Crime and Punishment

Marlene Jennings Contracts Foot In Mouth Disease

Mulder

First she attacked partisan government appointments…

…and then we found out her own husband received such an appointment.

Then she attacked the way the C-17 contract was tendered…

…when her own party used this same method of tender 3264 times in A SINGLE YEAR!!

And now Liberal Marlene Jennings is attacking the RCMP Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass for his comments following the Liberal support to let the anti-terror legislation sunset clause expiry.

Liberal justice critic Marlene Jennings is lashing out at B.C’s top Mountie for criticizing a move by Canada’s opposition parties not to extend controversial anti-terror powers for police.

RCMP Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass says an investigation into the 1985 Air India bombing has been harmed by the expiry of investigative hearings. Such hearings allow authorities to compel potential witnesses in a suspected terror case to testify in front of a judge.

Now that we are spending millions to investigate this tragedy again, the Liberals have taken away the tools the RCMP needed. Marlene Jennings and her Liberal partners should hang their heads in shame for how they have let down the families of every victim of the Air India tragedy down. Her dress down of a ranking RCMP officer is deplorable.

Human Rights Groups Now Responsible For Commiting Human Wrongs

Mulder

I would love to start a group to sue the Human Rights groups for abusing people with frivolous legal action. We could call it a Human Wrongs group.

Canada’s practice of turning detainees over to Afghan security forces, widely accused of torture and abuse, violates international law and the Charter of Rights, Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association say.

The two groups will Wednesday file an application in Federal Court in Ottawa seeking judicial review of the military’s controversial policy. Named as respondents in the action are Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor, General Rick Hillier, Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff, and Attorney-General Robert Nicholson.

The legal action will be announced today by Alex Neve, Amnesty International Canada’s Secretary-General, and Shirley Heafey, a B.C. Civil Liberties Association board member.

What these groups don’t realize is that we are not at war with Afghanistan. We are there now in rebuilding/reconstructive role. This means we work WITH their police forces and not against them.

If there are issues with the Afghani police forces, that is a concern and should be addressed via the appropriate Internal Affairs (or similar equivalent) department within their police.

As A Health Issue, Crack Pipe Kits Should Be Paid For By Province, Not City.

Mulder

In the past, I have commented on the fact that Ottawa’s Crack Pipe Kit program is a health issue, and as such, should not be paid for my municipal city taxes and that if it is to continue, the provincial government.

In this mornings Ottawa Sun, Nicholas Little of the Aids Committee of Ottawa (ACO) confirms:

“Larry O’Brien, I imagine, sees this as a legality issue, when, in actual fact, it should be treated as a health issue,” said ACO’s Nicholas Little.

“Addiction is a question of health, not of criminality.”

Mr. Nicholas is an advocate for the program but his words still ring true. This IS a health issue. But I disagree with him that it is not an issue of criminality. It is most certainly an issue of criminality. Crack cocaine is illegal. That is, in actuality, the only cut and dry part of all this.

It may not be a huge expense, but if it is to be made, it is up to Dalton McShifty to pay it with the health premium he burdened Ontario residents with shortly after becoming the Premier.

Judicial Committees Need The Insight Of Law Enforcement Officers

Mulder

Yesterday, in the Sun, Greg Weston had a piece titled Tory Control Freaks.

This was a piece about how the recent changes to the judicial committee makeup will change things forever.

Usually Mr. Weston has some pretty good insights and I enjoy when he gets a chance to sit in on Duffy or other interview shows. But this time, Greg has missed the mark.

1) As we have heard, the 50+ judges the Tories appointed last year were all recommended by the previous panel which the Liberals put together.

2) Greg shoots himself in the foot with this statement:

True, many of these judges — maybe even most of them — got where they are with a little help from their respective political pals.

This admission by Greg is pretty accurate which means that after 13 years of Liberal government, the majority of judges appointed the past 13 years will obviously be leaning towards Liberal ideals. This is not a right wing neo-con complaint as Greg says, but it is simply fact. He basically said it himself in the quote above.

3) This third point is very critical. The committee used to be 7 members. It used to contain
* a nominee of the provincial or territorial law society;
* a nominee of the provincial or territorial branch of the Canadian Bar Association;
* a judge nominated by the Chief Justice or senior judge of the province or territory;
* a nominee of the provincial Attorney General or territorial Minister of Justice; and
* 3 nominees of the federal Minister of Justice representing the general public.

Where do judges come from? In Canada they come from the lawyer pool. And as Greg mentions above, they don’t get where they are without some help from their respective political pals. By extension, this means that most lawyers and judges have a vested interest in being politically minded to some extent.

To me it does not matter what Party you are from or support. Having 4 of the 7 people influenced by politics creates an unfair playing field…especially if one party has been in power for 13 years.

The Tory plan, which is just a one year trial at this point, adds an 8th member nominated by the law enforcement community. These are the people who are out there in the communities, meeting people, seeing where law enforcement and judicial systems work and where they break down. I can’t think of a better position to provide input from two perspectives. 1) they know the community and 2) they know the judicial system.

So what happens now is that the third position, or the senior judge, does not vote unless the other seven members on the panel are deadlocked (with an abstention). This does not make any shift in the political leaning of the board, it simply adds an element that is clearly involved on a daily basis with the judiciary, WHO IS NOT PART OF THE JUDICIARY. This will help minimize the “old boys club” aspect that the Judiciary seems to have.

There will be detractors, who spew garbage like “if they want a police officer, they can appoint one with their three positions”. By this logic, any of the positions could be appointed via the governments three nominations. This would include someone from the Bar or Law Society too. I call this the “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” defense.

Now to get people like Marlene Jennings to stop quacking.

Law Professor Allegations Meant To Remove Canadian Forces From Afghanistan

Mulder

Amir AttaranOttawa University Professor Amir Attaran appeared on Canada AM this morning to discuss the possible abuse by Canadian troops of Afghani prisoners.

I have been doing some light reading this evening and I am wondering why Mr. Attaran would be so interested in the possible abuse of these men.

The information which will be presented in an investigation look pretty clear cut to me.

The three Afghans were captured near Dukah by a small group of Canadian soldiers.

One of the detainees was seen observing the soldiers but escaped, only to be captured the next day. In a field report, the soldiers described him as “non-compliant.”

Another is described as being “extremely belligerent” and “it took four personnel to subdue him.”

In the most serious instance, it was said that only “appropriate force” was used and that the suspect was an alleged bomb maker.

And what did these men suffer? Remember, one that they were “non-compliant”, “extremely belligerent” and one was an alleged bomb maker.

All three of them had a similar set of injuries to their face, to their head and the most seriously injured man had his eyes swollen, cuts on his eyebrows, a slash across his forehead and a cut on his cheek.

So in other words, these men looked like this.

Rocky

Big Deal. It took 4 men to subdue one of them. How do you expect these guys to look?

Right now it seems to me that most of this is still speculation, hearsay, and allegations by Mr. Attaran. Apparently, the men were returned to Afghan authorities and “never seen again.” (cue Twilight Zone music).

So what is this really all about?

Well we can tell you that Dr. Attaran has conveniently brought up these cases (with one file missing) when only a year ago he was criticizing Canada’s Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Afghanistan.

Professor Amir Attaran of the Faculty of Law fears that the agreement between Ottawa and Kabul on prisoner transfers makes Canadian soldiers complicit to torture.
He made this assertion during the conference on the “Canadian Legal Response to Torture” that took place on March 24, 2006 at the University of Ottawa.

This event, organized by the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Human Rights Research and Education Centre and the Faculty of Law, attracted more than two hundred people from different government departments, human rights organizations and lawyers interested in the subject.

So after criticizing the agreement almost a year ago, Mr. Attaran has been reviewing report after report after report on the Afghani prisoner transfers and has finally found 3 that can make his criticism valid. How many prisoner files did he need to review before he found these? How many hundreds of prisoners were processed properly without issue before three “Belligerents” took a couple of shots to put them back in line?

Mr. Attaran should produce a bit more evidence before making allegations as he has.

Judge him for yourself. Mr. Attaran has written for the Globe and Mail (left leaning), The Washington Post (left leaning), The New York Times (VERY left leaning) and his previous employer was the “Sierra Legal Defence Fund” (Granola crunching, left leaning, tree hugging, legal action group).

I think Mr. Attaran should come clean. His actions indicate he wants Canada out of Afghanistan. Just like his buddy Jack Layton.

ADDENDUM: Actually, Mr. Attaran is quoted on page 3 of one of Alexa McDonough’s “Global Perspectives” flyers from 2003. e

Off With Her Head … Ok, Just Fire Her

Mulder

The Auditor General, (and my personal Goddess) Sheila Fraser is expected to fire Johanne Gélinas, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.

This is a pleasant surprise if I may say. Gélinas apparently stepped out of her role and into that of policy. I guess this means she was starting to be partisan with her decisions.

The Commissioner is an integral part of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. She and her team function as a special unit within the Office, investigating issues of concern to Canadians by auditing how well the federal government is meeting its environmental and sustainable development commitments. Like the Auditor General, the Commissioner reports on her findings to Parliament.

Good for Sheila!!

Are Loose Lips A Sign Of Partisanship Or Treason?

Mulder

Throw the lot of them in jail. I could care less if they are partisans or not. To release government documents without an appropriate ATI (access to information) request could quite possibly be considered treason and to a stickler for rules like me, it is most definitely a breach of security.

I hope this investigation comes up with some names. And I hope they make examples out of those that leaked the documents so that any other partisan employees don’t “liberate” documents without a proper ATI.

The Perley Holmes Endorsement of Stephane Dion

Mulder

First cocaine, now guns. Stephane Dion has some winners endorsing him.

This page was removed from Dion’s site. (But it wasn’t removed from Google cache)

Just in case the Liberal lawyers manage to remove it, I took a screen shot.

(click image to enlarge)

And what the heck, here is the text directly from the site cache!!

“Stéphane Dion’s ability to gain the confidence of both previous Prime Ministers despite the serious rift in the party, bespeaks his ability to pull the party together. Ontario has some excellent leadership candidates but we will never run this country without the support of Quebec. Ontario has always been fairly evenly split between the Conservative party and the Liberal party. A strong leader will sway it one way or the other so it is fairly market neutral but the weight of a Francophone Liberal from Quebec would possibly be the demise of the Bloc Quebecois party, ‘and good riddance’, this certainly would tip the balance in our favour in the next federal election. I also feel Stéphane’s commitment to environmental and social causes will pull support from the NDP out West. His combination of strengths have him way ahead of any of his contenders. Therefore, if we are to have a realistic chance of forming the next Government it only makes common sense to support Stéphane Dion.”

— Perley Holmes, Vancouver, BC

You can find a ton more on this at Steve Janke’s site.

Stephane Dion Just Can't Get It Right – Flip Flops On Marc-Yvon Côté Remarks

Mulder

FlipFlopsAfter the backlash in the press yesterday Citoyen Dion is backtracking on his comments about reinstating banned party members.

“Certainly, you cannot exclude forever people who made mistakes,” he was quoted as saying. “And someone who has even, I believe, recognized their error.”

Yesterday, Mr. Dion backtracked, insisting that he would have no involvement in reinstating Mr. Côté and suggesting it probably will not occur.

“I am not seeking to reopen that issue and there’s not an application [from Mr. Côté] as far as I know. There is a procedure we follow,” Mr. Dion said, asserting that party officials would handle any such case. “I’m not recommending anything.”

Dion is quickly building a reputation as the “wrong choice” for Liberal leadership.

Mr. Dion’s aides acknowledged privately that the leader is trying to bring the controversy to a quick end and is unhappy that his misstep could raise the spectre of the sponsorship scandal again — noting that his leadership campaign had stressed that he was a veteran Liberal with untainted integrity.

Aides said his comments were an off-the-cuff answer to an unexpected question.

< sarcasm > That’s what I want in a leader …… good solid off the cuff answers!! < /sarcasm >

Liberals Redefine "Life"

Mulder

This is huge.

Stealing a page from their judicial definition of “life”, the Liberals have redefined the term to mean “some arbitrary time we see as being fit”. Today, Citoyen Dion says he would not be against letting some of those banned for their part in the Sponsorship scandal back into the party.

Specifically speaking about bag man Marc-Yvon Côté, who dispersed over $100,000 in illegal funds to several Liberal Party candidates, Dion says he would consider letting Côté and possibly others back into the party after they were banned for life.

Here we go again. Listen to CFRA newsclip below.

ADDENDUM For a crude English translation of Le Soleil, click here.