Desicritics Category: Politics: Canada

India to Canada: Bring Dollars Not Guns

Vijay Sappani — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:13:34 EST

India's minister of Industry and commerce, Kamal Nath has called upon Canada for greater investment and participation in India's booming economy. Canada has not benefited from India's burgeoning market so far, but the prospects are getting better by the day. Indian companies have already started to invest in Canada in natural resources, IT, energy and other industries. Several Canadian companies like Sun Life, Bombadier, Aecon and Bata have been in India for long years and others are starting to follow.

Canada also got a slight in the media connected to the terror bombing in Ludhiana, Punjab. A statement released by the Punjab Police takes a swipe at Canada, that all media groups carried.

The Quick Reaction Team, an elite force of the Chandigarh police is now tackling terrorist activities fuelled and funded by groups abroad.
The Dixie Gurudwara in Canada has been a hub of pro-Khalistan elements for over a decade now. The support often translating into monetary help for terrorists.So the whole of Punjab was taken aback when Amarinder Singh on an official visit as Chief Minister in 2005 chose to address a gathering at this gurudwara.

''The whole world knew that terrorists get shelter in that gurdwara and it's being run by terrorists. When Amarinder was delivering his speech there, the slogan Khalistan zindabad was visible in the backdrop. The slogan essentially meant Punjab should be separated from India,'' said M S Bitta, Chairman, All India Anti Terrorist Front.

Support to Sikh terrorists from Canadian groups has been widely covered by National media in both countries but there seems to be no change in attitude from certain segments. It also well known that some MP's and MPP's are known to be sympatetic to separatists groups that advocate the creation of a Sikh home land from India.

Canada allowing itself to be launching pad for separatists movement for ethnic groups and watching them hail terrorists as hero's is going to hurt Canada in the long run in the eyes of the world.

Peaceful quest for democracy in a country where that ethnic group is deprived of human rights is something we should support , like in Burma, Tibet, but turning a blind eye to violent movement for political gains is against the fundamental values of Canada. All political parties do it to get a share of ethnic votes including the Conservatives.

Is Omar Khadr A Child Soldier Or A Peace Lover?

Vijay Sappani — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 00:21:42 EST

Omar Khadr was captured in Afghanistan at the age of 15 while fighting against American forces. CBS did a program on Omar Khadr on 60 minutes. The video is interesting and does raise a debate on whether he should be treated as a child soldier.

I think the US should make a deal with Omar Khadr and get him to travel around the world talking about his experience and discouraging terrorism. He should be the poster boy for the CIA for how they believe in giving peace a chance and not otherwise. Now, the question is will Omar be interested in it. Is he still a terrorist at heart or has he transformed to be a peace lover?

At 15, I agree to the arguments of his lawyer that he followed the instructions of his father and did what he did. Fair enough. Omar, who is now 20, is mature and experienced enough to make his own decisions, better than 5 years ago. So the big question is, does he understand what he did was wrong and regret for his acts of terror. Does Omar want a second chance in life to lead of life of peace and love and not terror and hatred. Does he have remorse for his actions.

If the answer is yes,then he should not only be pardoned but also protected and hired by CIA. If the answer is NO, then he should be treated like any one else in Guantanamo Bay. If he still has hatred towards civilized people, if he still wants to take revenge, then what is the logic in releasing him. This is the tricky part we don't know and we all deserve to know what is running in Omar Khadr's mind. Will he help us propagate the message against Terrorism or will he go back to be a terrorist?

Is It Time to Review Bilingualism in Canada

Vijay Sappani — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:05:57 EST

Here's an interesting read for those who have roots in India and those who are complaining about bilingualism in Canada. Imagine 28 official languages in India! To some extent I agree with the petition. Everyone should be encouraged to learn their mother tongue and at least one official language. Most people in India prefer English over Hindi as it is the commonly used language of business and one should not be forced to learn a third language, something that I think applies to Canada too. I learned English and was forced to learn Hindi in school while in India even though my mother tongue is Tamil. No wonder I can read and write Hindi more fluently than Tamil. How many Canadians can speak their mother tongue, forget read and write?

Canada is the new country of an emerging trend of globalization. By making bilingualism mandatory in several jobs that don't require the need for it, we are discriminating against some talented people who could otherwise be in the job by knowing one of the two official languages.

If almost 100% of our growth is going to come from immigrants in a couple of decades from now, we need to make changes to our employment system to attract the best talent to Canada and make them eligible for jobs that will keep the economic engine running.

The days of a high Canadian dollar are here to say and Canada needs to start looking into other international markets to support our export business. Markets like China, India, Brazil, Russia, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Middle East and many other fast growing countries don't need French, but in fact some countries don't speak either of our official languages. Why does a research associate on trade opportunities in China in the Federal government need to know both English and French. What we need is a person who has the skills for the job and should be fluent in one of the official languages.

Maybe it is time for us to review our draconian laws on bilingualism and look into the needs of the market today and enable more skilled people who are fluent in one of the official languages to be absorbed in Federal government positions. No political party, especially in a minority situation is going talk anything about it and no MP who has leadership ambitions will do it either, but the reality of the market is that, we need to start accepting to live in an economy of high Cdn $ that will start hurting our manufacturing and service sectors serving US clients. Many states in mid west are trying to get skilled professionals from India and China and provide tech and BPO services to US companies that were traditionally sourced from Canada. The change in dollar value, the perks of tax breaks given by parched states in mid west and the ability at ease to hire skilled professionals from Asia is making it easy for these companies to provide better rates and match the service needs of US corporates.

A change in business culture starts with its people and if we are going to keep some people out because of linguistic purposes, then we are not necessarily hiring the best talent available in the market and forcing some of them to go south. No wonder Canada is called a 'pit stop' for skilled professionals who end up in US when they can't get a job here.

Maybe it is time that we start encouraging Canadians to learn one of the Official languages, their mother tongue and if possible the second official language, but we should open up more jobs in Federal government for people who can speak one of the official languages that might be been sufficient based on the geography and needs of the jobs and hire them based on their skills for the jobs. Is it the question of who is going to bell the cat!

Minorities and Poverty

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 11:18:40 EST

If a first or second generation immigrant is poor, it is the host government's fault, according to an article. And they have to go about doing silly things like affirmative action and equal opportunity. Oh!, and have minimum wage which is supposed to be decent. Who defines decent? As for minimum wages, there is a very hot debate going on about whether minimum wages depress employment or not. Even if it did not, the idea that a government agency will tell me how much to pay my workers is anathema to me as a libertarian!

They seem to be saying that it is to do with race. What utter rot, to put it politely. This bit made me laugh, apparently there are people now called as visible minorities. I presume it refers to skin colour, social habits or such like. I would be curious to see what or who are visible majorities? or invisible majorities? But besides this frankly spectacularly stupid terminology, here is something to think about.

The mother country to Canada, United Kingdom which has a somewhat similar ethnic, immigration and minority background gives these figures for education:

Can you see the 2 lines which are beyond 70%? those belong to visible minorities - the Indians and Chinese, who significantly over take the visible majority (the whites, I guess). I wonder where Jews fit in? or how about Polish? But I presume they are too white to be minorities, yes?

Now look at economic activity here.

Can you see the second set of bars? That's whites. Where are Indians? Just a tiny bit below them. And so are Blacks.

How about employment (full time, part time, employment rate and unemployment rate?) see page 15 of this report. More Indian extraction women are in employment than white women. The % of full time employment is the same for Indian men and White men. Here's another interesting study on relative earnings by minority status.

For those who refer to the test of sending CV applications with different names, has anybody tried the reverse experiment? Send Christian and Hindu name CV's to, say, Hindu employers and see the results. I dare say that you will find group behaviour, that people prefer to work with people of their own category - religion, geography, ethnicity.

A very good overview of this entire issue of ethnicity and poverty in the UK is in this paper. See Table 4.1 and try to tell me that it is clear that just being visibly different causes differences. How is that that % differences are more than 100% across minorities? Take a look at Table 4.4 where you will see that the hourly pay for Indians is greater than that of the white British population? Or that more Indians and Pakistanis get their income from self employment than whites as given in Table 4.6? Or in table 4.7, Indians and other ethnic groups take less benefits than whites?

Public policy should not be driven by blunt instruments such as skin colour. Why aren't people trying to push these people to setup their own businesses rather than looking to the government to support them? I am totally unconvinced that it is skin colour or religion that is the cause of poverty or a significant explaining factor in government public policy. If, say, the government starts off doling out cash, then why on earth would they dole it out to, say, Indians who are earning more than whites anyway?

Then you have to start defining what a minority is, etc. etc. Wouldnt it simply be better to give cash and benefits to poor people, irrespective?

Dalton Mcguinty Makes History in Ontario Elections

temporal — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:46:42 EDT

Dalton who? History?

October 10, 2007 was election day in Ontario.

Three main political parties contested the elections. The ruling Liberals under incumbent Premier Dalton Mcguinty, the Progressive Conservatives under John Tory and the New Democrats under Howard Hampton.

For the successful politicians politics is the art of consensus building, elections are about defining and seizing the moment. Mcguinty thwarted off allegations against his broken promises in the past election and defined for the voters the issue of school subsidy for the faith based school funding in Ontario. This emphasis resonated with the majority of the voters and dominated the electioneering.

Under the present system, only catholic school board is subsidised by the government. John Tory, leader of the Conservatives promised to extend this funding to all faith based school systems .

Macguinty and his team pounced on this and defined it as the campaign issue. Latent Islamophobia played a part in this too. The Liberal campaign was so effective that in the last week before the polling John Tory backed away from his promise to provide equal funding for faith based schooling. But it was too little too late by then.

In the elections held yesterday The conservatives garnered only 26 seats (31.6% of the vote) to the Liberals 71 seats (42.2 %.) And Mcguinty won a back to back Liberal majority for the first time in 70 years.

52.6 % of the eligible voters in Ontario cast their ballots.

Digression on the Desi Angle

There were many ridings, mostly in 905 area (the suburban areas are defined by the phone area code - while metro Toronto numbers begin with 416, the surrounding areas numbers begin with 905) that were contested exclusively by desis. There were a few ridings where the candidates of the major parties in the riding were either Sikhs or Sikhs and Hindus. (Mississaugua-Brampton South, Bramalea-Gore-Malton), There was one riding in the 416 Etobicoke North where the three main rivals were Muslims.

In addition to this, many desis volunteer and participate actively for all the major parties and their candidates and are part of the election teams that manages these elections from the pamphlet distribution to back room strategy

Digression from a Polling Booth

(Names and numbers changed to protect privacy)

This polling booth was set up in one of the party rooms of a luxury Condominium complex in the west end. This is where the registered voters of the two buildings would cast their votes. Building A had 356 and Building B had 315 registered voters.

The Polling Agents were advised to arrive at 8 am. Rose, Bettey, Ivona and Shah arrived there at 8 am. They set up the tables according to the layout provided by the Elections Ontario. Rose and Betty set up Table A, with Rose acting as the Poll Clerk and Betty as the Deputy Returning Officer. They set up their tables, opened the boxes, put up signs in the lobby and the walls leading to the Voting Room, organised the boxes and tons of material sent by the Ontario Elections to assist them in the voting and for the count and closing reports. They managed to set it all up by 8.50am. Ivona and Shah did the same for Table B.

The voters from the two buildings started coming in from the moment the doors opened and continued throughout the day with few breaks. The majority of the voters were senior citizens, professionals with a few teenagers and younger families mixed in. The turn out here was higher here (approx 69%) than the provincial average of 52%.

There were no shouting matches, disputes were resolved amicably, If the names were not on the list they could be added on the spot by the Deputy Returning Officer upon production of one ID from a list of over twenty provided by Elections Ontario.

When the polls closed at 9pm the doors were locked, forms taken out, filled diligently, envelopes taken out and spread on the table, ballots counted and re counted, the totals reconciled with the list of blank ballots supplied, the totals phoned in to the reporting center, then the envelopes were sealed put in the supplied bag and handed over to the Area Manager, who would take the bag to the area office.

The only excitement Ivona and Shah had was one missing vote. They counted all the ballots many times but always came up one short. In the rush, one of the voters had inadvertently walked away with a vote instead of dropping it in the box.

The other table had an intriguing moment too. An elderly man walked in and cast his vote. Then he demanded to cast his wife's proxy vote, adding he wanted her wishes respected, and he mentioned she had died the day before.

If he had not mentioned aloud that his wife had died the day before, he would have been allowed to exercise the signed proxy and vote on her behalf. But His admission caused a flurry of phone calls to the Area Manager, the riding center, theprovincial headquarters. Sadly, in the end he was not allowed to cast her vote. The ruling that was handed to him was only living people could participate directly or through proxies.

For more news reports check out these links:here , here , here , here , here and here.

Canadian Politics: Alleged Terrorists Released From Jail

Richard Marcus — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 09:14:08 EDT

The results of the Supreme Court of Canada's overturning the use of security certificates to hold refugee applicants in permanent detention without trial if there was any suspicion of terrorist activity are now being seen. Two men who had been held under the law for years were both released from federal penitentiaries in the past two days.

Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub was released on this past Thursday after being held in Kingston Penitentiary for the last seven years because he had run a farming operation in the Sudan for Osama bin Laden. He has been released under conditions tantamount to him being under twenty- four-hour surveillance.

The terms of his house arrest includes being monitored by the Canadian Border Authority via a GPS bracelet permanently attached to his ankle, video cameras in his house, taps on his phone, and being followed by agents on the rare occasions he is allowed to leave his house. His family are also being held responsible for him adhering to all of his bail conditions.

Mr. Mahjoub has been the Canadian suspect with closest ties to Osama bin Laden, but he claims his association was innocent. The farming concerns he ran for the leader of al-Qaeda were during the time before bin Laden even lived in Afghanistan, and he claims to have just been another employee and eventually left the job over money disputes with bin Laden.

Mr. Mahjoub has never been accused of any terror activity, but the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) claims that he was part of an Egyptian extremist group called the Vanguards of Conquest and knew al-Qaeda operatives including a person alleged to be a Canadian financer of the group and an Iraqi who the American 9/11 commission calls al-Qaeda's principal procurement agent for weapons of mass destruction. ( It may be just me, but any American announcement containing the words Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction just doesn't seem to have much credibility)

The second man was released on Friday from a detention centre in Kingston Ontario Canada as well. Mahmoud Jaballah has been in detention since 2001, although the government has been after him since 1999. When they attempted to have him deported in 1999 they lost their case held under normal circumstances, but when the opportunity arose with the security laws in place he was immediately rearrested.

Attempts by the government to have him deported back to his native Egypt have been constantly denied by the courts because of the very real threat of torture he would face if returned. Although the current government continues to insist upon Mr. Jaballah's guilt (In a statement released by Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, in response to Mr. Jaballah's release Day implied he was the murderer of women and children.) the judge said that although the initial evidence against Mr. Jaballah did at one time warrant the security certificate, now that he has spent six years in detention and no additional evidence has come to light she had to defer to the Supreme Court's ruling that the longer a person spends incarcerated the less likelihood there is of them being a security risk.

Based on those grounds the federal court judge changed Mr. Jaballah's sentence to that of house arrest, similar to the conditions imposed upon Mr. Mahjoub. The judge asserted, but offered no proof to back her words, that the conditions were imperative in Mr. Jaballah's case because she had no doubt that if not monitored he would get in touch with terrorists.

Mr. Jaballah first came under suspicion because of a series of over a hundred phone calls he placed to the United Kingdom, Azerbaijan, and Yemen to an alleged al Qaeda front. When those are added to the twenty calls he made to those destination and Pakistan in a subsequent two-day period and the fact that when asked to explain he either was evasive or didn't answer the questions it served to confirm his guilt in the eyes of the courts.

Given the atmosphere in North America in the days following 9/11 you can understand why he was placed under suspicion. The bombings he was accused of co-ordinating were embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. But now nine years later and no further evidence has come forth, and, according to his lawyer, when the United States released a list of suspects, he wasn't even named as an un indicted co-conspirator.

The government of Canada's reaction to these events has been highly predictable. Aside from his insinuations about Mr. Jaballah being responsible for killing women and children and just awaiting his opportunity to go on another bloodthirsty rampage, he also has stated that the government would prefer that all these people remain locked up.

In another tidy bit of fear mongering he also said he hoped that the house arrest rules would be enough to keep Canadians safe from them. He then added that the court agreed that Mr. Mahjoub had clearly worked for Osama bin Laden and received a salary for that work. Well who wouldn't want to be paid for working, and since when has it become a crime to work for someone when there is no proof that your activities were criminal.

I mean if we're going to start rounding up people who've had business associations with Osama they better be picking up Dick Cheney and almost everybody on the Halliburton Board of Directors. At one point they had owned around 30% of bin Landen's company. Not just his families business - but his company. Doesn't anyone find it at all odd that on the day after 9/11 when all the planes in and out of the United States were grounded, that all the members of the bin Laden family living in the United States were able to fly home?

Who arranged that for them, and why was it allowed to happen? If Dick Cheney and George Bush, both of who would have to okay something like this, come to Canada will they be picked up on a security certificate? They've had some pretty suspicious contact with bin Laden and his whole family immediately after 9/11.

What does that sound ridiculous? Why is it anymore ridiculous than wanting to keep a man in jail because he ran a farm for bin Laden long before he even went to Afghanistan? What proof do they even have that either man had of any involvement in any terror activity? Well, none, actually. One guy made a lot of phone calls to the countries where he could have family just as easily as he could have terror contacts. Why so many calls in two days? Hell if my mom has to contact her family about an event like a death she could make twenty calls in an afternoon no sweat.

Mr. Mahjoub worked for someone who turns out to be one of the bad guys, but how was he supposed to know that back whenever it was he worked for him. In fact the government hasn't said when he worked for him, only that it was before bin Laden was in Afghanistan, which means before 9/11/01. In fact he even says he quit working for him over a dispute with money. No one has given us any reason not to believe him.

Mahmoud Jaballah and Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub were both held in Canadian prisons with no trial, not knowing what exactly they had done to end up there, and knowing if they were to lose they'd be deported to torture and death in their former homes. Perhaps it was understandable seven years ago to keep an eye on people like them, or even detain them temporarily. But now it 's just cruel and unjust.

If you're having any doubts about which side to err on in Canada, freedom or so called safety, think about Mahar Arar and his time in an Egyptian jail being tortured. It was our security service that put him there with their inaccuracies and incompetence. Do you trust them with any more lives?

Canadian Politics: Vimy Ridge To Afghanistan: The Lie Remains The Same

Richard Marcus — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 01:37:31 EDT

Ninety years ago Canadian soldiers went over the top at Vimy Ridge in France during that great waste of life in the twentieth century known as World War One. There was nothing honourable or noble about that war - at least in World War Two you had the Nazi leaders of Germany as a canker that had to be exorcised from the earth - it was just the last stuttering gasps of the Empires of Europe.

If we think our political leaders today are callous and stupid, and there is no denying they are, even George Bush jr. would be hard pressed to match the inbred stupidity of those folk who allowed a whole generation to be destroyed under the guns of France. Canadians like to bleat how our soldiers attacking the guns at Vimy Ridge in 1917 was a coming of age for our country. Yep it proved we could be as stupid as anyone else and knew how to spend the lives of our young men as ably as the next country.

Yep we had the balls for slaughter so that made us a country just like our former colonial masters the British and the French, or our new economic master the Americans. It sure is something for us to be proud of isn't it? So proud that we built a huge monument in France so on the ninetieth anniversary we can celebrate how many people were cut to pieces by machine gun fire.

My idea of a memorial for the fiasco that took place from 1914 - 1918 is to erect a huge plaque saying that this was a futile waste of life that accomplished nothing except set the stage for all the wars for the next hundred years. Out of that war came the mess that is the Middle East right now, the horror that was the ethnic cleansing of the Balkans, and the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War One gave Hitler an excuse for war.

On the weekend of the ninetieth anniversary six Canadian soldiers were killed in the first pointless war of the Twenty-First century - Afghanistan. Their personnel carrier was blown to shit and back by a homemade bomb buried in the dirt on the road. The six soldiers were killed instantly while two more were injured, but it looks they'll pull through.

I wonder if the Canadian press will get tired of printing the headline, "The Most Canadian Soldiers Killed In Combat Since The Korean War". This is the second time they've written it in the last four months and both times it's been because one of those road side bombs had blown the crap out of a convoy. (We don't count accidents like when the Syrians shot down some Peace Keepers on the Golan Heights in the 1990s or when the American National Guard twice used Canadian troops for target practice in Afghanistan because they can't tell friend from foe. I'm sure telling parents that their child was killed by friendly fire makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside about their allies, I know that's how I feel.)

I can't remember how many "The Most Since Korea" was last time, it's getting hard to keep track of things like this when there is a steady trickle of deaths. Although come to think of it they do seem to come in clumps. A few months will pass and there will be no fatalities, casualties sure, but no deaths, then all of a sudden, as if making up for lost time there will be a series of them.

Either it means that there has been increased activity on the part of the Taliban, or it means the Canadians have moved into an area where they are more active. Either way it seems the result is the same. Dead soldiers.

What I find is interesting is that the Taliban were supposedly defeated before Iraq was invaded in 2003 - almost four years ago, and a new government was installed. Our troops were supposed to be helping to rebuild the country, yet here they are being killed by people who our government call the Taliban. Were they all really hiding in Pakistan, Iran, and wherever else they have armed camps.

Or, as is more likely, did they simply blended back into the scenery again. Went home to their villages and waited for the new government to prove itself as corrupt and ruthless as they were before the Taliban took over last time. You see there is an unpleasant truth we haven't been told about the current "democratically elected" government in Afghanistan.

Do you remember one of the reasons that were cited for going to war in Afghanistan? To free women from the oppressiveness of life under the Taliban, where they were treated like so much chattel and were denied basic human rights. So why is it that nothing has changed for women at all in Afghanistan? Where is there much vaunted freedom? Why are girls still not going to school, and women still scared to go out on the streets, even in major cities like Kabul, without being fully covered in traditional garb?

It's because the current government are only different from the Taliban in that they accept American weapons and food and present a veneer of respectability so that the press buys the lie of change occurring. Did you know that until people understood how bad the Taliban were they were welcomed as liberators when they overthrew the same people who are power now?

Yep that's what our soldiers are giving their lives for, a regime that is as oppressive and repressive as the Taliban. Why do you think so many villagers give support to the Taliban? At least they are honest about who they are. Sometimes the devil you know is better then the alternative. At least with the Taliban they knew exactly where they stood, even if it was in hell.

But our politicians, especially Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper, one of the most duplicitous people to ever enter politics, aren't going to tell you any of this. They are just going to tell you about soldiers making the supreme sacrifice, paying the ultimate price, and all the other euphemisms they have for saying they got blown to shit and died a horrible death thousands of miles away from home for no good reason.

Of course the timing couldn't have been better these poor schmucks getting killed this weekend if Steven Harper had planted the bomb himself. There were all the dignitaries assembled at the memorial to the great waste of humane life at the beginning of the Twentieth century and everyone was ready to talk about ultimate sacrifices anyway. This was actually a gift from the Gods for Mr. Harper and his gang. What a perfect way to tie the two circumstances together and gain some sentimental support for a war that is becoming more and more unpopular at home.

Canadians have been told from their first history class how important Vimy Ridge was in our growth as a nation and that the soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice there did so for freedom and democracy. Now ninety years latter they're still off in foreign lands paying the price for the very same ideals. The same qualities that made them heroes at Vimy Ridge are making them heroes in Kandahar.

Well I have to give Mr. Harper credit for getting it part right. It's true that Canadian soldiers are still dying overseas, and yes it's true it's for the same reasons - just not the ones that government is giving. In both cases, Vimy and Kandahar, France and Afghanistan, there were, and are, no good reasons for Canadians to be dying.

In 1914 we went to War as a subject of Great Britain; we had no choice because they controlled our foreign policy in those days - they were at war so were we. We didn't fight for Canada; we fought for King and Empire. This time around we went to war because America did. We're not fighting for Canada over in Afghanistan, we're fighting to clean up a mess the American's made back in the 1980's when they armed the Taliban in the first place.

The Canadian government has the gall to say that the people of Canada are only against the war in Afghanistan because they don't understand how important it is. Excuse me, I think they have that backwards - the people of Canada are against the war in Afghanistan because they do understand how unimportant it is.

We're over there propping up a government which is as bad as the one it replaced, maybe even worse because they could start fighting amongst themselves at any time over who is in charge. In the meantime we're wasting valuable manpower and equipment that could be used for peacekeeping missions if places like Darfur, Ethiopia, Somalia, or anywhere in the Middle East.

Or even better our army could do what it does best and be over in the Solomon Islands helping the people to recover from the tsunami that left the island's population virtually homeless. Or they could be travelling through Africa setting up medical relief stations in some of the places hardest hit by AIDS. I'm sure army issue condoms are the toughest on the market for preventing the spread of disease so they would be a boon in Africa. Not to mention the fact that our people are superb at coordinating activities in areas to see that the maximum good is done with minimum strain on resources.

Can you imagine what field hospitals dispersed through some of the hardest hit areas of Africa could do for the people of those areas? Think of what would happen if they co-ordinated with on the ground aid agencies for the distribution of not just medical supplies, but household goods that are so essential for preventing the spread of AIDS and other diseases.

But no, that's not sexy enough for our politicians; they want to be able send young men off to die in noble causes because it makes them feel important. Anyway if you send people off to treat AIDS they might give out condoms and that according to our government is wrong. It might encourage people to have sex or something equally obscene.

What they don't get is that they are committing the biggest obscenity around. When they stand up in a war memorial that's been built to honour the people who were sent needlessly to their deaths ninety years ago and talk about the ones who they've sent to their deaths all that it tells me is that they haven't learned anything.

I was angry when I started writing this article and now I'm just sad. It's heartbreaking that young men and women continue to be sent off to die for causes that don't exist by people who continually betray the faith placed in them to lead us with integrity. Our leaders put so much energy into teaching us who our enemies are so that we can go out and kill or be killed.

Wouldn't it be nice for a change if they put that same energy into teaching us how to like people instead? When they start doing that then they might be worthy to stand up in front of us and talk of honour and nobility. But not now, not as long as they equate it with death, killing, and hate.

Canadian Politics: Torture In Afghanistan

Richard Marcus — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 00:19:40 EDT

Most of us take pride in the country of our birth, even if on occasion we don't agree with those who are in charge. We all like it when our country is recognized by the world's press; it makes us feel important by association. Coming from a country like Canada, of lesser importance on the world's stage, catching the eye of International media is even more of treat.

But there are those occasions when you realize you need to be careful what you wish for, because it might just come true. Start thinking, how come the Americans get all the press, and the next thing you know Canada has its very own prisoner scandal, just like the Americans in Iraq did a few years back.

Now obviously that's not quite what you were hoping for when you wanted to see your county's name above the fold at Le Monde or other prestigious papers. Reading that in April 2006 three captives held by Canadian soldiers were mistreated and that even now a year latter an investigation is ongoing into the whys and wherefores of the situation.

If that weren't enough to make you cringe there is also the report that the Canadian army has been handing over prisoners to the Afghanistan security forces without checking on what their eventual fate would be. According to Canadian law any person in custody may not be turned over to a third party if there is a chance they will either face execution, torture, or any other cruel and unusual punishment not allowed by Canadian Law.

When the issue was first raised in the House of Commons, Minister of Defence Gordon O'Connor denied there was any wrong doing, by insisting that the International Red Cross was overseeing all prisoner transfers. But as of March 4th/2007 the Red Cross said they were doing no such thing.

Officials in the Defence Department claim that they signed a deal where Canadian troops must notify the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the International Red Cross when they had over a prisoner to the Afghan authorities. The Human Rights Commission is supposed to be monitoring the well being of the troops once they are in the hands of the Afghan army.

This agreement is described as an extension of one Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier signed back in December 2005 agreeing that all prisoners Canada captured would be turned over to the Afghan army. That agreement had been widely condemned by Human Rights activists, because there had been no provisions made for monitoring by any Rights body.

While the new agreement rectifies that in principle it's almost impossible to know what actually takes place on the ground in Afghanistan. The Canadian Military Police Complaints Commission is currently investigating eighteen cases of prisoners being handed over in spite of the knowledge that they would be tortured or otherwise mistreated.

Now I don't know about anybody else but I don't like the idea of my country being considered complicit in the torturing of Prisoners of War. To give the Minister of Defence his due, he doesn't appear to either, in a surprise visit he landed in Afghanistan on Sunday determined to find out as much as possible.

He claims to have a two-fold purpose in visiting. The first he says is to meet with the people from the Human Rights group and gain assurances they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. "I want to look the man in the eyes and I want to be confirmed that they are going to do what they say they are going to do."

His other intent is to have people in the Canadian army show him exactly what the process is, what they do from the moment they capture an enemy soldier to the moment they hand him over to the Afghanistan government. I would guess his reason for this is to find out where there are any holes in the process that could cause things to go wrong, or information to not be delivered.

How could Canadian soldiers hand over prisoners when they knew they would be tortured? Who was responsible for that decision and how could it have happened eighteen times? Was this an isolated instance of one man or one platoon that has a personal vendetta against the enemy, or is it wide spread lack of understanding of the policy.

That's the information that the Minister and his staff should be trying to find out so as to prevent any repeats of the activity. I hope for the sake of my country, the men and women of the armed forces and the people who are taken prisoner that he is able to find a solution to this problem.

It's hard to take pride when one is complicit in torture, and if our government, or our soldiers are taking part in that sort of activity than none of our hands are clean.

I Was A Twenty-Something Security Risk

Richard Marcus — Fri, 9 Mar 2007 08:38:21 EST

I have a confession to make. Those of you who have a passing acquaintance with my opinions etc, might not be too surprised by what I'm about to tell you, but to others this may come as a bit of shock and I apologise for that. I just felt that given the tenor of the times that I owed it to everybody to make a clean breast of things.

I'm a security risk. Yes that's right. Mild mannered, beady eye Canadian with my head full of lies I may be, but I'm also a dyed in the wool security risk. This is no new thing either, brought about by any of the many disparaging comments I may have recently made about various political figures on both sides of the border, or any relationship I may or may not have with foreigners of a different colour.

No, I'm ashamed to admit that my days of being a security risk predate either George junior or senior's presidential stints and date from a series of incidents that took place between 1980 and 1983. Not that it matters I guess, as Maher Arar has learned it doesn't matter when an incident took place, or whether you were innocent or not, once labelled a threat, always a threat.

I found out about my status in the summer of 1988. I was "between engagements". (That's what actors call being out of work. It sounds a lot better) and it just so happened that my period of forced idleness coincided with Toronto, Canada, where I lived at the time, playing host to the annual meeting of the Group of Eight Industrial nations (G 8)

To handle that influx of media that was sure to accompany the leaders they needed to hire a large number of media clerks; people who had experience with files, organizing information, and dealing with requests for copies of documents. Two or three local temporary employment agencies had been hired to tackle the job of recruiting individuals to fill these positions.

Since I had had plenty of experience doing office work from when I had helped manage a theatre company, I decided to apply for one of the positions to earn some needed money to tide me over. My credentials were fine, I was actually overqualified but that didn’t matter, and I was told the job was mine as long as I cleared a security check.

As I wasn't going to be having any contact with any of the dignitaries, it was considered a forgone conclusion that I would pass. I'm not sure who was more surprised, me or the woman from the employment agency who had to phone and tell me that my application for security clearance had been rejected. According to her, no one else who had applied had been turned down, only me.

It took me a bit, but I figured out what it was about eventually. It was one of two things, or maybe the two combined and they both involved events that took place between 1981 and 1982.

At the beginning of the 1980's the American government was looking for places they could test one of their newest weapons, The Cruise Missile. Northern Alberta, in Canada was ideal for their needs as the topography was varied and there were miles upon miles of unpopulated land. They could launch the missiles from planes and guide them to their final destinations secure in the knowledge that no humans would be disturbed.

That it happened to the traditional hunting grounds of neighbouring Native Canadians didn't concern them overly much, nor did the fact that it was the migration route for huge herds of caribou. It's not as if the missiles had nuclear warheads on them for gosh sakes. Anyway the Canadian government at the time gave the American's permission to go ahead and test the missiles and even offered to build the guidance system on Canadian soil.

In 1981 I was one of about twenty people in front of the American Consulate in down town Toronto protesting the testing. As we marched on the sidewalk outside the front doors, two gentlemen, who might as well have been wearing signs saying "SPY" were taking our pictures from a meridian in the road. In the course of the next two years the demonstrations grew larger and larger until in the fall of 1982 about 100,000 people turned out to march through the streets of Toronto against the Cruise missile tests.

It was probably the biggest demonstration of its kind in Toronto, maybe even Canada. Shortly after that somebody left a van filled with explosives parked up against the factory in Rexdale, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto, where the guidance system for the missiles was being constructed. It didn't too that much physical damage, but some poor security guard was killed.

I remember hearing about it at work and coming home and asking my roommate if we knew the people who did it. He gave an odd look and said, "We know people who know them. Watch what you say on the phone for a while." I wasn't thrilled that we had even a tenuous connection to anybody that could be responsible for killing somebody else (They called themselves Direct Action and had actually been responsible for a couple of attacks across Canada. They had blown up a couple of adult video stores in British Columbia and some power lines as well. Ironically when I moved to Kingston Ontario in 1990, they were already here having been sentenced to serve their time in the jails here) but I did think he was being a little paranoid about the phones until my father asked me why the hell my phone was tapped.

At one time or another in his career as a lawyer my father had prosecuted drug offences for the Canadian government, so one thing he was familiar with was the sounds indicating the beginning and end of a tapped conversation. After about a couple of months of being careful on the phone, of not even talking in the same room as the phone in case of a location bug, we gradually slipped back into our normal behaviour.

Eventually I just simply forgot about the whole thing, getting fully involved in my career in theatre and frustrated with the infighting among the political types, I became less and less involved with activist politics. If I hadn't had to apply for security clearance for the G8 event in Toronto I may never even have known.

Now nine years later I wonder if they consider me a threat. Probably not, because I've the feeling if they did consider me so I would have been talked to a while ago. Maybe I'm on some sort of watch, but it's not one where they consider me a major threat or anything.

But still, I don't try and cross the border into the United States because I've the feeling that I would be pushing my luck, and they might decide to detain for an indefinite period just to be on the safe side.

Well there you go, confessions of a twenty something security threat. I hope it hasn't shocked any of you too much knowing that for these past however many months your writings have shared web space with someone like me. I figured I owed it to all of you to own up to my less then perfect past and warn you that associating with me could cause you problems.

India And Canada: Polling Well

Gagan — Wed, 7 Mar 2007 09:41:50 EST

A recent BBC International popularity poll placed Canada on top of the list of Countries universally perceived to have the most positive reputation in the world today, while India was the most improved nation, apparently moving up leaps and bounds in international esteem.

"Canadians are nice" seemed to be the word on the street in different countries. Nice is one of those words that no-one is especially proud to claim as their own; sexless, neutral, bland, disinterested but yes really nice, a catchall for innocuousness. Yet you won't see many in Canada getting too worked up over it; that may be why the world sees the place that way. Canadians, if you indulge generalities, just seem to roll with the punches and get on living.

India, on the other hand, is that brilliant underachieving student who has just been gliding by without much effort. Well, it needs to be noted that first he was not allowed into the school for years, even though he was easily capable of handling the curriculum. Now in, given a little leeway and allowed to hand in his own ideas everyone is taken aback by the once lackadaisical dude's work. Mind you, he is just building up steam and everyone knows what's coming now.

There're other links to be found between India and Canada, or for that matter between India and the rest of the world with its sometimes ill regarded NRI diaspora; the sometimes quietly whispered Non Required Indians, and so on in that vein. The distinctions may be based in economic jealousy that in some contexts is provoked by a habit of flaunting advantage, but the flaring of acrimony does not remove the fact that Indians are Indians wherever they end up, in terms of expectations and behaviour and all the little things that make them, well, Indian.

If there is any doubt take the example of Russell Peters, the talented Indo-Canadian comic. For years Peters spun his shtick and although it was raw, original, deeply funny stuff he did not make a lot of headway, kind of grinding through the stand up comic tour. That was until, someone put up a video of his routine online and the wider world caught wind of his talent. Indian populations the world over got him and so did the non-Indians, although not quite as well. Now Peters is on easy street living in Los Angeles and selling out wherever he goes. There is a just arc to the story.

Indian and Canadian and doing incredibly well - and, of course, living the American Dream.