Canadian Taxpayers Don't Pay for Gov't Advertizing

Newsflash: Canadian taxpayers don't pay for government ads. No, really. Vic Toews said so during Question Period on Monday so it must be true.

The issue: Tories spend 5 times more on ads than H1N1 prevention

The confrontation:

Martha Hall-Findlay (MP-Willowdale): Mr Speaker, I tried last week to get some answers on government advertizing but got no answer - no numbers. So I'll try again and I'm going to ask the President of the Treasury Board because, after all, he is the one responsible for the spending and he should know. So, how much - exactly - have Canadian taxpayers now paid for this partisan, pat yourself on the back advertizing so far?


Vic Toews (Treasury Board President): Well, in fact, the Government of Canada does not bill the taxpayer for that kind of advertizing. What the Government of Canada does is get out key messages that reach a large number of Canadians on important issues - and they laugh - H1N1, elder abuse, the home renovation tax credit, Canadian forces recruitment. That's what the role of government is and we will continue to do that.


Martha Hall-Findlay (MP-Willowdale): I'm not exactly sure, Mr Speaker, who the President of the Treasury Board thinks actually pays for government spending if it isn't the Canadian taxpayers. I'm not sure which is worse: the fact that he doesn't have the numbers, he doesn't know them or he's trying to hide something...

When Hall-Findlay once again asked how much the Cons had spent on advertizing for their Economic Action Plan, Toews responded by talking about H1N1 advertizing.

Pathetic.
 

'Protest TV'

Protest TV via the Globe & Mail:

OTTAWA -- When the leaders of Canada, the United States and Mexico meet in the fortress-like Château Montebello next week, TV monitors inside the hotel will allow them to tune in or tune out live images of the protests raging behind the fences on the outside, government officials said yesterday.

As they discuss economic and security issues, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon will see live shots of demonstrators condemning their gathering - and maybe even burning them in effigy.

Wishful thinking on Daniel Leblanc's part. Those leaders won't see anything that they don't want to and the last thing they deem important is to actually listen to the protestations of the rabble. They must keep themselves insulated at all costs just in case reality might rear its ugly head and burst their power bubbles.

I'll tell you what: why don't we get a court order to get a live feed from inside the Chateau broadcasting exactly what's going on in these secretive meetings? Or is that just too much democracy for those guys to handle?

Related: For more information about the so-called Security & Prosperity Partnership, visit the Council of Canadians site. As they say "Integrate This!"
 

O'Connor Lowballed War Costs

Canada's Rumsfeld - Gordon O'Connor. Just exactly what does he have to do before he finally gets fired?

The Globe & Mail reports that O'Connor seemingly forgot to mention that the costs involved in securing additional tanks for Afghanistan are actually double what he reported due to the service contract attached to the purchase.

As he detailed a laundry list of military hardware the Conservative government plans to buy over the next few years, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor surprised the Commons by announcing there will be a 20-year, $650-million service contract attached to the tank deal.

“The capital acquisition is $650 million and the support for 20 years is about $650 million; about the same range,” he said in reply to an opposition question during debate over Defence Department estimates.

Quite the "surprise".

Not only that:

Also on Thursday night, Mr. O'Connor released a revised estimate on the cost of Canada's current mission to Kandahar. From February 2006 to February 2009, when the mission is slated to end, it is estimated that $4.3 billion will have been spent by the Defence Department — an increase of $400 million since the last forecast in November.

The increase is attributed to the additional cost of reinforcements, including tanks, which were dispatched to Kandahar last September by the Conservatives.

September. What that means is that the defence department apparently didn't know how to plan for what it knew was coming down the pike - for the decisions it made. An extra $400 million isn't exactly just an oversight. It's incompetence.

One thing's certain - we're never going to get the truth about this war from this government - whether it's about the detainee abuse, the costs of this war or even the real length of our future commitment, which they refuse to even talk about. They are completely untrustworthy.
 

Tories Filibuster Human Rights Testimony

What are these tories trying to hide?

OTTAWA — A House of Commons committee probe into the events surrounding the release of a highly-censored report on human rights in Afghanistan was held up Thursday by Conservative MPs, who for talked out the clock for hours.

The Tory filibuster finally broke after five hours and the witnesses were allowed to speak around 2 p.m.

The meeting of the House of Commons access to information and ethics committee was the second in a row to feature Tory MPs talking at length about procedural minutia to avoid delving into the committee's scheduled work.

The Conservatives were arguing that the opposition failed to give them enough notice for the study and that such a review raises concerns about revealing official secrets.

The opposition pushed for the probe following a recent Globe and Mail report showing how the government initially denied the existence of a report on Afghan human rights conditions, then released a heavily censored version. The Globe then obtained an uncensored version of the report which showed the government had blacked out sections that could be politically embarrassing to the government.

When confronted by NDP MP Dawn Black during question period about this filibuster - along with the fact that reports from corrections officers in Afghanistan had been completely censored, foreign affairs minister Mackay actually had the audacity to say that his government was the most "transparent, open and forthright government that this country has seen in a long, long time" (go ahead and laugh...I'll wait...). Mackay then resorted to the childish tactic of justifying his government's behaviour by using the handy well, the Liberals did it too excuse. Are there no statesmen among this bunch of tories? (Rhetorical question.)

The 2 witnesses whose testimony was delayed are University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, who has been a very vocal critic of the way this government has mishandled the abuse claims by Afghan detainees, and journalist/researcher Jeff Esau. No wonder the tories tried to delay his testimony:

April 25, 2007

The Globe first asked Foreign Affairs on March 7 if Canadian diplomats compiled and wrote similar reports on Afghan human-rights conditions. "No" was the answer.

On March 22, in response to an Access to Information Act request, Jeff Esau, a journalist and researcher working for The Globe, received the following response to his request for the report:

"Please be advised that Canada does not produce an annual human rights report analogous to the reports produced by, for example, the United States or the United Kingdom. Therefore no such report on human rights performance in other countries exists," wrote Jocelyne Sabourin, Director of the Access to Information division at Foreign Affairs.

An earlier access request, filed Jan. 29 by Amir Attaran, a University of Ottawa law professor, asked specifically for the human-rights report on Afghanistan and noted that Foreign Affairs had, in the past, made such reports available to non-governmental organizations. It also noted that the report on Syria had been referenced in the report on the Maher Arar case.

It was only after the 30-day deadline for a response had long passed and Mr. Attaran complained to Information Commissioner Dan Dupuis, that the edited version was delivered this week, eradicating all reporting of torture and abuse beneath the censor's black pen.

Lies, coverups, distortions, censorship and attempts to silence witnesses. Yes, this certainly is the "most transparent" government ever, isn't it?
 

Tories Behaving Badly - Again

- Will the real Rahim Jaffer please stand up? - redux:

Ottawa — A red-faced Tory MP is apologizing after his assistant impersonated him — and provided false information — in an e-mail exchange with a constituent over the hot-button issue of Afghan detainees.

An e-mail from Gord Brown's parliamentary office, dated May 2, claimed that every alleged case of abuse involving Afghan detainees had been investigated and proven to be unfounded. That despite the fact the Afghan government has yet to finish an investigation into the torture claims.

The e-mail to Randi Davidson, obtained by The Canadian Press, was signed by Mr. Brown, the member for Leeds-Grenville. But Mr. Brown says the note was written by his assistant, Mark King, without his knowledge.

“Those are not my views. They don't reflect my view. That staff member has been reprimanded for sending that out,” Brown said in an interview.

“He shouldn't have sent it out to begin with and he shouldn't have sent it out with my name it on. I'm not very happy about it.”

- Oh, they pretend to be "tightening the screws" on political loans but:

The bill seems equally aimed at embarrassing the Liberals, with Mr. Van Loan and Ottawa Tory MP Pierre Poilievre repeatedly taking shots at last year's Grit leadership race in which contestants relied heavily on loans to pay for their campaigns.

Mr. Poilievre noted that the winner, Stéphane Dion, received loans from wealthy supporters amounting to almost $500,000, as did runner-up Michael Ignatieff.

“Who owns the Liberal party?” he asked.

But the Tories were not inclined to discuss who “owns” Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has never fully disclosed the donors to his 2002 campaign for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance, predecessor to the Conservative party.

Mr. Harper disclosed only 54 donors who'd contributed more than $1,075 each to his campaign. He never revealed the names of 10 large donors who wanted to remain anonymous or the more than 9,000 donors who gave less than $1,000.
[...]
The law did not require full disclosure in 2002. Mr. Van Loan dismissed suggestions that Mr. Harper, in keeping with the new spirit of transparency and openness, should belatedly open his campaign books.

- I wonder how many of those anonymous donors were active in Alberta's oil sands sector, which has just been exempted from the Tories' so-called "clean air" plan. Meanwhile, Alberta conservatives are pushing for a $6.2 billion nuclear reactor for the province.

However, the Alberta Liberals said they're skeptical about nuclear power in Alberta, while environmental groups are fiercely opposed to it, suggesting it's downright radioactive.

"It looks more and more like the Tory government has let the nuclear genie out of the bottle without ever consulting with Albertans," said Liberal Leader Kevin Taft.

Officials with the Pembina Institute, an environmental think-tank, argue concerns about how to dispose of nuclear waste outweigh the potential benefits of a reactor, such as an increased electricity supply and a reduction in greenhouse gases emitted, compared to coal-fired plants.

- Pollution, nuclear waste, why not add increased levels of pesticide to our food too?

Better break out the veggie-scrubbers: Canada is set to raise its limits on pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables for hundreds of products.

The move is part of an effort to harmonize Canadian pesticide rules with those of the United States, which allows higher residue levels for 40 per cent of the pesticides it regulates.

"Harmonize", my ass. It's called "pandering".

- James Travers has some advice for the "new" government: It is not in our interest to allow the military to become synonymous with Canada. The problem with that is the fact that conservatives actually measure Canada's standing in the world by its military involvement and the praise received from other conservative governments and right-wing organizations according to our participation in military pursuits. Good advice Travers, but don't expect Steve et al to listen.

- Tories cut peacekeeping centre funding:

OTTAWA — The Tory government will no longer pay for soldiers from around the world to train in peacekeeping at the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre in the Annapolis Valley.

Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor’s office did not return calls Monday afternoon to explain why it is cutting the program.

For the past two years, the Defence Department has paid for groups of 30 soldiers to train in peacekeeping in the United Nations Integrated Missions Staff Officers Course at the Cornwallis centre.

Dirty pool?

Defence’s decision comes five months after what appeared to have been a series of department leaks to the Ottawa Citizen trying to discredit the Cornwallis centre. At the time, West Nova Liberal MP Robert Thibault predicted trouble.

"I’m fearful that there might be some ploy within the Department of Defence to leak stuff like that and then to refuse their funding," he said. "The reports I get when I talk to people around Ottawa is that the other departments are ready to fund it . . . but that (Defence) has been balking."

- Conrad Black behaving badly. Ongoing.
 

About that 'must-do' list...

Sunday's New York Times editorial board has produced a must-do list, encouraging the Democrats to fight back against the assaults on human rights and civil liberties perpetrated by the Bush administration.

Here's what that list consists of:

1. Restore habeus corpus
2. Stop illegal spying
3. Ban Torture, really
4. Close the C.I.A. prisons
5. Account for "Ghost Prisoners"
6. Ban extraordinary rendition
7. Tighten the definition of combatant
8. Screen prisoners fairly and effectively
9. Ban tainted evidence
10. Ban secret evidence
11. Better define "classified" evidence
12. Respect the right to counsel

As the editors point out, many of these policies were written into law last fall via the passage of the Military Commissions Act which was developed after the Bush administration was rebuked by the Supreme Court.

Even if the Democrats could use their majority status to overturn that act however, long ingrained American traditions would remain.

There's no doubt that Bush has used his unitary executive power to override and sidestep congress every step of the way since he kicked off his so-called war on terrorism, but it's also important to examine how America reached the point where that type of unchecked power could actually come to exist.

Take the actions of the CIA, for example. Since its formation, it has acted virtually unimpeded through its use of covert operations worldwide in order to do everything from causing coups d'etats to carrying out assassinations. The investigations done by the Church Committee in the 70s were supposed to ensure more oversight - a fact that some people claim actually hamstrung the agency and led to the 9/11 intelligence failures.

While the old CIA may have been noted for the “cowboy” swagger of its personnel, the new CIA is, in the words of one critic, composed of “cautious bureaucrats who avoid the risks that come with taking action, who fill out every form in triplicate” and put “the emphasis on audit rather than action.” Congressional meddling is primarily responsible for this new CIA ethos, transforming it from an agency willing to take risks, and act at times in a Machiavellian manner, into just another sclerotic Washington bureaucracy.

The agency obviously didn't stop taking those risks, as we all know now.

That 2001 article by Stephen F. Knott led to this conclusion, the effects of which we are all now witnessing:

The response to the disaster of September 11th starkly reveals that members of Congress are quite adept at invoking “plausible deniability.” They are often the first to criticize, and the last to accept responsibility, for failed U. S. policies and practices. Oddly enough, a restoration of executive control of intelligence could increase the potential that the president, or his immediate deputies, would be held responsible for the successes and failures of the intelligence community. But this is a secondary consideration, for only by restoring the executive branch’s power to move with “secrecy and dispatch,” and to control the “business of intelligence,” as Alexander Hamilton and John Jay put it in The Federalist, will the nation be able to deter and defeat its enemies.

I wonder how professor Knott feels about endorsing that position today.

Regardless of all of the revelations over the decades of the "work" the CIA is doing in America's name, the mythology of the sexy spy with the nifty gagdets whose death-defeating tactics are pushed by Hollywood and applauded by millions won't end any time soon. Who would dare accuse CIA agents of being treasonous (besides people like Cheney and his henchmen who choose to out them when it's politically convenient rather than protecting them, as they're bound to do)?

While it's the job of the Democrats to try to wrestle power back from the Bush adminitration for those items detailed in the NYT's "must-do" list, the public also needs to remember that their party has used covert methods and actions when they thought it would be expedient as well.

As Scott Ritter notes*:

I personally witnessed the Director of the CIA under Bill Clinton, James Woolsey, fabricate a case for the continued existence of Iraqi ballistic missiles in November 1993 after I had provided a detailed briefing which articulated the UN inspector's findings that Iraq's missile program had been fundamentally disarmed. I led the UN inspector's investigation into the defection of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, in August 1995, and saw how the Clinton administration twisted his words to make a case for the continued existence of a nuclear program the weapons inspectors knew to be nothing more than scrap and old paper. I was in Baghdad at the head of an inspection team in the summer of 1996 as the Clinton administration used the inspection process as a vehicle for a covert action program run by the CIA intending to assassinate Saddam Hussein.

I twice traveled to the White House to brief the National Security Council in the confines of the White House Situation Room on the plans of the inspectors to pursue the possibility of concealed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, only to have the Clinton national security team betray the inspectors by failing to deliver the promised support, and when the inspections failed to deliver any evidence of Iraqi wrong-doing, attempt to blame the inspectors while denying any wrong doing on their part.

Obviously, this culture of covert corruption has a very long history that runs through the administrations of both of the big two parties, yet we're now expecting the current crop of Democrats (including many longstanding members who have been complicit in these affairs) to turn around and bring everything to light in order to end these types of activities? Isn't that rather like the fox guarding the hen house, as the old cliche says?

This Democratic congress may hold hearings, may investigate the Bush administration's horrendous abuses, may even impeach the president (although Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that impeachment is "off the table"), but do they have the power or the willingness to end the disastrous policies of the CIA? Will they stand up to an administration full of ex-CIA officials who now run the White House? And where does the American public stand on these issues?

It's clear the majority are outraged over the Bush administration's abuses, and so they should be. Are they willing, however, to give up the power exercised on their behalf as members of the so-called "greatest country in the world" by CIA agents and those in the numerous other intelligence agencies that are a part of the US government in order to keep them "safe"? My guess would be that only a small minority would actually demand full accountability and transparency and, even if they did, they wouldn't get it from the Republicans or the Democrats who are so entrenched in the use of those powers that they'd be loathe to surrender many of them in the end.

That's the dilemma the American people face, as do those worldwide who've been affected by these covert actions. It's doubtful they'll find much justice any time soon and time is already running out for the Democrats to deal with all of what Bush has wrought prior to the end of his term. Perhaps they should be spending less time speechifying and fundraising on the '08 campaign trail and more time actually working on the business of the country. As for the CIA, the more it changes, the more it stays the same.

* h/t Madman in the Marketplace whose work you can find at Liberal Street Fighter.
 

Canadian Military Secretly Signs Agreement with Afghan Human Rights Watchdog

I find it quite bizarre that, after so much concern was recently expressed over the Canadian military's practice of handing over detainees in Afghanistan without any appropriate follow up, the most recent news on this file is that a secret agreement between "military commanders" and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has been signed to oversee the treatment of those detainees.

I suspect, as would most, that those "military commanders" include General Rick Hillier who for some unknown reason also signed the original, legally ineffective agreement regarding those detainess back in 2005. Why are members of the military involved in handling these agreements when it would seem obvious that such matters should be handled by the foreign affairs ministry? Further, why was this recent agreement signed in secret? You'd think that the military would have made this public since it's been under fire about its lax policies in this area.

There are now 4 probes into abuse alleged to have to been suffered by Afghan detainees at the hands of the Canadian military.

The Canadian Military Police Complaints Commission has launched an investigation into whether soldiers knew about alleged evidence that detainees would be tortured if they were handed over to Afghan authorities.
[...]
The latest investigation stems from a joint Amnesty International Canada and British Columbia Civil Liberties Association complaint. It alleges the Canadian Forces military police on at least 18 occasions transferred detainees to Afghan authorities notwithstanding alleged evidence that there was a likelihood they would be tortured.

"They are alleging the military police knew or ought to have known that the prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities would be tortured and therefore acted improperly in doing so, so that will be our focus," said Stanley Blythe, the chief of staff of the commission.

Peter Tinsley, chairman of the commission, has not decided whether to hold public hearings — something that could force high-ranking officers to defend the practice.

Tinsley has a checkered past when it comes to investigations and, as Esprit de Corps magazine pointed out upon his current appointment to the Canadian Military Police Complaints Commission, Tinsley should be pushed to hold a public inquiry on these concerns in Afghanistan considering his background:

As of Dec. 12, Peter Tinsley will be the new chairman of the Military Police Complaints Commission. Keen-eyed military followers may recall that Tinsley was the prosecutor in the court martial of Trooper Kyle Brown, one of those accused and convicted in the beating death of a Somali. The blatant injustice meted out in those legal proceedings was well-documented in a national best-seller by Peter Worthington titled Scapegoat.

During the dark days of the public inquiry that followed, Tinsley held the job of "special adviser" to the Judge Advocate General. In other words, no one is more a symbol of the military justice system indicted by that 1997 Somalia inquiry’s report than ex-colonel Peter Tinsley.

Using the old adage "If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em," it would appear that the inmates have once again seized control of their own asylum.

Even though Defence Minister O'Connor dismissed concerns that what has allegedly happened to those detainees in Afghanistan doesn't rise to the level of the Somalia affair, he'd be wise to learn from past mistakes in order to be as transparent as possible when it comes to handling these new concerns. Then again, O'Connor's defence department knew about these allegations in Afghanistan months before they were brought to the public's attention and did nothing. Perhaps he's more inclined to continue with the secrecy surrounding all of this regardless.
 

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.