hosted websites for Ethical Oil and Con MPs Joe Oliver, Pierre Poilievre and Jason Kenney.

DeSmog Blog : Friends with Benefits: The Harper Government, EthicalOil.org and Sun Media Connection

Ethical Oil of course bragged about lobbying the Canada Revenue Agency for Krause-tagged audits of environmental charities critical of tarsands development. In the 2012 budget, the Canada Revenue Agency launched a special $8M program aimed at punishing environmental political activity, later topped up to $13.4 million.

On January 8, 2012,  Duffy's diary notes an email and phone call exchange with Ethical Oil author and SunNews *personality* Ezra Levant  "re: Vivian Krause". He then met with Krause on three occasions and had two telephone conversations.

On February 9, 2012 Krause testified before the Standing Committee on Natural Resources about "deep-pocketed supporters south of the border" funding campaigns against the Canadian energy sector.  Duffy was in attendance; his diary that day reads: "Lunch - Vivian Krause."

And just for lulz ...February 10, 2012 : Star :  Harper speaks from China: PM blasts foreign money in oilands debate while welcoming China   

Also Feb.10 : The G&M, the Star, and Vancouver Observer all carry stories about environmentalists being understandably pissed at being lumped in with white supremacists among the listed "issue-based" terrorist threats in Canada's new counter-terrorism strategy -   Building Resilience Against Terrorism :

"...domestic extremism that is “based on grievances – real or perceived – revolving around the promotion of various causes such as animal rights, white supremacy, environmentalism and anti-capitalism."

It's not like that's gone away. An RCMP report released this February raved on about “violent anti-petroleum extremists” and  “violent aboriginal extremists,” driven by an “anti-petroleum ideology." Particularly concerning in light of the new Anti-terrorism Bill C-51 with its new engorged mandate to act against “activity that undermines the security of Canada”, the RCMP report suggests pipeline opposition movements should be seen and treated as national criminal security threats. It is 44 pages long. To back up its position, a full nine of those pages, or 20% of the entire report, are quotes from articles by Vivian Krause.

And finally the PMO/Enbridge/Duffy connection in the diary : 

Feb.17, 2012 - “PM asks “Send me a note on Enbridge Line #9 problems” 

Good on National Observer, local Vancouver Observer now gone National, for looking beneath the redacting pencil in the Duffy diaries to publish these PMO/Enbridge/Duffy/Krause/Ezra connections.

Update : Our Oily Media - Media critic CanadaLand interviews National Observer founder Linda Solomon Wood on how the energy sector has flooded Canada's media with money, be it in ad dollars, speaking fees, charitable donations or "native content" partnerships. Rex. Mansbridge. PostMedia-CAPP partnership.

Btw, CBC, I see the pro-tarsands astroturf group "British Columbians for Prosperity" is still going strong in its campaign against the deep pockets of "foreign special interests". Is your frequent commentator Alise Mills still running the show at BC4P, as she told Vancouver Observer a year ago?

Good news - Bruce Livesey, canned from Global for his spiked report on the Koch brothers' influence in Canada, has joined National Observer and will rework the story there.

May 7 Update : National Observer : Duffy connected charity critic to lucrative industry cash

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Omar Khadr, the "James Bond of Jihad", is granted bail.

National Post : "One way or another, Omar Khadr will soon be a free man.

On Friday, moments after judge J.M. Ross of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta granted the 28-year-old Toronto native bail from an Edmonton-area jail pending appeal of his war crimes conviction in the United States, the government announced — as predictably as day follows night — that it would appeal."

The government did not argue that Khadr posed any danger to Canada but rather that his release would show disrespect for the US justice system.  You know - this justice system.

It's difficult for those of us who are relatively sane to appreciate the pants-pissing opportunistic hysteria Omar Khadr apparently provokes in those who are not.

Two years ago, the office of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews tacked a few additional "terrorism" charges onto Omar Khadr's Canadian file that were not in his original conviction, based on a *confession* written by the prosecution at the discredited Guantánamo Bay military tribunal :

"Ottawa’s file on Omar Khadr contains faulty information based on a memo prepared by a senior policy analyst for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews ... Among other things, the government alleges the late terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was an accomplice of a 15-year-old Khadr, and that the Canadian citizen killed two Afghan militia men.

You following along here?  -  the Canadian Public Safety Minister says Osama bin Laden was the accomplice of a 15 year old!

“Mr. Khadr engaged U.S. military and coalition personnel with small-arms fire, killing two members of the Afghan militia force. He threw and/or fired grenades at nearby coalition forces, resulting in numerous injuries to them.”

Presumably the Ministry of Public Safety's laughable embellishments were garnered from Ezra Levant's appalling book, The Enemy Within: Terror, Lies, and the Whitewashing of Omar Khadr, published the previous year in 2012. Some selections : 

Levant describes the 16-year-old GWOT political prisoner as "the James Bond of Jihad", "the biggest, smartest, most deadly fish in a pond teeming with the most vicious, depraved men on Earth", "a degenerate Agent 007," and a “psychopathic” “degenerate” “gangster,” “deranged … every bit as demented as Paul Bernardo, Canada’s infamous schoolgirl serial killer” who "gave himself a licence to kill Americans and Jews." 

He wrote that Khadr's - as yet still unproven in any reputable court - act of throwing a grenade was part of his plan to rise to the top of AlQaida and become the "biggest, most brutal Godfather ever" and the "top dog of terror".

It's unhinged. 

How, as Boris is wont to ask, did we ever allow ourselves to be governed by such vile, vindictive, tawdry, incompetent, opportunistic fools?

More from Montreal Simon and Thomas Walkom

The silver lining for Khadr is that upon his release, after the government has exhausted all legal means of betraying common decency, he will be living with his lawyer Dennis Edney.

I know -you've seen Edney's 2010 speech before as I like to post it once a year as a reminder of what actual common decency looks like. 

Edney : 

"We cannot rely upon governments or others to help us make society better. Each and every one of us has to be our own leader."

Saturday Update : 
In their attempt to deny him bail, Dept. of Justice lawyers declined to make a case in court that Khadr is either a flight risk or a public safety risk. 

Lautens : Harper vs Omar Khadr - You Can't Get What You Don't Argue.

"Instead, they tried to argue that Canadian law - including his right to fundamental justice under the Charter of Rights and that most ancient human right in British jurisprudence, habeas corpus - didn't apply to Omar Khadr because of our treaty with the USA."

The judge didn't buy it.
Canadian Cynic : "Sadly, the Harper Gov't is in the enviable position of having a bottomless public treasury to keep funding stupid, doomed appeals."
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