From the government that ordered the Sidewinder report on Chinese espionage in Canada destroyed;

“A federal government plan to permanently muzzle current and former employees of 14 entities with access to national security information is an affront to press freedom, the Canadian Newspaper Association warns.”

Press freedom is the least of our concerns. Via Frost Hits The Rhubarb who comments;

Then there is the whistleblower legislation designed to protect government, not whistleblowers. Search this site for articles on “whistleblower legislation” — there are good excerpts from Hansard with evidence from whistleblowers. Note that the RCMP will not be covered by this legislation so when they know something explosive, well, guess what? Find out what agencies are NOT allowed to whistleblow. Then you’ll know where to check for more evidence of the kind of thing found in the Gomery Inquiry.

Overview on Sidewinder here.

Commentary from Newbeat 1

There was a disaster management conference about a month ago but it’s been 4 years since 9/11 -and they were shocked that fed-provincial disaster management officials hadn’t met in 10 years.You can only get away with this when the media is asleep.There is a lot of CYA buck passing going on because it doesn’t look like they are ready for anything.
Exactly what has been done to protect canadians since 9/11?- only 200 out of 6000 first responders had advanced disaster training according to the AG’s report-how many major disaster simulations have been done in 4 years? How many CSIS agents are we short? -at least 700.Exactly what are they prepared for- since it doesn’t look like they are prepared for terrorists at airports, ports, transportation systems, emergency rooms.

To assist Canadians who want to know more about this former NDP premier Bob Rae, who is being touted as the successor to Paul Martin for Liberal party leadership, we are happy to provide this helpful chart.

Graphic courtesy Western Standard magazine.
Adam Daifallah notes the media campaign has begun.

A graphic, sent along by a regular reader.

Click to open – it’s very wide and a relatively large file (600k) so you’ll need to scroll sideways to read it all at full size.
update – this site has listed his assets, in English.

Guardian (PEI);

“What’s the one entity that hasn’t been investigated by our national police force? The recipient of the money, and the party that’s in power, that controlled the purse strings, that funneled the money back to themselves. Isn’t that a bit odd?” asked MacKay, the party’s critic for public safety and emergency preparedness.
“I find it very curious as a former Crown prosecutor when there’s overwhelming evidence that the responsible body, that was both the perpetrator and the recipient of the money, isn’t under investigation.”

The legitimacy of McKay’s concerns are enhanced when one learns that the RCMP ignored warnings within the department about their involvement with Adscam, long before it was blown open by the Auditor General.

“Fraser also reported the federal government paid three Quebec advertising agencies $244,380 in commissions to simply transfer $1.7 million from the Public Works sponsorship branch to the RCMP.
The RCMP’s commanding officer in Quebec questioned the large commissions paid to the advertising firms years before it became an explosive issue in Parliament.
Odilon Emond, an assistant RCMP commissioner and commanding officer of the RCMP’s C-division in Quebec, raised the concerns in 1998 but the RCMP did nothing after he questioned the deals.”

Via Newsbeat1 – a good site to bookmark for news gathering on Canadian security issues.

Paul Martin is very, very concerned about Information Commissioner John Reid’s attempts to get his hands on Jean Chretien’s agenda books and he’s determined to work very, very hard to ensure it doesn’t happen.
Via BendGovt;

According to media reports, Information Commissioner John Reid has launched the latest round in his lawsuit to try and force the Prime Minister’s Office to release Jean Chretien’s agenda books, accusing the Liberal government of refusing to comply with Canada’s information law, with Paul Martin named as a party in the suit (Ottawa Citizen, July 19, 2005). Reid continues his efforts to try and force the Liberal government to comply with the Access to Information Act.
Perhaps this explains why Paul Martin and the Liberals have decided to ignore Parliament and refused to extend Reid’s appointment for a year. Perhaps Martin and the Liberals are hoping to get rid of Reid and appoint a new Information Commissioner who won’t be so keen to enforce Canadians’ right to information, and who may be willing to abandon this lawsuit.
Points to consider:
* On June 15, 2005, the House of Commons voted 277 to 2, to concur in a report of its Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics that, “The appointment of John Reid, the Information Commissioner of Canada be extended by an additional term of one year, effective July 1, 2005. This recommendation would not preclude Parliament from further extending the appointment after the one year extension.” Martin choose to ignore Parliament and provided only a three month extension for Reid.
* All ministers present (33) voted for the motion to extend Mr. Reid’s term not by three months, but for a year. The ministers voting to extend Reid’s term by a year included Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, Reg Alcock, Mauril Belanger, Carolyn Bennett, Ethel Blondin-Andrew, Claudette Bradshaw, Scott Brison, Aileen Carroll, Raymond Chan, Joe Comuzzi (since left cabinet), Irwin Cotler, Stephane Dion, Ujjal Dosanjh, Ken Dryden, John Efford, David Emerson, Joe Fontana, Liza Frulla, John Godfrey, Ralph Goodale, Bill Graham, Albina Guarnieri, Jean Lapierre, John McCallum, Joe McGuire, Andy Mitchell, Stephen Owen, Pierre Pettigrew, Geoff Regan, Lucienne Robillard, Belinda Stronach, Tony Valeri and Joe Volpe
* This is just the latest example of Martin ignoring the will of Parliament
* Three months means that Reid may not be around to oversee the planned overhaul of the Access to Information Act. Nor will he be able to pursue this case

(Previous post on John Reid “While The Media Directs Our Attention To Harper’s “BBQ Circuit”)

Paul Martin’s pattern of behavior continues. What can’t be achieved through democratic means….

Official Opposition Senior Environment Critic Bob Mills stated today that he is critical of the Liberal government’s plan to introduce a tax on carbon emissions. The scheme was initially designed to be part of the budget implementation bill but was removed by all Opposition Members of Parliament at the Finance Committee. This notice of intent to list CO2 in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) was quietly slipped into the Canada Gazette over the weekend.
“This is a phony government that knows no shame whatsoever. After the Liberals announced their plan to list CO2 in CEPA as a toxic substance in April, MP’s from all parties demanded the provision be removed. All Opposition MP’s at Finance Committee voted to remove the provisions. Undaunted by widespread opposition in the House, the Liberals have now decided to implement their carbon tax through order-in-Council. This is unacceptable, undemocratic and clearly against the wishes of the Commons Environment Committee…”

Readers commenting on this post, “Letter To Terry Milewski” have raised some very good questions about the Imperial Plumbing cheque allegedly cashed by Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal.

If one looks at the area under the signature, what do you see?
That’s right. Nothing.
Now, contrast this with the portion of the cheque (issued from a different bank) for $1,600.00 from Mr. Mann to Nina Grewal, and deposited to the riding association;

The numbers stamped indicate the amount the cheque was made out for, certifying that funds were moved. “A Ziggen” pointed this out in the comments, and writes privately;

Individual branches do not typically clear their own cheques. In a transaction where a cheque was presented to a teller the teller would stamp the cheque as recieved and then put it in with the rest of the cheques destined for the Automated Clearing Settlement System (“ACSS”). The ACSS system (11 members in Canada mostly in the major institutions) allows for cheques to be cleared among various financial institutions. Typically the ACSS would review the cheque to ensure that a “stop payment” order had not been recieved and that there were sufficient funds to honor the cheque. If the “ACSS clearing house” had no problems with the cheque it would be processed and returend to the “client institution” to then be returned to the customer. In the event that the clearing instition had problems with the cheque it would be returned to the home bank for further info.
In other words the returned cheque should have the magnetic coding done by the bank that details the cheque amount in the lower right hand corner.
The only contingency that we could imagine where this might not happen is when a branch clears it’s own cheques in the instance where the client of the bank (i.e. Superior Plumbing”) writes a cheques that is settled in the same branch. In order to exclude this possibilty I suggest that you ask for member of the Khalsa Credit Union to look at their cheques that were written from the the Khalsa Credit Union to see whether this coding was done.

The Khalsa Credit Union has been in the news. (h/t to commentor Rob) Vancouver Sun Friday, October 01, 2004

THE PROVINCE – The eldest son of Air India bombing suspect Ripudaman Singh Malik has resigned as a director of the Khalsa Credit Union after government regulators alleged he had been in a conflict of interest and lied under oath.

And from Flight182.com (coverage of Air India trial);

Also arrested recently businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik who founded the Khalsa Credit Union and the Khalsa School in the Vancouver area. Malik faces charges of conspiracy and is to be tried along with Bagri and Reyat.

Profile of Ripudaman Singh Malik (apparently from 2001)

Malik is currently the President of a 16,000-member Vancouver based Khalsa Credit Union (KCU) that reportedly has assets worth $110 million. Canadian authorities have indicated that Malik manages two Khalsa educational institutions that receives financial assistance from the government of British Columbia. These educational institutions and the KCU have on many occasions been controversial due to the monetary assistance they have reportedly provided to the widow of Talvinder Singh Parmar.
News sources in Canada have reported that Malik has contributed financially to the Federal Liberal Party and has also attended fundraising functions for the Canadian Premier Jean Chretien. It is alleged that Malik has contacts with Ujjal Dosanjh, the Indo-Canadian Premier of British Columbia who was also the Attorney-General in British Columbia during the RCMP investigations. Sources in Canada have said that the RCMP conducted extensive raids in 1999 on KCU to scrutinize the activities of the International Sikh Youth Federation who held their meetings at the KCU- affiliated Khalsa school. Malik alongwith Ajaib Singh Bagri belong to the fundamentalist wing of the Sikh community in Canada and are reported to have waged a often violent clash with the more moderate functions for the control of lucrative gurudwaras.

In Canada, it seems everybody knows everybody.

July 16 Update – More Questions about this cheque

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Celebrating diversity on the west coast….

“The International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) was founded in 1984 in the United Kingdom as an international branch of the All India Sikh Students’ Federation (AISSF) with centers in several countries, including Canada. The ISYF is a Sikh organization whose aim is to promote Sikh philosophy and the establishment of an independent Sikh nation called Khalistan. In the pursuit of their goal, the ISYF does not hesitate to resort to violence. Since 1984, its members have been engaged in terrorist attacks, assassinations and bombings mostly against Indian political figures, but also against moderate members of the Sikh community opposed to their extremist ways. The ISYF collaborates and/or associates with a number of Sikh terrorist organizations, notably Babbar Khalsa (BK), the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) and the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF).”

All that, and the company of Liberal Party candidates, too!

To nobody’s surprise, the MSM has all but ignored the Fraser Institute report (mentioned here a few days ago) on the extent of the Liberal Party of Canada abuse of the government purse for their own electoral benefit.
Stephen Taylor has been doing their job for us. Perhaps some enterprising young reporter will take the initiative and steal his work. One can only hope.

Particularly striking were donations made to the Liberal Party of Canada by the RCMP and by the Privy Council Office.
For the “privilege” of protecting the Prime Minister and other members of his campaign team during the 2000 campaign, the RCMP paid the Liberal Party $112,000 for seats accompanying the PM.
The Fraser Institute reports:
“It is an apparent conflict of interest for government agencies, especially those engaged in law enforcement, to pay a governing political party for services rendered during an election. This financial entanglement can impair perceptions of independence and due process that are essential to the proper functioning of those agencies.” — Fraser Institute report, July 2005
One would expect that the taxpayer would pay for the services of the RCMP to protect the Prime Minister. However, it is counter-intuitive that the RCMP (ie. the taxpayer) would pay a private organization (ie. the Liberal party) for work done by the federal law enforcement agency.
The Privy Council Office paid $44,000 to the Liberal Party for similar “services”.

Be sure to bookmark Stephentaylor.ca if you haven’t already – he has a habit of pulling together data in ways that the G&M and CBC would prefer you not see.
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Question: How long should a mother breastfeed?

A mother and her baby should breastfeed for as long as they wish to breastfeed. Canada Health currently recommends that “breastfeeding continue for at least 12 months, and thereafter for as long as mutually desired.” * As solids are introduced, usually around the middle of the first year, your baby will shift his primary source of nutrition from your milk to other foods. The exception to this rule is the Liberal Party campaign manager, who should continue on mother’s breast milk until old enough to be moved to the public tit.

Another drug bust tied to Liberal Party operatives in British Columbia. This time it’s Ecstacy.

Ravinderjit Kaur Puar, who is also known as Ravinderjit Kaur Shergill, was captured on tape saying she was involved in the sale of ecstasy and marijuana and also said she did not want any “heat” because both she and her father are politicians, according to U.S. court documents.
“We don’t drop our weed off here. We take it all the way to California,” Puar was also quoted in the documents as saying.
Puar ran unsuccessfully earlier this year for the NDP nomination in Vancouver-Kensington, which was won by David Chudnovsky, who went on to win in the May provincial election.
She was also elected as a Liberal party delegate for Paul Martin’s leadership team in the fall of 2003, but did not end up attending the convention.
Puar’s father, Kalwant Singh Puar, is on the executive of Vancouver’s Ross Street Sikh temple. He has been a high-profile supporter of federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh.

83 kilos of cocaine found on a Martin owned Canada Steamship Lines vessel, drug related arrests in BC of Liberal fundraisers and organizers (the Basi Boys) associated with Paul Martin’s leadership campaign, and the curious testimony of Miriam Bedard at the Commons committee hearings into Adscam.
Perhaps it’s time the federal Liberals were asked to recuse themselves from further debate on marijuana decriminalization. Conflict of interest, and all that.

A Fraser Institute release; Accounting for Gomery: The Money Links Between the Federal Government, Political Parties, and Private Interests;

The people identified in various reports and Gomery inquiry testimony fall into two groups: politicians and bureaucrats (government insiders) and political party members and business people (government outsiders). This report finds that they collectively donated at least 40 times more to the Liberal party than to all of the other main political parties combined from 1993 to 2003. In other words, over 98 percent of these donations were made to the Liberal party.
The numbers of people and amounts of money involved in the Gomery inquiry are also much larger than previously known.
For example, only 71 organizations and individuals were identified in the original 2003 Auditor General’s sponsorship and advertising report, while this study identifies at least 565.
This report also finds that these insiders and outsiders privately donated at least $3.9 million to the Liberal party and received at least $7.4 million in private payments from the Liberal party from 1993 to 2003. The official Gomery inquiry forensic report, by comparison, found only $2.5 million in Liberal party donations.

The complete publication is here.

Excluding those Canadians donating to the Conservatives, that is.
We really need a translation service to better understand the messages that flow out of Ottawa/Toronto media. When they announce, for example, that their polling shows that “Canadians don’t want an election”, it’s useful to know that in their little incestuous fishbowl, the only real Canadian is a Liberal.
CBC;

The newly merged federal Conservative party raised more than twice as much in private contributions last year as the Liberal party, which may have been hurt by the unfolding sponsorship scandal or by a failure to recruit enough grassroots donors.
The major parties’ 2004 financial returns were made available on Monday after a June 30 filing deadline.
The totals:
Conservatives $10.9 million.
Liberals $5.2 million.
New Democrats $5.19 million.
Bloc Qu�b�cois $897,000.

At this rate, Paul Martin’s going to have to hurry up and hold himself another leadership campaign.

In the faux furor (which reminds me more than a little of the Rove “contraversy” last week) over Stephen Harper’s comments about the legitimacy of the SSM bill being passed by a Liberal-Bloc coalition, this little propoganda piece that was circulating in Ontario just a couple of weeks ago is timely reading.

Stephen Harper confirmed that he is willing to collaborate with the separatist Bloc Qu�b�cois to drag Canadians back to the polls before justice Gomery has finished hearing witnesses and issued his final report.
He has said that “Canadian’s don’t need to form the kind of judgments that Mr. Justice Gomery is going to form.” If he is referring to matters of guilt or innocence those are judgments in which Ontarians, and Canadians, are very much interested.
It wasn’t too long ago that Stephen Harper was falsely telling Canadians that the Liberals would find a way to prevent the Commission from carrying out its mandate and that it was absolutely essential that Justice Gomery be allowed to complete his work before an election was called.
Now he is the one putting national unity at risk, once again proving that, in his mind, political opportunism trumps the best interests of Ontarians.
We believe that Stephen Harper’s comments and actions are indeed counterproductive, and should offend every Ontarian who wants Justice Gomery to complete the job entrusted to him.
As our first act in office, on December 12th, 2003, this government cancelled the sponsorship program. We made sure that those implicated were removed from their positions as crown corporation executives. The Government has also filed a lawsuit against 19 defendants, including several communications companies and their directors to recover $41 million. And of course, it was this Liberal government that appointed Justice Gomery.

Does the frequent use of the word “government” here suggest that this was a taxpayer funded ad for the LIberals?

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*

“I very, very much wanted to be here, but … in a minority Parliament — when you take a look at the discussions we just had over the budget bills and other such legislation — it was absolutely impossible to be here,” Martin said. “This is the first possible opportunity that I had to be here.”

Candace became very very interested in whether that was actually the case….

June 7, 2005 – High River declares a state of local emergency, hundreds evacuated.
June 8, 2005 – Calgary readies for possible flooding. PMPM has a cabinet meeting in Ottawa.
June 9, 2005 – The river peaked at High River. PMPM did nothing noteworthy according to his site.
June 10, 2005 – Stephen Harper views flood damage (yes, it’s his home city, so what? He’s running the Opposition in a minority gov’t so has just as lame an excuse if he wanted one.) Notice I had to link to a blog – I guess either this wasn’t considered “news” by anybody, including the Conservative Party of Canada. And they wonder why people don’t see the ‘kinder, gentler’ side of him? PMPM reaffirmed his commitment to fixing healthcare in Canada. And he had to do that in Ontario because that IS Canada. Maybe he was relaxing after an exhausting week of running a minority government. Maybe his jet needed servicing.
June 11/12, 2005 – PMPM did nothing noteworthy again, according to his news tab.
June 13, 2005 – PMPM repeats his commitment to fixing healtcare, still in Ontario.
June 14, 2005 – PMPM buys more time in office (still in Ontario).
June 15, 2005 – PMPM has another cabinet meeting in Ottawa.
June 16, 2005 – High River braces for another onslaught of rain. PMPM hangs out with a major political leader of a really important country and makes very very important plans for the weekend.
June 17, 2005 – PMPM buys more votes in Ontario
June 18, 2005 – High River begins lifting evacuation orders, in time for Calgary to get hit
June 19, 2005 – PMPM hangs at an Ontario resort with European PMs

Read the rest.

After weeks of “All Grewal, All Day”, the vindications are starting to trickle in. Last week he was absolved by both the RCMP and Transport Canada in the Air Canada faux scandal – today the ethics commissioner has cleared him of wrongdoing in asking his consituants to post bonds of up to $100,000 in exchange for his help in obtaining temporary visas.

OTTAWA (CP) – Parliament’s ethics commissioner recommends that no sanctions be imposed on a Tory MP involved in an immigration controversy.
He says Gurmant Grewal committed an error in judgment – but an honest one – when he demanded paid bonds from families of foreigners seeking to visit Canada. The B.C. MP admits he asked for signed guarantees of up to $100,000 if visitors did not leave the country when their visas expired.
But Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro says Grewal never accepted any payment, and never intended to pocket the money. Shapiro says the practice placed the Tory MP in an apparent conflict of interest, but that his mistake happened in good faith.

Now, perhaps CTV will turn their attention to the conduct – and the identities – of senior Liberals who leaked details of the Grewal “investigation” to the media during the height of the Liberal government’s confidence crisis in May.
On second thought – maybe the Libranos will just make good on their threats to deport him.
Kevin Libin at the Shotgun weighs in and follows up with a response from Grewal.