Finished with the G-20? Not even close.

And partly because of this wanker here.

At Wednesday's Public Safety and Security Committee meeting into the G20 fiasco, we heard testimony from two very well-spoken students from Montreal who were arrested in their pajamas at gunpoint from the University of Toronto gymnasium, where accommodation arrangements for out-of-town protesters had been made with the university.

Jacinthe Poisson, a student of International Relations at the University in Quebec, was held for 57 hours under the crowded conditions in the cages now familiar to all of us. Ms Poisson was subjected to three body searches. In her own words :

"At the Vanier Institution I had to lean over completely naked in front of these male guards."

She was released at 4am without money or clothes. All charges against the 100 or so students dormed in the gymnasium were dropped.

Ms Wissam Mansour was also arrested off the floor of the gymnasium but was interviewed separately after being recognized by a Montreal police officer who asked if she knew Fredy Villanueva, the 18 year old fatally shot by Montreal police in 2008.

After interrogation, she was released without charge onto the street in her pajamas with no money, no phone, and absolutely no idea where she was. She somehow made her way back to UofT.

So bearing all that in mind, here are the questions Con committee member Brent Rathgeber pictured above saw fit to put to them.

First they both agreed with Rathgeber that destruction of property and burning police cars was, in Rathgeber's term, "offside".

Rathgeber to Mansour and Poisson : " So what was your goal? What was your end game here?"

Poisson : "I went to peacefully protest. I disagree with some positions of this government."

Rathgeber : "But what was your ultimate goal? Did you think that somehow you would have an effect on the outcome, that the G20 leaders would be so moved by your protest that they would change their policies? Was that your goal here?"

Poisson : "My point was not to protest the G20 but to express my political opinions which I have every right to do."

Rathgeber to Mansour : "What did you hope to accomplish by taking several days out of your busy life to go to Toronto? Was your goal to somehow affect public policy? Was it to have some face time with President Obama? Or was it to cause disruption?"

Mansour : "I'm not proud of living in a Canada governed by Mr Harper. I'm not proud of that and I went to protest against political positions that the government has. I didn't go to see President Obama and I knew Mr. Harper was not going to change his mind even with 30,000 people in the streets. I didn't have a short term goal; I have a long term goal."

Rathgeber : "But what is your long term goal? To overturn the Harper government or is it to defeat capitalism generally? I suggest your goal was to get on the evening news."

Alarming, isn't it?

Rathgeber, a lawyer who also sits on the Justice and Human Rights Committee, appears to have no idea that the half dozen accusations he is making against these witnesses are all things which are perfectly legal.

It is because this government expects to get away with punishing people for legal acts that we have to keep pushing for a public inquiry into the G20 fiasco.

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(edited for typos)

Dennis Edney

Omar Khadr's Lawyer Dennis Edney Speech at FNC from Ezra Winton on Vimeo.

via Art Threat

"Be your own leader"
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Privacy - Homeland Security-style

The same party that thought the Canadian government collecting info about Canadians via the mandatory census was an egregious violation of privacy and civil liberties is apparently just fine with having info about Canadians collected by the US Homeland Security. Funny old Cons, eh?

We've known this was coming since 2007. Bill C-42 , an Act to amend the Aeronautics Act, will allow Canadian airlines exemption from Canadian privacy laws in order to pass passenger info on to Homeland Security if the flight veers at all into US airspace enroute to its final destination. So even if you aren't going to actually land in the US on your way to a Mexican holiday or even a short hop from one Canadian city to another that touches US airspace at some point, Homeland Security will still have veto power over whether you get to board your flight.

"Canadian sovereignty has gone right out the window," raged Liberal transport critic Joe Volpe in June when the Cons first presented the bill. "You are going to be subject to American law."

Then on Tuesday he voted for it along with all the rest of the Libs and Cons. It passed second reading 241 to 34.

Hey, they may have had difficulty bringing themselves to vote for Canadian mining sector responsibility abroad, but when it really matters, the Libs can still get out the vote.

Fun fact : On the same day, Tony Clements' Bill C-29 - Safeguarding Canadian's Personal Information Act was debated in the House. Volpe made yet another rousing speech about privacy.
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A Maclean's Conjob MP Circle Jerk

On Tuesday Michael Petrou at Maclean's reported on a controversial Peace Conference organized by two current and two former Green Party members, due to take place in Ottawa today:

"An RCMP “ethnic liaison officer” is urging his colleagues to attend a conference on a “Just and Sustainable Peace” that was organized in part by a Green Party of Canada candidate who believes the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job,” and whose participants include the director general of an NGO that endorses hate-filled stereotypes about Jews. Three academics from Iran are flying in for the event."

A bit further down he notes that Zijad Delic, head of the Canadian Islamic Congress, will also be attending, and that he was advised by organizer Paul Maillet, a retired air force colonel, that, in the group's effort to get a free Hill booking :

"Bloc Québécois MP Richard Nadeau was originally booked as a sponsor but canceled due to a scheduling conflict."

On Wednesday a new piece by the same author at Maclean's reported the following exchange in the House :
Mr. Steven Blaney (Lévis—Bellechasse, CPC):

"Mr. Speaker, we recently discovered that some Bloc members are supporting a conference that will be attended by the executive director of an NGO that sanctions hateful stereotypes about Jews. The spokesperson for the Canadian Islamic Congress claims that all Israelis over 18 are legitimate targets for Palestinians. That organization will be represented at the conference. Those remarks are unacceptable."

Can the Minister of Public Safety comment on the Maclean’s magazine article that reports that the Bloc Québécois member for Gatineau is sponsoring this hateful event?"

Six years after former CIC head Elmasry made his ill-chosen remarks about the Israeli draft system - remarks for which he apologized and resigned - a Con MP pretends those were the words of Zijad Delic, the current head of the CIC, and Maclean's duly reports the Con MP's disinformation at its "World Desk".

Back in the House on Wednesday, Bloc MP Nadeau says he has nothing to do with the Peace Conference and asks Con MP Blaney for an apology :

"I am not giving a speech anywhere tomorrow evening, nor have I given any of my own money or my member's allowance to the organization hosting the conference tomorrow. I would like the Conservative member who said that I support hate groups to explain himself and apologize."

Blaney :

"Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Gatineau for his point of order. I would just like to remind him that in my question, I was referring to the fact that it was reported in an article published in Maclean's, which is a trustworthy magazine."

And round and round it goes ...

Result : Elizabeth May made a frowny face at the four Greens; Vic Toews ordered the RCMP not to attend.

Actually the most interesting exchange occurred when the aforementioned colonel Paul Maillet showed up in the comments under the first Maclean's article, where he patiently explained to the resident ZOMGs freaking out that peace talks are, by definition, pretty much usually held with people with whom you may at first violently disagree.

It's a difficult point to grasp, I know.
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The Bill C-300 Walk of Shame

Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries, was the attempt to provide a mechanism for dealing with environmental and human rights violations supported or perpetrated by Canadian companies abroad.

Despite being a Liberal bill, it barely passed second reading in the House on April 22, 2009 by a mere 4 votes, because 20 Libs and 7 Dippers missed the vote.

Yesterday in the House, the Bloc's Richard Nadeau quoted from Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast with an introduction written by Barack Obama, published in 2007 :

"The Sudanese regime, supported by Canadian, Malaysian and Chinese oil companies, was able to wipe out whole populations in south-central Sudan, leaving the way clear for the oil companies to start pumping the oil."

and Noir Canada: Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique, 2008

"In Bulyanhulu, Tanzania, bulldozers and the national police force were used to expropriate several hundred small-scale miners and clear the way for Canada's Sutton Mining to exploit the area. Fifty-two people were buried alive in that operation. Sutton Mining was then bought by another Canadian company, Barrick Gold."

The International Trade Committee has been hearing similar testimony and much worse for the last 18 months.

Today Bill C-300 went down to defeat in the House 140 to 134 because the following 13 Liberals, 4 Bloc, and 4 NDP skipped the vote (2 Bloc and 2 Cons were paired). Those with a star beside their name also missed the vote on this bill last time, which might lead one to wonder at the coincidence.

Libs : Michael Ignatieff*, Scott Brison*, Ujjal Dosanjh*, John McCallum*, Geoff Regan*, Scott Andrews, Sukh Dhaliwal, Ruby Dhalla, Martha Hall Findlay, Jim Karygiannis, Gerard Kennedy, Keith Martin, and Anthony Rota.

NDP : Charlie Angus*, Bruce Hyer, Pat Martin, and Glen Thibeault

Bloc : Monique Guay, Francine Lalonde, Carole Lavallée, and Yves Lessard.

A special shout-out to Libs Michael Ignatieff, Scott Brison, and Scott Andrews who were all present in the House today yet somehow failed to vote for Bill C-300.
Bruce Hyer of the NDP was there to vote on the 14 amendments to this bill just prior to the vote but not for the final vote.

Cowards. Shame on you all.
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Ask not for whom the road tolls, it tolls for thee

Laila Yuile writes about the shadow toll on the Sea-to-Sky Highway.
What's a shadow toll?
It's the one no one told you about, the one you can't see.
But it can see you.

There's an interesting story about Macquarie, the Australian investment bank group which among things acts as transportation project managers and road toll operators all over the world, including the Sea-to-Sky Highway in BC and the Highway 407 Express Toll Route in Ontario, the first privatized toll road in Canada.

Good news for Obama! Obama gets off!

NYTimes :

The deal to avert a trial of Mr. Khadr represents a breakthrough for the Obama administration’s legal team, which had been dismayed that his case was to become the inaugural run of a new-look military commissions system — undermining their efforts to rebrand the tribunals in the eyes of the world as a fair and just forum for prosecuting terrorism suspects.

despite that bit about rewriting the rules as they went.

LATimes :

The Obama administration will be spared putting Canadian terrorism suspect Omar Ahmed Khadr, a Guantanamo Bay prisoner, on trial in relation to a firefight in Afghanistan when he was 15 and apprenticed to militant fighters.

A young Canadian terrorism suspect accepted a plea deal Monday that will make him eligible to leave Guantanamo Bay prison in a year, sparing the Obama administration the spectacle of putting the first child soldier on trial for war crimes in modern times.

So we're all good then, are we? The main thing is - Obama got off.

Question : If, as an apparently extra-judicial person, you have to plead guilty under duress to get out of a court not recognized as such anywhere in the world but Canada and the US, a court whose entire reason for existing is to be beyond the rule of established civil and military law, does it still count?

Fun fact : The only two counties left not to have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are Somalia and the United States.

Canada has ratified it but we thought it was called the UN Convention on the Rights of Children We Like.

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Privatizing the Afghan adventure with the NDS

Given that the NDS, the Afghan National Directorate of Security, is "probably one of the better institutions in Afghanistan", is there anything the Canadian government could do to facilitate Canada's private sector helping them out with equipment and mentoring?

This was the question put by Parliamentary Secretary for National Defence Laurie Hawn to the Afghan Ambassador last Wednesday in the Afghan Committee Oct. 20, 2010.

Sure, answered the Afghan ambassador, there's a future role, especially since "there is already good co-operation between CSIS and the NDS".

An quick NDS refresher follows, although I recommend a much more complete one from Pogge :

Up til 2009, the NDS was entirely funded by the CIA.

Richard Colvin, at a 2007 interview in Ottawa with government officials:

"You know the NDS tortures people – that’s what they do.”

Hawn said on CBC in March : "Our detainee arrangement is the new gold standard". However the US State Dept 2009 Report on Afghan Human Rights states:

"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."

Despite the Con's unflagging official support for the NDS as a "security partner" since they claimed to have "fixed" the agreement under which detainees are transferred to the NDS three years ago, not to mention Airshow MacKay's constant mantra that "there isn't a single shred of evidence" to support the possibility that any prisoners transferred from Canadian custody have ever been mistreated, a secret internal government memo, courtesy of the CBC, "circulated at the highest levels of government" in 2009 tells another story :

The notoriously brutal Afghan Security Service, the NDS, did not change its ways after the new agreement. It is still "organized according to a Soviet KGB model. Considerable scope for improper methods entails a degree of risk to Canadian interests. "

G&M, Sept 20, 2010 : "A member of Afghanistan's notorious intelligence service boasted to Canadian military officers in the spring of last year that his organization was able to “torture” or “beat” prisoners during the course of its investigations, federal documents say."

Responding to a parliamentary motion to force the Cons to turn over the secret Afghan detainee documents in December 2009, the Cons boycotted the Afghan Committee and two weeks later shut down Parliament altogether. In an effort to come to some agreement in the spring to stave off an election via a non-confidence vote, the Cons, Libs, and Bloc each agreed to appoint an MP to a special panel to look into allegations of NDS torture of detainees and filter those results back to Parliament. Hawn is the Con's designated filter.

Four months later we've yet to hear word one about NDS torture from that panel but here's Hawn on the Afghan Committee shilling for private Canadian business partnerships with the NDS for after the 2011 pullout.

Edited transcript of the Oct. 20 Afghan Committee exchange between Laurie Hawn and the Afghan ambassador, beginning approximately at the 40 minute mark :

Hawn :

"Fundamental to a democracy is the justice system. We've got a huge capacity in the private sector in this country for capacity building and training and mentoring and whatever. We heard in Kabul in June from the Afghan Independant Human Rights Commission that, you know, the NDS is far from perfect but how much better they are than they used to be and the fact they are probably one of the better institutions in Afghanistan.

Could you comment on what Canada could do -you're very familiar with our private sector and how we operate - with, like, providing something for the NDS to get them to that next level where they can be a solid part of a functioning justice system?"

Afghan Ambassador Jawed Ludin responded that there was indeed a role for Canada to support the NDS because the "Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police already receive multi-billion dollar support from the US" :

"We would like Canada to focus on areas where their support can be tangible -the NDS is one such institution. There is already good co-operation between CSIS and NDS. If there is interest in pursuing any such role in the future or support to security institutions, that would definitely be one area, not just technical skills but also management support. It is important they receive support as an organization."

Hawn :

"We've had people come to us about flying training proposals and other proposals. Have you had any contact with the Canadian private sector about specific capacities or capabilities? Would there be things that you could bring to us to say look it, why don't you, Canada, Government of Canada, go and talk to these guys and maybe find a way to help?"

War is a racket.

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Alex Hundert re-arrested for third time

G20 defendant AlexHundert has been re-arrested for the third time this morning on new charges according to his lawyer. Hard to imagine just what those new charges might be, given that his most recent bail conditions stipulate he is not allowed to speak to the media, attend public events, have any contact with his friends, use the internet, or express any political opinions.

Reposting this interview from Sept, back when Alex Hundert's spoken words were not yet so dangerous that no one was allowed to hear them.



Monday AM : Update from Pogge on the charges :

"According to Jonah Hundert, Alex's brother : "From what I know, two Crown attorneys are alleging that Alex tried to supposedly intimidate them during a court appearance last week."

As noted by Pogge, the Crown attorneys were so intimidated it took them three days to notice it.
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On media pron and tabloid police work

It's time to pull the media off the pictures of the serial killer wearing a girl's bra and panties.

My veterinarian's guidebook advises the best strategy for separating them is to talk soothingly to them until the swelling goes down and do not throw water on them.

Well fuck that. Here's some much-needed buckets of clear analysis from Antonia Z and Mirabile Dictu on how media pron covered up tabloid police work :

Forced entry .

WTH is up with Mallick? .

Caught flat-footed .

Serial killing 101 .

Antonia wants a public inquest. I want to know why coverage and analysis like hers and Elizabeth's isn't running on the front pages of newspapers.

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