The Conservatives Want to Invade Your Privacy

In the rush to catch up to the blatant civil rights violations instituted by our neighbours to the south, it seems the so-called "new" Conservative government now wants to get its hands on our personal information without a court order too.

Via CBC News:

Government agencies are moving to gain access to telephone and internet customers' personal information without first getting a court order, according to a document obtained by CBCNews.ca that is raising privacy issues.

Public Safety Canada and Industry Canada have begun a consultation on how law enforcement and national security agencies can gain lawful access to customers' information. The information would include names, addresses, land and cellphone numbers, as well as additional mobile phone identification, such as a device serial number and a subscriber identity module (SIM) card number.

The consultation also seeks input on access to e-mail addresses and IP addresses. An IP address is a number that can be used to identify a computer's location.

The document says the objective of the consultation is to provide law enforcement and national security agencies with the ability to obtain the information while protecting the privacy of Canadians.

The document says that under current processes, enforcement agencies have been experiencing difficulties in gaining the information from telecommunications service providers, some of which have been demanding a court-issued warrant before turning over the data.

"If the custodian of the information is not co-operative when a request for such information is made, law enforcement agencies may have no means to compel the production of information pertaining to the customer," the document says. "This poses a problem in some contexts."

Well, isn't that just too bad?? If they don't have enough of a reason to be granted a court order for the records, what makes them think they ought to be able to have access to it anyway? Flimsy excuses.

It says enforcement agencies may need the information for matters other than probes, such as informing next-of-kin of emergency situations, or because they are at the early stages of an investigation.

"The availability of such building-block information is often the difference between the start and finish of an investigation," according to the document.

Let's get real. Just how many times has that "next-of-kin" situation been a real problem? It seems to me that there's more than enough personal information of ours on file with the federal government that such an excuse has no bearing on what they really want to do with what they could collect with a warrant. It's those "investigations" that we should all be concerned about.

We do still have rights in this country, as much as the Conservative government seems to hate that fact.

CBC also notes that there is what's supposed to be considered as an adequate time for "public consultation" which is news to some of the stakeholders and privacy groups - not to mention the vast majority of Canadians whose privacy would be impacted by such a decision.

Geist said the other problem with the consultation is that it appears as if the government agencies have already made up their minds on how to proceed and are simply conducting it for appearances' sake.

"The fear is that law enforcement knows what it would like to do — it would like to be able to obtain this information without court oversight — and so it has pulled together this consultation in the hope that they can use that to say they have consulted, and here are the safeguards that the consultation thought was appropriate."

That type of behaviour from Conservatives like Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper comes as no surprise to those of us who live in Alberta where those two cut their political teeth. The Klein government was infamous for its so-called public consultations which consisted of province-wide meetings where they just presented their plans, put up with some inconvenient "input" from the peasants and then went back to Edmonton to implement what they had chosen to do in the first place. Faux democracy. Day and Harper were well-schooled.

Caught with their pants down by the CBC and with opposition being voiced by the privacy commissioner, the Conservative government is now doing damage control:

Mélisa Leclerc, a spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, said the government was not trying to keep the consultation secret and would post the document on the internet on Thursday. The deadline for submissions would also be extended, although no decision on a date has been made yet.

The previous "consultation" period was set to end on September 27th. So much for pulling a fast one with our privacy rights.
 

Meet the new RCMP boss...

...same as the old RCMP boss:

TORONTO, OTTAWA — The civilian appointed to lead Canada's national police into a new era of accountability revealed Friday he was among the secret group of bureaucrats who had met to censor findings of the Maher Arar report.

“I was certainly involved in the process leading to that decision, but that decision was a decision taken by government,” RCMP Commissioner William Elliott, wearing a business suit, told reporters after the RCMP's change-of-command ceremony. He was referring to work he had done while serving as an associate deputy minister to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day.

And Day, being the arrogant, feckless ass that he is, sent his spokespuppet out to say this:

A spokeswoman for Mr. Day, the past and current boss of Mr. Elliott, said “senior officials from various departments” decided to block out the passages before the government signed off on the recommendations.

I guess his momma never asked him the obvious question: "would you jump off a bridge just because the rest of the kids were doing it?" Or maybe she did and his answer was "yes".

Welcome to the new RCMP brought to you by the new government. I'll bet you feel safer already.
 

Stockwell Day: Powermonger

Which part of "the democratic will of the people" doesn't Stockwell Day understand?

OTTAWA–The federal government plans to try to revive the extraordinary anti-terror police powers of "investigative hearings" and "preventive arrest" as part of a series of major security initiatives.

The initiatives will also include legislation to replace the overly secretive "security certificate" regime used to deport terror suspects that was criticized in a recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling.

The government also says it will expand the ability of Canada's spy agency – the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) – to do covert foreign intelligence gathering abroad.

The two police powers slated for revival were killed by the opposition parties in a parliamentary vote in February.

In an appearance yesterday before the House of Commons public safety committee, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day indicated he has drafted a bill to reinstate those powers.

The Bloc Québécois and the NDP opposed any extension of the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act's sections that were automatically "sunsetted" in February, and both party critics said in interviews yesterday they continue to oppose the measures.

They say the Criminal Code has enough provisions to deal with terrorist conspiracies, without resorting to "investigative hearings" that compel testimony or "preventive arrests" that seek to detain or restrain terror suspects without charge.

Day didn't get his way so now he's trying again. The only useful part of his bill is the call for parliamentary oversight of Canada's security services. And, as for expanding CSIS' powers to spy overseas, CSIS director Jim Judd had this to say:

He said domestic intelligence operations are done under political oversight, court oversight, external review oversight, "whereas if you are engaged in foreign espionage outside of the country, chances are you are breaking someone's laws – not your own, but probably your host country."

Judd was blunt about CSIS' current efforts.

"To cut to the chase, in terms of conducting what is normally referred to as `human intelligence collection' overseas regarding the political, economic or other activities of foreign governments, we do not do that. Most of our allies do that and have been doing it for a long time."

Furthermore:

Day's plan to expand CSIS' mandate – to give it the kind of powers now enjoyed by the CIA in the United States, or MI-6 in Britain – comes as a Senate committee is in the midst of studying the issue.

Is there a reason for the rush by Day to get his bill passed? What exactly does he have against studying the issue? And why is he trying to restore practices that have been rejected by parliament?

We must not allow Canada to become America Lite. Anyone who watched Frontline's Spying on the Home Front on PBS Tuesday nite (video online as well) should have felt chills running up their spine after being reminded once again about how abuses of executive authority in the name of "security" ought to be exposed and questioned at every turn.
 

Time Magazine Honours Maher Arar

Time Magazine has named its 100 most influential people of 2006 and Canada's Maher Arar is among them in the "Heroes and Pioneers" section.

Vermont Democratic senator Patrick Leahy, who has championed Arar's cause writes for Time:

Maher Arar

By Patrick Leahy

Sending a Canadian technology consultant to be confined in a gravelike cell and tortured did nothing to make Americans safer. A Syrian-born Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, 36, was returning home from a vacation in September 2002 when U.S. federal agents detained him in New York City on suspicion of ties to terrorism. Rather than send him to his home and our close ally, Canada, for interrogation, the U.S. government sent him to Syria, a nation with a history of engaging in torture. A year later he was released. Three years later a Canadian commission found no evidence that Arar had any terrorist connection. The commission also concluded that he was systematically tortured and held under horrendous conditions.

The Bush Administration refuses to acknowledge any responsibility, instead offering the tepid explanation that Syrian officials assured the U.S. that Arar would not be tortured. These are the same Syrian officials with whom our government now says it will not negotiate because they are not trustworthy. Maher Arar's case stands as a sad example of how we have been too willing to sacrifice our core principles to overarching government power in the name of security, when doing so only undermines the principles we stand for and makes us less safe.

Mr Arar responded saying 'he is "very honored" by the distinction, and thanked his supporters during his "struggle for justice." Although his lawsuit against the US government has been dismissed on the grounds of "national security", his lawyers are mounting an appeal.

Meanwhile, in Canada:

OTTAWA -- One of Canada's most respected judges yesterday formed a united front with Maher Arar aimed at lifting a veil of government secrecy around 1,500 words censored from last fall's report into possible Canadian government complicity in Syrian torture.

Counsel acting for Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor, the author of last fall's more than 800-page report on the Maher Arar affair, yesterday tried to persuade Federal Court Judge Simon Noël to force the government to reveal censored portions of the report. The public is still not allowed to see the blacked-out portion of the report, not even after a $15-million public inquiry that lasted more than three years.

Justice Department lawyers, who argue the government was hardly heavy-handed with its censor's pen, say that it is Ottawa's prerogative to shield portions of inquiry findings for security reasons. Crown lawyer Alain Préfontaine said that fewer than 1,500 words, or less than one half of 1 per cent of the overall Arar Inquiry report, have been censored.

But Paul Cavalluzzo, Judge O'Connor's commission counsel, argued at the Federal Court that "it's not a matter of the quantity of the evidence, it's a matter of the quality of the evidence."

He argued that Canadians need to know the entirety of the judge's report to have faith in government and to keep it accountable.

"The public demands to know what happened, why it happened," Mr. Cavalluzzo argued.

Some of the language surrounding the censored parts of the report appears to indicate that Judge O'Connor might believe that untested intelligence, possibly derived from the torture of a Canadian truck driver then held in the Middle East, may have found its way into RCMP search warrants in early 2002.

(The truck driver, Ahmad El Maati, is a former Afghanistan-based mujahed [holy warrior] who says he was tortured into naming other Canadians, and to being forced to confess to being behind a fake al-Qaeda bomb plot in Ottawa.

Just what, if anything, Canada did with this intelligence has never been made clear; Mr. El-Maati has never been charged with a crime.)

The full text of the search warrants has never been revealed.

There are still many unanswered questions on both sides of the border that, most likely, we'll never know the answers to.

Mr Arar's name surfaced again in parliament this past week during the debates about the allegations of torture launched by several Afghan citizens who had been turned over by Canadian troops to Afghan authorities for imprisonment. Public Safety minister Stockwell Day repeatedly, without any conclusive investigation (many of which are now underway), referred to those claims as being "false". This is the same Day who, in 2002, accused Arar of having possible terrorist ties in parliament. Day was reminded by opposition members that his propensity for jumping to conclusions serves absolutely no one but himself and his party hacks, from the PM on down, who are now using the false equivalency argument that torture allegations are undermining Canadian troops when what's really demeaning to our soldiers is the fact that these conservatives are trying to blow off serious claims by calling all of the individuals involved members of the Taliban (when they don't even know if that's true), seemingly making it okay then to somehow justify their possible torture and diminish their status as human beings with rights.

They did that with Mr Arar too. You'd think that experience would have taught them something.

Mr Arar's inclusion in the "Heroes and Pioneers" section of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People issue ought to be a very sobering reminder to all (and that includes you, George Tenet) that the use of torture is never justified and that every single case involves a person who does not deserve to be proclaimed guilty before being proved innocent. Far too many victims are never heard from. How many have died? How many are still in secret prisons around the world?

Mr Arar is a symbol for all of the wrongfully accused that have been subject to severe abuse as a result of the overwhelming fearmongering and paranoia that so permeates our societies today thanks to an atmosphere of panic and the unwillingness of those in authority to see past the otherness of people who they believe fit their criminal profiles as defined by their skin colour, religion, political affiliations or beliefs.

During the 40s and 50s, it was the "commies". The 60s and 70s brought attacks against hippies and the anti-Vietnam crowd. The 80s - communists again. And now it's anyone deemed to be a possible "terrorist". There are always people who must be viewed as being less than in order to rationalize their treatment as sub-human subversives by those with the power to demean them. Meanwhile, the lives of countless innocent people are destroyed and sacrificed in order to "protect" the many. Funny though, that when asked for real evidence that the ends really did justify the means, that information is "top secret". In other words, the failure rate and the waste of lives is too high to admit.

Mr Arar lived through his horrendous experience. Who's dying, who's being tortured as we speak today? And who's doing something about it?

Related: Maher Arar's site
 

Day Changes His Story - Again

If you're an Albertan like me, you long ago had your fill of the extremely incompetent Stockwell Day. How that man rose through the ranks of the Conservative party to any position of responsibility is beyond me. His track record is outrageous and he continues to show exactly why he shouldn't be trusted to hold a position of power - especially one that affects the reputation of our country.

After insisting that allegations of torture and abuse were "false" this past week (even though none of the investigations into them had actually either happened or been concluded), we now discover this about Day:

OTTAWA (CP) - The Conservative government conceded Monday that it has received reports from Canadian officials about alleged torture in Afghan jails.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day says Corrections Canada officers in Kandahar have heard at least two first-hand allegations of abuse. "Yes, they have actually talked to detainees about the possibility if they were tortured or not," Day said early Monday in response to a reporter's question. "They actually had a couple of incidents where detainees said they were."

It is the first time a senior minister has admitted clearly that Canadian officials were informed of specific abuse allegations. Day said the claims came to light last week when he spoke by phone with staff overseas.

Corrections Canada has had two officers in Kandahar since early February, mentoring Afghan prison guards.

Day said the officers had no evidence to back up the abuse claims, but didn't say if an investigation had been conducted. "The officers saw no physical marks or anything else to substantiate the allegations," he said in a telephone interview late Monday.

There are so many investigations going on now with regards to these allegations that it's hard to keep track of them all. But there's CSI: Stockwell Day asserting again that there's nothing to see here, folks. Just move right along...

The Tories changed their strategy on Monday, toning down their claims that the allegations of abuse were fabricated.

Because they are proven liars. Period.

And check this out from this supposedly accountable "new" government that likes to sit on its high horse of moral superiority:

Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff told the Commons that the government had lost control of the situation and again called for the resignation of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, who was not in the Commons on Monday.

His absence renewed a flurry of speculation, which started last week, that O'Connor was about to step down.

Unsolicited, his communications officers issued this terse e-mail note to reporters: "If any of you give credit to the rumour that (the minister of national defence) will resign, (you) will look (stupid). It is not true, he will NOT resign."

I'm sorry but who's really looking "stupid" here? (Nice sense of professionalism those communications officers have.)

O'Connor is Canada's Rumsfeld. Day is Canada's George Tenet. Guergis is Canada's Condi. Van Loan is Canada's Tony Snow. And Peter Mackay is just so bloody clueless that he could match far too many Bushco sycophants to name here.

The difference is that this is Canada and these clowns are a minority government so, thankfully, we don't have to put up with their ignorant hubris any longer than the date of the next election. As far as I'm concerned, they should all go now. You don't screw around with human rights and expect to get off scott free. Our country is supposed to be better than that. Our country is supposed to stand for something - an example of how to do things right oversees while actually respecting people in the process.

What's it going to take to hold these arrogant politicans responsible for what is fast becoming a national disgrace?

Also, via CBC:

Day said the officers had no evidence to back up the abuse claims, but didn't say if an investigation had been conducted.

CBC News spoke to three former prisoners who all say they were mistreated by Afghan authorities, after being handed over by Canadian troops.

They claim they were beaten, and in once case, a guard subjected one man to electric shocks.

And if that isn't enough:

On Monday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper maintained that there was no evidence of abuse.

"As I've said many times, the government takes these allegations seriously," Harper said.

"We have agreements with the government of Afghanistan and also with the Afghan independent human rights commission. The knowledge we have at this point is that those agreements are operating as they should."

Members of the Afghan independent human rights commission were able to examine prison conditions in Kandahar on Monday, although they couldn't talk privately with the detainees.

"The place where these men are being held is not fit for humans," said Shamsudin Taweer, an inspector with the commission. "The conditions are terrible."

He said that inside the prison, 24 men are crammed into two cells. He said some detainees aren't allowed to sleep and that at times, there isn't enough food for everyone.

"In other countries, human rights are respected in prisons," he said. "But in Afghanistan, we don't always treat human rights in the same way."

Enough is enough.

Related: MPs reject NDP call for immediate end to Afghan mission

It's just one long, endless mess.

Need more proof?

KABUL, Afghanistan, April 30 — United States Special Forces said they killed more than 130 Taliban in two recent days of heavy fighting in a valley in western Afghanistan, but hundreds of angry villagers protested in nearby Shindand on Monday, saying dozens of civilians had been killed when the Americans called in airstrikes.
[...]
Forty-nine Taliban fighters, including two leaders of the group, were killed in the first bombardment on Friday, and 87 militants were killed in bombing during a second battle on Sunday that raged for 14 hours, the military said in a statement from the United States-led coalition headquarters at the Bagram air base.

But the local residents said that civilians were killed in the bombardment and that some drowned in the river as they fled, according to a local member of Parliament, Maulavi Gul Ahmad. News agencies reported that demonstrators said women and children were among the dead.

Mr. Ahmad condemned the bombing and said that the fighting angered local residents because the Americans raided their houses at night.

“They should not do that,” he said in a telephone interview. “The number that they claim — that 130 Taliban were killed — is totally wrong. There are no Taliban there.”

Raiding houses touches a nerve in Afghanistan, especially in conservative tribal areas, because the local custom dictates that men who are not family members cannot enter the parts of homes where the women stay. Such raids were upsetting local sensibilities so much several years ago that the American forces made an agreement with the Afghan government that they would not raid houses without the presence of Afghan elders or the police. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission says that the agreement is still in effect, but that American troops do not always adhere to it.

So much for any weight being given to agreements with Afghanistan's Human Rights Commission - like the one the Harper government has been touting as the new be all and end all of ensuring the safety and security of the detainees. It's just one big horror show.
 

Afghanistan: The Denials Continue

What the hell is going on?

During question period on Monday, Stockwell Day told parliament that Canadian corrections officers have been monitoring Afghan detainees in that country since February, 2007. That conflicts with what the Afghan ambassador to Canada said just this past weekend:

OTTAWA - Urging an end to the "political circus" over Afghan detainees, Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada says no Canadians, including corrections officers, have monitored treatment of prisoners turned over by Canadian military forces.

However, Ambassador Omar Samad said in a Global National interview that Canadian officials will soon have "unrestricted access" to prisons under an agreement currently being worked out with Canada in the wake of political uproar over alleged torture of detainees.

Samad contradicted assertions by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day that Corrections Canada officers have been monitoring prisoner treatment - an assertion Day repeated in the Commons Friday, saying they are there "to see if there are cases of torture."

Samad said Corrections Canada officers have for many months, under their mandate to help build Afghan police capacity, had access to some prisons in Afghanistan and may have come across prisoners.

"It doesn't mean those were detention centres of people who were arrested by Canadian forces," Samad said. "So if this has created confusion, I think that we all need to take a step back and define what we're talking about and to bring some clarity to this instead of turning it into a political circus."

"From the Afghan point of view, it's clear there was no followup or monitoring of detainees caught by Canadian forces turned over to Afghans, especially to the NDS (National Directorate of Security) that took place prior to this current time."

Just how long will Day keep lying in the house? And where is O'Connor? He seems to have disappeared.

Day had said Thursday that corrections staff had made 15 visits to Afghan jails. But his spokeswoman, Melissa Leclerc, had said later they have no mandate to monitor prisoner treatment.

On Friday, Day told the Commons "they are there to support the Afghan officers by training them in the work that they do in the prisons and also to ensure, to see if there are cases of torture."

Pure fabrication.

Day needs to resign.

In fact, all of the tories who have spun these allegations since they were brought to light should be turfed immediately. An obviously angry Denis Coderre slammed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Helena Guergis for smiling smugly when she answered a question about this situation in the house on Monday. And rightly so.

The Conservatives seem to think this is an opportunity to play political games - claiming they're somehow morally superior to the opposition parties because they are "dealing" with these allegations when they are actually doing everything they can to deny them and to offer political cover for their party colleagues. It's nothing short of disgusting - not to mention inhumane. If we had pictures, this would be their Abu Ghraib moment. They don't seem to get that.

Via the Globe and Mail, we also learn that O'Connor is whining instead of taking responsibility for his duties as defence minister:

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor has also complained privately that he felt that he was left isolated by other departments on the issue of the detainees.

Is that what qualifies as leadership in this so-called "new" government? No one seems to want to step up to deal with any of this. No wonder they have no idea what's going on.

Meanhwile, in a related story about how this government washes its hands of allegations of torture by other governments, the US Supreme Court refused to hear appeals on Monday on behalf of Canadian Omar Khadr and Salim Ahmed Hamdan (of the Hamdan v Rumsfeld case):

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear an appeal by two Guantanamo prisoners who face trial before a military tribunal and who sought review now of an anti-terrorism law that President George W. Bush pushed through Congress last year.

The high court sided with the Bush administration, which argued that the trials should be allowed to take place first before the two men could bring an appeal.

Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer said they would hear the appeal but it takes four votes for the nine-member Supreme Court to do so.

Just one vote shy. More conservatives who refuse to protect human rights.

And don't expect our tory government to intervene on Khadr's behalf. During question period, Harper and his cronies laughed at an opposition party suggestion that Taliban prisoners be brought to Canada. That would obviously include Khadr as well, despite the fact that he has repeatedly calimed he has been tortured in Gitmo.

The bottom line is that this government just doesn't care. This is all about politics to them and they seem to believe that this track they're on, which is so wildly off the mark, is actually going to boost their shoddy reputations. The more they open their mouths, the more they lie. While it's satisfying to watch their complete and utter ineptitude as they dig themselves deeper into a hole every day, it's also incredibly maddening that it's at the expense of people who are allegedly being abused and tortured. They need to stop immediately and face reality. This isn't going away no matter how hard they wish they could wave their partisan wand to make it so.

Related: The Globe and Mail has a quick review of just some of last week's tory statements:

The government's changing story

Officials of our government will be following up these allegations with officials of the government of Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday

[We're] taking this matter seriously

Brigadier-General Al Howard on Tuesday

We have heard these allegations. We always take these allegations seriously.

Primer Minister Stephen Harper on Wednesday

... to make that suggestion [of torture] solely based on the allegations of the Taliban, I think is the height of irresponsibility.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper later on Wednesday

If they have a specific name, we'd be happy to have it investigated and chased down.

Government House Leader

Peter Van Loan yesterday

Stockwell Misses a Big Photo Op

Poor Stockwell Day. The man just can't get a break and repeatedly embarasses himself. It must just suck to be him.

HALIFAX — The Canadian government Wednesday refused to explain why it was believed that a Cyprus-registered container ship bound for Halifax was carrying hundreds of stowaways.

In a hastily called news conference in Halifax, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said that despite intelligence, no stowaways or contraband were found on the ship that was escorted into the harbour Tuesday afternoon.
[...]
Canadian authorities in Spain received a tip more than a week ago after the ship departed from Lisbon that as many as 200 stowaways were on board, hidden in containers or elsewhere on the 179-metre-long vessel. They searched the vessel late into Tuesday night.
[...]
Mr. Day came to Halifax specifically to witness the arrival and search of the ship.

Bummer.

Imagine...the ship is being searched...suddenly the stowaways are found...Day pulls up on his trusty Seadoo looking dandy in his skintight spandex to...umm...save the day... in true 007 style...planning to hook up some of the stowaways to water skis to tow them back to shore...awesome...just picture that photo op...



Alas, it was not to be. Darn non-existent stowaways! How dare they steal his shining moment? Unconscionable...

You'll get 'em next time, Stockwell. Next time...
 

Quotes du Jour: RCMPgate

"I'm a lawyer and I tell you they would be in court if it was anyone else, and packing a tooth brush for prison," said Conservative MP Brian Fitzpatrick.

Said Liberal Shawn Murphy: "The coverup is worse than the crime."

RCMP Probe Announced

OTTAWA – The federal government is appointing an investigator to probe allegations that top Mounties committed fraud involving the RCMP pension and insurance plans.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day promised a "full public report," but stopped short of calling a public inquiry, which would have the power to subpoena witnesses.

If there are alleged crimes involved, why wouldn't Day want an investigator to have subpoena powers?

These allegations are not new, of course, so I also wonder why Day took such a long time to actually call for action.
 

More Conservatives Behaving Badly

Another week, another installment of Conservatives Behaving Badly.

Thousands stripped of citizenship, CBC investigation finds:

The number of Canadians who have lost their citizenship through obscure sections of the 1947 Citizenship Act is far greater than the federal government has admitted, CBC News has learned.
[...]
While Citizenship and Immigration Minister Diane Finley says her department is only dealing with 450 cases of so-called "Lost Canadians," new documents obtained late last week by CBC News show that her department has stripped citizenship from nearly 4,000 Canadians in just seven years.
[...]
During Question Period Monday, Finley maintained the 450 number when criticized by Liberal MP Andrew Telegdi that she was "downplaying the issue," adding her department, which established a special hotline with dedicated agents, has already granted citizenship to 33 of those people.

I've long said Finley should be turfed. Who needs facts when you have lies?

Canada last in ECE spending:

Canada ranks "dead last" among developed nations in its spending on early childhood education – despite overwhelming evidence of how crucial the first six years of life are, says a new study by the country's foremost expert in the field.
[...]
The federal Liberals had promised money for child-care initiatives to the tune of $5 billion, but that was cancelled when the Tories took power.

And they replaced it with useless band-aids. Good job, tories!

OPP probe former MP's link to charge of 'inducement':

Ontario Provincial Police have launched an investigation into allegations that a senior federal Conservative played a role offering an inducement to a mayoral candidate in Ottawa.

Former MP John Reynolds is named in a sworn affidavit from Terry Kilrea, who was a candidate for mayor in Ottawa's 2006 election.

Kilrea dropped out of the race in August last year.

He has claimed Mayor Larry O'Brien offered to pay his campaign expenses if he dropped out.

According to the affidavit, O'Brien also asked what would happen if Kilrea were offered a job on the National Parole Board.

The same affidavit names John Reynolds as the man who could make that happen.

Reynolds, who also recently registered to be a lobbyist denies everything. We'll see how this shakes out.

Reynolds said last year, and repeated yesterday, he will never approach Harper on behalf of a client. But he said his move to act as a registered lobbyist for the groups doesn't violate his promise, since he's not being paid.
[...]
...Duff Conacher of the ethics watchdog group Democracy Watch, said Reynolds's move still violates the Conservative promise while in opposition to end the "revolving door" of powerful political insiders who begin lobbying their former colleagues once they leave government.

Abandoned Documents Expose Conservatives’ Lack of Accountability:

The Conservative government’s blatant disregard for the privacy of their own employees raises serious questions about their competence to protect the privacy of all Canadians, the Liberal Opposition said today as they handed over boxes of confidential personnel files the Conservatives left behind in Opposition offices.

"Today we're returning five years worth of personal performance appraisals of Conservative staffers that this government negligently left behind," said Liberal MP Mark Holland.

"These are confidential documents on their own staff. Such gross ineptitude makes me very nervous about how this government handles other issues of a private nature," he added.

Personnel records are not the only confidential documents left behind by the Conservative Party. Last week, a series of documents were discovered indicating Pubic Safety Minister Stockwell Day and former Canadian Alliance officials paid off a fellow Alliance MP to make way for Mr. Day’s election in 2000.

Mr. Holland indicated that other documents left behind may contain information in the public interest. The Liberal Opposition is currently examining these documents and will turn them over to the RCMP and other relevant officials if further evidence of criminality or breach of ethics rules is found.

I guess the tories just couldn't afford movers. That's how I'd spin it if I was them.

Oh and there's much, much more...
 

Public Safety Website: Opposition Parties "soft on terrorism"

An interesting question came up during question period on Monday asking why the government's Public Safety website is being used for Tory propaganda against the opposition parties.

Here's the page in question:

OTTAWA, February 23, 2007— Minister of Public Safety, Stockwell Day, issued the following statement on the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision regarding the constitutionality of the security certificate process as set out in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).

“We have just received the Supreme Court’s decision. We are reviewing it carefully.

The Government intends to respond in a timely and decisive fashion to address the Court’s decision. The Court has given the Government one year to address the concerns it has raised with respect to the process for hearing confidential information. In the interim, the security certificate process remains in place.

The security certificate process has been in place since 1978 to protect Canadians against threats to their safety and security.

At a time when the Opposition Parties are being soft on security and soft on terrorism, Canada’s New Government remains unwavering in its determination to safeguard national security and is committed to working with all its partners to protect the safety and security of Canadians.”

Harper responded by basically saying they'd change the website but...blah blah blah...terrorism...security...blah blah blah...

Stockwell Day said the news release contained a "direct quote" that he made. No big deal then, right? Wrong. It's his department's site owned by all Canadians and he's responsible for what it contains.
 

On Arar: Agreeing to Disagree is Not Enough

Fact: Maher Arar is still on the US's no-fly list.

Fact: Foreign Affairs minister Peter MacKay doesn't seem to care.

"We agree to disagree at times," MacKay said. "It's clear Canada and the United States hold a different position on this issue.

Agreeing to disagree is not enough.

MacKay went on to praise the "tremendous unprecedented co-operation" between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico in areas of security.

How nice. Then why are these discussions secret? Canadians deserve to know what's being discussed and decided upon in our names.

Rice reiterated previous comments on the Arar affair, saying the United States respects Canada's decision on Arar, but makes its own security decisions based on "our own information."

So-called 'information' that continues to cast suspicion on Mr Arar even after he was cleared in Canada. MacKay should be demanding a thorough review of this situation. Even Stockwell Day, who said he's seen the so-called evidence the Americans are using against Mr Arar, has stated he saw nothing to indicate keeping Mr Arar on such a list. Instead, MacKay is playing footsies with Condi every chance he gets while selling out who knows what to the Bush administration.

We deserve transparency and Mr Arar deserves more than a wishy-washy foreign affairs minister whose main objective seems to be winning over the Bush administration.