How much do you want to bet this would be the one certain thing the Harperite Conservatives won’t want to learn from the Israelis to do? Ynet News:
China has sent a special delegation to Israel to learn about the aid provided by the Foreign Ministry to Israelis traveling abroad in times of distress. The reason for the trip was the growth in Chinese tourism across the world in the past few years.
The delegation was headed by the Chinese deputy foreign minister for legislation affairs and head of the Chinese foreign ministry’s consular department. They met with senior Foreign Ministry officials, including Deputy Director-General Rafi Barak and Yigal Tzarfati, head of the consular division.
The Chinese were interested in the nature of the cases in which Israel helps its citizens across the world, including incidents in which hikers are rescued and the steps taken in cases of missing people, road accidents, illnesses, the need to evacuate bodies, natural disasters, political instability and drug offenses. The Chinese also expressed their interest in the treatment of Israeli prisoners abroad.
Sigh.. All of which means there are now two things the Harperites won’t learn to do from the Israelis – care for our citizens abroad and airport security.
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon is taking a harder line against Israel’s controversial decision to build settlements in East Jerusalem and now says he condemns the plan. That’s the strongest language to date by a Conservative cabinet minister against Israel. It comes in response to an Israeli plan to build 1,600 new apartments in a Jewish neighbourhood in disputed East Jerusalem.
What’s next from this putz – Canadian soldiers are dying in Afghanistan because a Jew builds a home in Jerusalem or goes to daven at Churva Synagogue? Just one of the many reasons I have nothing but contempt for the Harper styled conservatives – is the no-talent loons who he consistently stacks in his cabinet with.
“The stupidest program the U.S. government has ever undertaken” – last year that’s what I called American efforts to improve the Palestinian Authority (PA) military force. Slightly hyperbolic, yes, but the description fits because those efforts enhance the fighting power of enemies of the United States and its Israeli ally.
Go read the ‘why’ and just so all you Canadians don’t get too smug – the current Canadian government is just as butt stupid for expanding and continuing to fund Operation Proteus which is the Canadian Forces helping to train the Palestinian Authority ’security forces’ along side US General Dayton’s group.
In what feels like another life time ago I was a law clerk in a criminal practice in downtown Toronto. There are only a small number of cases which I worked on which have remained paused in my memory. One of them concerned an accused father who had chained his 16 year old daughter to a poll in the basement of the family home for weeks. She was given a bucket and a bottle of water daily. In a testament to her father’s love and concern a small plate of food was brought to her in the evening. She had to sleep on the concrete floor of the basement chained to the poll.
The father was genuinely outraged when police charged him with a variety of offences. He considered this the ultimate infringement of his parental rights and for the life of him he simply could not grasp the nature of the crimes he stood accused of. Why this case stuck so seriously in my memory was the father’s outrage.
He really had no idea the extreme measures he took to discipline his ‘wayward’ daughter was never allowable or justified under Canadian law. I have no idea how the case was ultimately resolved and for my purposes – it doesn’t much matter. Although, what does matter is that immigrants to this country fully realize we are a wide, diverse place and while there are obviously similarities in civil or criminal code offences between Canada and the so-called ‘motherland’ (think theft/robbery) there are also potentially a number of what may be unique rights granted in Canada to children, women, wives, minorities and gays/lesbians.
And yes, I do think it’s of paramount importance to mention rights granted to gays and lesbians in any documents prepared for immigrants to understand and discover Canada. Considering the vast majority of the world’s countries do not extend or grant the most basic legal protection to homosexuals. In fact, as long as there are countries which still consider homosexuality to be a criminal violation punishable by death; I’d say it is of the utmost importance to emphasize this potential difference between an immigrant’s ‘motherland’ and his adopted land. All of which makes me emphasize another reason why I feel Stephen Harper’s government is still not ready for prime time nor able to adequately safeguard and protect the rights of all citizens of Canada.
According to this Toronto Star article the Canadian Military is running into staffing issues.
OTTAWA–The military has put up to a dozen international missions on the chopping block as it struggles with a massive personnel shortage, the Toronto Star has learned.
From a five-soldier team training the Kosovo Security Force to the single officer monitoring the 1974 ceasefire in Cyprus, to the 30 personnel deployed on peacekeeping operations in Sudan, all is up for review as Canada juggles the demands of Afghanistan, the Olympics, and the G8 and G20 meetings of world leaders this summer.
“Political will exists to accept downsizing or deactivation of missions whose effects are no longer required, are not meeting their intent, or who can no longer be conducted owing to force generation pressures,” according to an internal report last year laying out the criteria for continuing or cutting the international deployments.
The personnel pinch was first identified by Gen. Rick Hillier, then chief of defence staff, in May 2008. He warned that the Canadian Forces would need to “continuously and ruthlessly rationalize our operational demands.”
So I have a suggestion to help ease the personnel crunch; immediately end Operation Proteus. By this time most of you are probably scratching your heads wondering what the hell Operation Proteus is. I know I was. I never even knew the Canadian Armed Forces had any kind of join venture on the go with the Palestinians until I read the most ridiculous and overall butt-ignorant editorial penned for the St. Catherine’s’ Standard. However, the editorial did allude to a Canadian operational mission with the Palestinian security forces and before I wrote the whole thing off as stuff and non-sense; I thought I should do a little digging.
Operation Proteus is probably the least publicly flaunted operation the Canadian Armed Forces are involved with. Of course, it would probably hurt the current Conservative government’s “Jew-cred” if the Conservatives started to openly tout Operations Proteus rather than doing it on the sly QT. Nothing like using the Canadian army to train the Palestinian security forces to become better trained terrorists police officers. So don’t expect to see this on Sandy Crux’s list of the Harper’s Governments Accomplishments.
Simply put; Operation Proteus is the Canadian military’s contribution for training the Palestinian Security Forces – yes, we are training these guys who with frightening regularity often go postal and run amuck killing Israelis.
I bet you thought only the Americans and Euroweenies were the only ones dumb enough to train (ahem) security forces of the Palestinian thug-a-crats and sundry thieves who run riot through the billions given to the Palestinian Authority.
Yes, this is the same Palestinian Authority who first set in motion the infamous ‘jobs-for-guns’ program to al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade members to ‘lay down their guns’ for jobs in the Palestinian security forces.
Heaven knows, without the Palestinian Security Forces propping up one of the most innately corrupt gang of thugs and thieves the Palestinians have ever seen – what chance will any Palestinian know what it is like to enjoy justice without having to bride police, the judge or jury?
Furthermore, I would love to know what exactly is the Canadian military’s vetting process to ensure they are not training known terrorists? Although, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the Canadian Armed Forces defers all Palestinian candidate decisions to the Palestinian Security Forces’ leadership.
There is something ubiquitous about national security now that the Conservatives are running the show. In fact, national security now seems to be have been expanded to include anything which might show the Conservative government in a bad light rather than a threat to the security to the citizens of Canada. Toronto Star
OTTAWA–A former governor of Kandahar who is accused of personally torturing Afghans might have been removed from office as far back as 2006 if Canadian officials hadn’t defended him, according to diplomatic memos that have never been made public by the Canadian government.
The revelation about Asadullah Khalid, who stayed on as governor two years after concerns about his reputation were raised, opens up another embarrassing avenue of inquiry over Afghan prisoner abuse.
The new allegation is contained in a two-year-old report by Richard Colvin, the whistleblower foreign service officer. Colvin’s disgust that Canada would support a “known human-rights abuser” was palpable and formed the most incendiary paragraphs of the report. References to Khalid were entirely blacked out in the version of the report publicly released to the Military Police Complaints Commission.
But an uncensored version of the end-of-mission report was shown for the first time to The Canadian Press on a confidential basis. “As far as I know, Canada has never suggested to (President Hamid) Karzai that Asadullah be replaced,” says the memo, dated Oct. 24, 2007. “In the one meeting where the subject was discussed, in July 2006, it was the president who raised the issue; Canada defended the governor, thereby ensuring his continued tenure.” The uncensored report sheds further light on Colvin’s testimony last month before a special House of Commons committee, where he stated the governor was considered a “bad actor” on human rights.
So many of my ‘Torie’ compatriots have taken to parroting the line Afghanistan is a tough neighbourhood and we should all just buck up and shut up but what they appear to forget – is the peril and cost of letting evil triumph while good men do nothing.
The warnings about Khalid – whose brazen decision to display the battered dead body of a revered Taliban leader to local Afghan media, before refusing to return it for a proper burial, triggered a massive bombing campaign in Kandahar city in the spring of 2007 – were heard loud and clear in Ottawa.
The implications of the spring bombing campaign in the spring of 2007 triggered by Khalid’s barbarity should all make us pause given that Canadian soldiers were operating in and around Kandahar in the spring of 2007. In the un-redacted memos; there is no safe place for the Torie government to hide.
Concerns were serious enough to be raised at the highest levels of the federal government, foreign affairs and defence sources said. A meeting was called in December 2006 in Ottawa to discuss the matter. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s national security adviser, Margaret Bloodworth, attended the session, sources have said. “There was no policy for dealing with something like this, something sensitive,” one source said. “Nobody quite knew what to do.”
Yet throughout 2007 the warnings kept getting louder. A foreign affairs source said a memo sent by Colvin in the winter of 2007 was searing in its criticism and indicated the governor was corrupt, dangerous, self-serving and deeply unpopular with Afghans. One Afghan government official apparently pleaded with Canadian diplomats and police officers for Khalid’s removal during a meeting in February 2007, said the source, who has seen a document outlining the meeting. The official made a direct request to Canada to intervene with the president, the source said. Two months later, a prisoner handed over to Afghan authorities by Canadian Forces alleged Khalid had personally tortured him in a facility next to his palace, according to a memo from Colvin’s colleague, Gavin Buchan, on April 25.
Never have I lived through a Canadian government so unready and unable to meet the challenges of governing.
A Bloc Quebecois MP who once accused Israel of war crimes racked up more phone charges than any other MP last year, largely the result of a trip to Lebanon.
However, Maria Mourani says the $34,205 tab is justified because it allowed her to keep in touch with her office during the month-long trip that she paid for out of her own pocket.
Of course, she could have used ‘Skype’ or ‘Google chat’ or even just texted her office at a tiny fraction of the cost of cost she is asking Canadian taxpayers to shell out for her cell phone bills. If there was actually any ‘conserve’ in the present ruling Conservative party, Prime Minister Harper would direct government accounting clerks to only pay out the cost of sending one text per phone call and send the bill back to Mourani with an admonishment to seek reimbursed via the Bloc Quebecois for the balance.
A reader sent me a link to this You Tube video which asks the question; Michael Ignatieff – he is not who you think. Roll to the video:
Much is made of the fact that Michael Ignatieff has spent over three decades of his career outside of the country. Some conservative bloggers go so far as to routinely refer to Ignatieff as the First American Prime Minister…in waiting; while much of the criticism on the left centered around Stephen Harper being too Pro-American…well, maybe not today. The one thing critics on the right and left seem to share in common over Ignatieff is this suggestion Ignatieff is just not ‘Canadian’ enough or not as Canadian as you or I. I rather like this comment at the you tube site by Billy982810
He’s? who I think… He’s is a god dam Russian on the inside.
A Canadian, born in Canada, can now be classified as a ‘Russian’. I suppose this means that both my father and I need to turn in our Canadian birth certificates. Well us and probably most of the country should just close up shop and hunker back to wherever our ancestors came from. Although, in mine and the tribe’s case; its going to be hard to just pinpoint one country…I suppose we could always ask Ignatieff to take the Pierre Burton test and ask him to provide creds he knows how to have sex in canoe, of course, not ever having had sex in a canoe doesn’t save my sorry-butt from expulsion….don’t know about my Dad, and frankly, its not the discussion I want to have with my 70+ father.
Then again, my father has spent at least the last 10 years working outside the country so even if he passes the Pierre Burton test he apparently fails place of employment test. The truth is a great number of Canadians work outside the country and have done so for decades. One would think that a Canadian rising to the upper echelon of their profession internationally would be a point of pride for Canadians but apparently not for some Canadians. In fact, there are a number of professions from geologists to drillers to teachers and entertainers and peacekeepers whose services were very much in demand internationally so I suspect there are literally thousands upon thousands of Canadians who need to turn in their passports along with those birth certificates since none of us make the grade as real Canadians.
Much is made, even by myself at one point, about the fact that Ignatieff was actively recruited and enticed to return home to Canada and enter politics. Various Liberals in the upper echelon of the party thought he had a lot to offer the country and could help revive the Liberal party. So apparently answering your countrymen’s call and returning home is now considered a sleazy and arrogant thing to do. Can I turn it around and suggest it might be a patriotic decision? But than again, apparently I don’t hold enough Canadian creds despite the passport and birth certificate so what would I know. Oh yeah, then there is the ‘home’ thingy. Of course, like Igantieff I just happen to have a home outside the country – if that isn’t the last nail in my Canadian creds, I don’t know what is. Someone needs to tell the literally thousands and thousands of Snowbirds their citizenship and patriotism are now grounds for conduct unbecoming a real Canadian.
The other message of the video concerns various statements Ignatieff made working as an academic in the US and his role as an expert in human rights. I rather like the idea that Ignatieff understands the subtleties and choices underlying fighting a war, and that sometimes leaders upon to making a decision between evils to safeguard or keep a larger value. War is an ugly business, there are no often no good choices but only the evil decisions which will be best in keeping to the more important value – the safeguarding the majority of one’s citizens.
I think its foolish not to realize there is only one goal in war and its called victory. Anything less and you might as well surrender and close up shop. We can make all the fancy codes and rules for fighting a war, and sometimes, even meet them, but ultimately, it all depends who you are fighting and whether victory over your enemies means you choose survival over principle. If your enemy shares the same values, great, but if it doesn’t…well then. You get to choose between evils or surrender. Principles are great, I am a great believer in them, but at the same time, I am more of an inglorious type bastard who chooses life as I know it over subjugation every time. But that’s just me asserting my conservative- Russian-on-the- inside values. And may I say, I am rather pleased with the result that the Axis did not triumph over the Allied Forces and our grandparents weren’t overtly concerned or squeamish about making hard choices.
Last night between baking for Friday’s festivities I caught one of the dreaded Conservative attack commercials on the telly using Iggy making the dreaded ‘we’ as in ‘we Americans’. Well, its like this, he was living and working in the US, and for better or worse, his potential security of person, was tied to the overall need US home security. So I ask, so frigging what? I like the idea he understands when one sojourns in a country one needs to share concerns. Frankly, I think its a great to have a potential prime minister who actually had a career outside of politics.
So how does Iggy turn the vote around for the Liberals and possible take majority control of Parliament? It’s called the Harmonized Sales Tax; herein referred to as the Harper Sales Tax. In fact, there are already open admissions from the so-called Liberal Farm team that without the Harper Conservative financial inducements to the farm team Liberals; it would never have bought a ticket for a ride on the Harper sales tax train. Ditto B.C.
All Iggy has to do is denounce the tax, and announce if elected Prime Minister; his government will not honour the Conservative fiscal inducements for bringing the provinces in line on a harmonized sales tax basis – unless the Farm team drops their portion of the tax by 3%. His government will never screw over the interests of working Canadians and their families in the interest of filling anyone’s provincial feeding frenzy. Yeah, yeah, I know the NDP are all over it, but so what? When haven’t the Liberals taken and ran with the better ideas which the NDP has managed to come up with now and then? And considering, there is absolutely no frigging chance for Layton to ever be referred to as Mr. Prime Minister – its all good.
Furthermore, in the battleground province we call Ontario, distancing yourself from scandal plagued Farm Team Liberals is not only all good but necessary. If I was Iggy, I would make it a campaign platform that only the National Team can put the Farm Team in line.
Too bad I don’t have any influence with the Liberals because if I did I would add immigration and refugee policy a plank on my platform and run commercials asking Canadians if they would really trust the Conservatives to make the right decisions, the decisions in keeping with Canadian values, on immigration and refugee policy. And after the budget is passed, courtesy of the separatists and socialists, I’d run a commercial of Harper’s infamous speech warning Canadians of the dangers of coalition governments made up of separatists and socialists. Then of course, since I have a decided mean and petty streak I would also run a commercial discussing the Cons getting tough on so-called white collar crimes but not so tough on rapists. But what do I know, I am not only not a ‘real’ Canadian but a member of that left-wing fringe group called ‘women’. I got to get the T-shirt.
The first rule for Canadian conservative politicians serving as the ‘governing party’ should be – not to actively conspire with Liberal premiers to shove a knife in the backs of ordinary average citizens in Ontario. Toronto Sun:
PETERBOROUGH — A federal Conservative MP may be distancing himself from the controversial harmonized sales tax, but Premier Dalton McGuinty says he couldn’t have done it without the Stephen Harper government.
McGuinty said yesterday his government made the decision to proceed with a 13% harmonized federal and provincial sales tax. “But what made it more feasible was the agreement that we entered into with the federal government to provide us with financial support which we intend to pass onto our families and our small businesses to help them adjust to the single sales tax,” McGuinty said.
“So we initiated it, I think that’s fair to say, and we had a good productive conversation with the federal government that enabled us to move ahead.” Ottawa gave the McGuinty government $4.3 billion which is being used to send out $1,000 rebates to most families and $300 to most individuals, and also to lower personal and small business taxes. The HST will extend the 8% PST to many items and services not previously subject to the tax, such as home heating fuel, lawyer and accountant fees and inexpensive shoes.
And the Canada Conservative party actually wonders why they cannot carry Ontario…and I’ll bet $10 the Provincial Conservative Party leader won’t sending a thank-you to Stevie and the boys anytime in the near future. About the majority thingie…I don’t think it will work out all that well for you.
