A brief postal walkout took place in Vancouver Wednesday. The walkout was over objections to delivering an anti-gay pamphlet to about 200 homes in the city. Canada Post is trying to say that the walkout amounted to a group of carriers intimidating the one postal worker who had to carry the pamphlet into not doing so. I wouldn’t blame the carrier for making the claim that he had no problem with carrying it but others objected, he needs to protect his job. Read the rest of this entry »

Justin Trudeau, son of the late former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, has spoken up against Ignatieff’s Liberal leadership platform plank which would see Quebec constitutionally recognized as a nation within a nation. Ignatieff may have developed this belief from his academia background but to bring it forward as a stand that he wants to see implemented should he become Prime Minister is just WRONG.

Trudeau referred to Quebec nationalism is an outmoded “idea from the 19th century,” a remark interpreted as a direct attack on leadership contender Michael Ignatieff’s pledge to formally recognize the province as a nation.

“Nationalism is based on a smallness of thought,” Trudeau, 34, said in an interview on CTV’s Canada A.M. “(It) builds up barriers between peoples, that has nothing to do with the Canada we should be building.”

If you’ve read some of my posts about the Liberal leadership race, more like a trot actually, it is no secret that I’ve seen Ignatieff as the most viable of the mediocre candidates to put themselves forward as leadership material.

When I read of his stated intent to reopen constitutional discussions with the intent of declaring Quebec a nation within Canada, I had to seriously reconsider where I stand on the candidates. In the end were I voting for leader I may end up holding my nose and supporting him over Rae BUT and that is a huge BUT.. the boy needs a serious reality check about Quebec.. or any other province for that matter… who wants to be seen as a nation within a nation.

Recognizing the French as a distinct culture within Canada is one thing, providing them with the title of ‘nation’, that is just plain divisive. In a sense our structure of federal and provincial governments provides a certain level of ‘nationhood’ within the dominion and Quebec has certainly taken that to the hilt with its reference to its provincial house as their “National Assembly” and the concessions on immigration and taxation which the federal Government has allowed.

To refer to a province as a nation while the rest of the provinces and territories remain provinces and territories is just plain dumb. It is long past time that Quebec needs to grow up and get with the rest of the country as part of the greater whole. That doesn’t mean giving up what makes them unique, their language and culture. It means being confident enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the country as equal partners instead of their perennial victimhood claims.

Trudeau senior had it right when he opposed Meech Lake and the ‘distinct society’ label and junior is just as right. So why didn’t you run for Liberal leader lad?

Mayor David Miller, incumbent and candidate for mayor of Toronto in the municipal elections currently under way has come out in favour of allowing landing immigrants to vote in municipal elections. Give your head a shake junior!

Voting, at any level is a right of citizenship. It’s bad enough that we allow dual citizenship with other countries but to now start allowing those who have not committed enough to this country to become citizens to enjoy the privileges of citizenship, definitely not. Read the rest of this entry »

The Toronto Star today reports that a parliamentary committee is urging that the preventive arrest and investigative hearings provisions brought in following the 9/11 attacks be continued until 2011 which would provide a decade to look back and review their use and effectiveness. They are set to expire in December of this year. Their report must pass the Commons and the Senate or the provisions expire.

The Conservative & Liberal members of the committee brought in the majority report while the Bloc and the NDP brought forward a minority report. The minority reports raises concerns that laws like this seriously impact on civil liberties and can lead to abuses. On the one hand they argue that it is of no value in the war on terror and can be used on innocent citizens.

It is interesting to note that these provisions have yet to be used in the hysteria and fear immediately following the attacks on New York. That begs the question if the provisions should remain as a fall back position for law enforcement if they should really need to pick a suspect up to prevent a terrorist act but yet lack enough to charge them with the act or the conspiracy.

The minority report writers lack credibility in regards to their expertise on what or what isn’t effective in battling terrorism. The ones who can provide that credibility are the intelligence agencies and police. Unfortunately, since they are the ones who are also capable of and have abused the power provided to them by parliament we walk a truly difficult line between laws needed to protect us and laws designed for fear and control.

When we start to lower the threshold of proof we then open up the potential for honest law abiding Canadians to be arbitrarily arrested and detained for up to a year without charges on very flimsy grounds. The evidence used to detain someone under those provisions can be as thin as having association with someone else who the police are investigating. We can associate with a lot of people in the course of our lives but unless we live in their space, we truly don’t know them.

On the other side of the coin, law enforcement should be able to act on reasonable suspicions that someone may be involved in potential terrorist activity without having to wait for the proverbial smoking gun.

So, where to we find that fine line between providing the police the ability to act in our defense and to at the same time restrain them from overreacting or outright abusing the power we grant them?

I’ve had to remove the email notification feature for those who wanted to be notified by email when I updated. The spammers were loving it, not sure what they figured they would get from it but I was getting a lot of nuisance email when their confirmation emails bounced.

If we (Canada) manages to get through the next 24 hours without a death in Afghanistan, I’ll finally be able to clear the top of my blogs of memorial posts. I don’t begrudge the posts, I do them to commemorate our fallen. I just feel a bit better when there isn’t one there, it means more of our people are staying alive.

The remaining eight liberal candidates squared off in the final debates yesterday in Toronto. No real winner emerged but some feistiness showed up that made things somewhat interesting. Ignatieff as the current front runner was the main target.

He wasn’t a terribly difficult target to hit considering that he’s made some gaffes during the course of the leadership campaign. He and Rae came to verbal blows over Rae’s stand on Afghanistan and Ignatieff’s on Israel. From the clip I saw on TV, neither of them came off as leaders in that round. Martha Findlay-Hall the third person on the stage finally intervened to bring the debate back to some level of civility. Read the rest of this entry »

Jack Straw started a bit of a firestorm last week when he disclosed that he asks Muslim women to remove their veil in his office as he perceives it as a barrier to communication. The debate has widen some this week with a teacher in a public school insisting on wearing the veil. She said she will remove it in the classroom as long as there are no male teachers present.

The teacher has been suspended and has taken the case to an industrial tribunal. The race and faith minister says she should be sacked (fired) if she wont remove the veil at work. Read the rest of this entry »

Two more Canadian soldiers lost their lives today in Afghanistan. Two more working on building a road. Layton will likely suggest that aid workers should be doing that building so those nasty militants wouldn’t attack them.

While I’m being sarcastic, seems like as good a spot as any to bring this story into the pot…errr mix…. “Canada Troops Battle 10-ft Marijuana Plants” seems that the Afghans grow them tall and strong and then the Taliban hides in them. The challenge is how to get rid of them without getting our troops higher than kites.

Over on the Army.ca site the people posting there (some of them vets of Afghanistan) have enjoyed some comic relief on the subject along with some thoughtful suggestions on what to do with the drug crops.