Congratulate me. I've just written the most boring headline in the history of blogging. I realize a story about a blogger getting media credentials at the UN might sound pretty dull, but it interests me because I'm curious about how blogs and the Internet in general are changing the news business. I can think of at least one way in which the Internet is very important. It offers a platform to alternative viewpoints that the mainstream media would rather shut out.
From the New York Times (As Blogs Proliferate, a Gadfly With Accreditation at the U.N. by Maria Aspan, April 30, 2007):
Mr. [Matthew] Lee, a well-known gadfly who often presses banks to revise their policies on mortgage loans to the poor, is the only blogger at the United Nations with media credentials, entitling him to free office space and access to briefings and press conferences. There had been a second accredited blogger, Pincas Jawetz, a 73-year-old retired energy policy consultant, but he was ejected last month on the grounds that he had distracted too many briefings with off-topic questions.
The United Nations is one of the only institutions of its size and importance that currently allow bloggers not affiliated with larger, more traditional media companies into the permanent press corps.
The Democrats and Republicans allowed bloggers into their 2004 conventions. But the question of whether bloggers should be considered credentialed journalists is a relatively new one at the United Nations, in part, it seems, because the foreign policy debates here are considered mind-numbing to many Americans.
Read all of Maria Aspan's article.
See also:
Bloggers are lonely people who live in a make-believe world - Calgary professor
Does Canadian law recognize bloggers as journalists?
Monday, April 30, 2007
How many blogs does your neighbourhood have?
From the New York Times (The Latest Must-Have for Yuppies: A Blog About the Neighborhood by Maria Aspan, April 30, 2007):
First come the renovated condominiums, the latte bars and the expensive baby strollers. Next, apparently, come the bloggers.
One Web site’s survey of the prevalence of blogs in urban neighborhoods found a link between gentrification and the number of people who feel compelled to think out loud about the changes in their backyards. The site, Outside.in, crowned Clinton Hill in Brooklyn as the most blogged-about neighborhood in America.
Also on the top 10 list were Harlem; Shaw in Washington; downtown Los Angeles; Newton, Mass.; and Rogers Park/North Howard in Chicago.
Before the survey, the staff of Outside.in was “not conscious that local blogging would be so closely allied with gentrification,” said Steven Berlin Johnson, a founder of the site. Change, he said, “makes people particularly interested in every little development in their neighborhoods.”
[. . .]
Read all of Maria Aspan's article.
See also:
Meet you at the corner of Crack and Whore
Bloggers are lonely people who live in a make-believe world - Calgary professor
Does Canadian law recognize bloggers as journalists?
First come the renovated condominiums, the latte bars and the expensive baby strollers. Next, apparently, come the bloggers.
One Web site’s survey of the prevalence of blogs in urban neighborhoods found a link between gentrification and the number of people who feel compelled to think out loud about the changes in their backyards. The site, Outside.in, crowned Clinton Hill in Brooklyn as the most blogged-about neighborhood in America.
Also on the top 10 list were Harlem; Shaw in Washington; downtown Los Angeles; Newton, Mass.; and Rogers Park/North Howard in Chicago.
Before the survey, the staff of Outside.in was “not conscious that local blogging would be so closely allied with gentrification,” said Steven Berlin Johnson, a founder of the site. Change, he said, “makes people particularly interested in every little development in their neighborhoods.”
[. . .]
Read all of Maria Aspan's article.
See also:
Meet you at the corner of Crack and Whore
Bloggers are lonely people who live in a make-believe world - Calgary professor
Does Canadian law recognize bloggers as journalists?
Mohammed Junaid Babar - Pakistani immigrant to US was key witness in British terror trial
Note: Canadian Momin Khawaja, who faces terrorism charges at home, has been linked to the five convicted British terrorists.
From Associated Press via the Washington Post (Informant Captivated British Courtroom by David Stringer, April 30, 2007):
The FBI's star al-Qaida informant captivated a London courtroom for 17 days as he told how he nurtured a generation of homegrown British terrorists.
Mohammed Junaid Babar's testimony in the year-long trial of five men convicted Monday of a plot to bomb targets in London revealed how disaffected Britons were trained for terrorism in Pakistan, where many have family ties.
Flanked by U.S. marshals on the witness stand, Babar _ who prosecutors said is the first FBI informant to testify in a British terror case _ described how the plot developed in the cramped mosques of suburban England and the hills of Pakistan's tribal belt.
It was his testimony that cemented ties between the 2005 al-Qaida-linked attack on London's transit system and the five men sentenced to life in prison for plotting to detonate a bomb made of a half ton of fertilizer in the city.
A naturalized American from Pakistan, Babar was an associate of the ringleader of the deadly July 7, 2005, transit attack in London, the fertilizer bomb plotters and a group who cased Britain's luxury hotels and targets on Wall Street, law enforcement officials said.
[. . .]
Read all of David Stringer's article.
See also:
Momin Khawaja - Canadian Muslim linked to terror cell responsible for 2005 London transit bombings
From Associated Press via the Washington Post (Informant Captivated British Courtroom by David Stringer, April 30, 2007):
The FBI's star al-Qaida informant captivated a London courtroom for 17 days as he told how he nurtured a generation of homegrown British terrorists.
Mohammed Junaid Babar's testimony in the year-long trial of five men convicted Monday of a plot to bomb targets in London revealed how disaffected Britons were trained for terrorism in Pakistan, where many have family ties.
Flanked by U.S. marshals on the witness stand, Babar _ who prosecutors said is the first FBI informant to testify in a British terror case _ described how the plot developed in the cramped mosques of suburban England and the hills of Pakistan's tribal belt.
It was his testimony that cemented ties between the 2005 al-Qaida-linked attack on London's transit system and the five men sentenced to life in prison for plotting to detonate a bomb made of a half ton of fertilizer in the city.
A naturalized American from Pakistan, Babar was an associate of the ringleader of the deadly July 7, 2005, transit attack in London, the fertilizer bomb plotters and a group who cased Britain's luxury hotels and targets on Wall Street, law enforcement officials said.
[. . .]
Read all of David Stringer's article.
See also:
Momin Khawaja - Canadian Muslim linked to terror cell responsible for 2005 London transit bombings
This would make a good SAT question
[Update: When I saw the name Anthony Garcia, I thought the man must be a convert. My hunch was wrong. It turns out Mr. Garcia was born in Algeria with the name Rahman Benouis. See this BBC article: Profile: Anthony Garcia. For more information about the other participants in the UK fertiliser bomb plot, go to this interactive chart.]
Original blog post:
The sentence below is from a recent Globe and Mail article. Note that the first part of the statement contains a series of five names. Which name in the series is out of place?
Omar Khyam, Waheed Mahmood, Anthony Garcia, Jawad Akbar and Salahuddin Amin were convicted of conspiring with Khawaja to cause an explosion likely to endanger life.
See also:
Converts to terrorism
More Converts to Terrorism
Original blog post:
The sentence below is from a recent Globe and Mail article. Note that the first part of the statement contains a series of five names. Which name in the series is out of place?
Omar Khyam, Waheed Mahmood, Anthony Garcia, Jawad Akbar and Salahuddin Amin were convicted of conspiring with Khawaja to cause an explosion likely to endanger life.
See also:
Converts to terrorism
More Converts to Terrorism
Momin Khawaja - Canadian Muslim linked to terror cell responsible for 2005 London transit bombings
Doug Saunders writes in the Globe and Mail (Khawaja believed part of London terror cell, April 30, 2007):
Momin Khawaja, the Ottawa software technician facing terrorism charges in Canada, is believed to have been a member of the same terror cell that carried out the July 7, 2005, public-transit bombings that killed 53 people in London.
A British jury was told by former terrorists and intelligence officials that Mr. Khawaja attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan with at least three of the British men who carried out the July 7 attacks, and was part of another group that met regularly with the July 7 cell and appeared to be working in coordination with the group responsible for the London bombings.
The connections between the British-Canadian bomb-making cell of which Mr. Khawaja is alleged to be a member and the accused July 7 bombers have been known for more than a year, but they can be reported today for the first time because a British publication ban has ended.
For the past 13 months, Mr. Khawaja's alleged co-conspirators, all of them British, have been facing trial on charges that they plotted to detonate a huge bomb in London.
Those five Britons were found guilty Monday of plotting to carry out al-Qaeda-inspired bomb attacks across Britain potentially killing hundreds at targets ranging from nightclubs to trains and a shopping centre.
[. . .]
Read all of Doug Saunders' article.
See also:
Momin Khawaja - Supreme Court won't hear appeal from Canadian accused of terrorism
One clause in anti-terrorism law ruled unconstitutional. Khawaja trial will proceed
The Judiciary and Politicians put Canadian National Security At Risk
Toronto terror bomb plot case inches its way through the court system
Technorati tags: Momin Khawaja terrorism Canada
Momin Khawaja, the Ottawa software technician facing terrorism charges in Canada, is believed to have been a member of the same terror cell that carried out the July 7, 2005, public-transit bombings that killed 53 people in London.
A British jury was told by former terrorists and intelligence officials that Mr. Khawaja attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan with at least three of the British men who carried out the July 7 attacks, and was part of another group that met regularly with the July 7 cell and appeared to be working in coordination with the group responsible for the London bombings.
The connections between the British-Canadian bomb-making cell of which Mr. Khawaja is alleged to be a member and the accused July 7 bombers have been known for more than a year, but they can be reported today for the first time because a British publication ban has ended.
For the past 13 months, Mr. Khawaja's alleged co-conspirators, all of them British, have been facing trial on charges that they plotted to detonate a huge bomb in London.
Those five Britons were found guilty Monday of plotting to carry out al-Qaeda-inspired bomb attacks across Britain potentially killing hundreds at targets ranging from nightclubs to trains and a shopping centre.
[. . .]
Read all of Doug Saunders' article.
See also:
Momin Khawaja - Supreme Court won't hear appeal from Canadian accused of terrorism
One clause in anti-terrorism law ruled unconstitutional. Khawaja trial will proceed
The Judiciary and Politicians put Canadian National Security At Risk
Toronto terror bomb plot case inches its way through the court system
Technorati tags: Momin Khawaja terrorism Canada
Immigration and black crime in Quebec
The excerpts below come from a 1991 article in American Renaissance magazine (The Great "White" North by Marian Evans, March 1991):
In 1976, when the all-but-separatist Parti Québécois won provincial control, it appointed as its first immigration minister a priest and retired missionary to Africa, Jacques Couture.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: In Canada immigration is a federal responsibility but Quebec and other provinces have signed agreements with Ottawa that give them considerable control over immigration to their own jurisdiction.]
Mr. Couture was determined to do two things: bring more French-speakers to Quebec and open the province to the poor and suffering. In what could not have been a more disastrous choice, he decided on Haiti as the perfect source for new Quebeckers. Haiti was French-speaking, in a primitive way, and it was the most desperately poor, backward place in the hemisphere. Haitians would provide both a fresh dose of francophone vigor and an opportunity for white Quebeckers to open their hearts to the downtrodden.
[. . .]
The population of Montreal, where most of the Haitians ended up, is now 30 percent non-white. Thanks to Mr. Couture, it got an instant underclass that behaves almost exactly like its counterpart in the United States. Black neighborhoods have become violent, crime-ridden, drug-sodden slums. French newspapers have invented a new word to describe the transformation: se bronxifier, or to become like the Bronx. Without so much as a hint of the “400 years of slavery and oppression” that is supposed to account for black failure in the United States, Canadian blacks are in exactly the same social and economic position as their brothers to the south.
Other aspects of Mr. Couture's experiment mirror the United States. Although Quebec could not possibly have recruited more poverty- and crime-prone immigrants, their failures are inevitably blamed on white racism. Whenever a white policeman shoots a black criminal, for example, there are shouts of “racism.”
Journalists and even the police have been so intimidated by charges of racism that it is nearly impossible to report on the extent of black crime in Quebec. In one notorious case last fall, police arrested hundreds of Haitians who had forced women into a huge prostitution business. The women invariably white—were treated abominably. Some were branded like cattle. Others were forced to eat their own menstrual tampons. Some of the Haitians liked to shove a gun barrel up a woman's vagina and threaten to shoot her.
Police are normally eager to publicize big successes, but not in the charged, whites-are-always-to-blame racial atmosphere of Quebec. As the Montreal Gazette, which finally broke the whole sordid story explained (11/17/90), “police say they could hardly afford to call a news conference to say they had been arresting young Haitians by the hundreds.”
[. . .]
Read all of Marian Evans' article.
See also:
Bernard Mathieu - Montreal gang leader gets 10 years
Gang violence - in some parts of Montreal it's dangerous to wear red
Speaking the truth about immigration and crime cost Gwyn Morgan his federal appointment
What has changed in the last forty years to make Toronto a violent city? It wouldn't have anything to do with immigration, would it?
16 BLACK students charged after WHITE girl complained of 18 months of sexual harassment and abuse at Toronto Catholic school
In 1976, when the all-but-separatist Parti Québécois won provincial control, it appointed as its first immigration minister a priest and retired missionary to Africa, Jacques Couture.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: In Canada immigration is a federal responsibility but Quebec and other provinces have signed agreements with Ottawa that give them considerable control over immigration to their own jurisdiction.]
Mr. Couture was determined to do two things: bring more French-speakers to Quebec and open the province to the poor and suffering. In what could not have been a more disastrous choice, he decided on Haiti as the perfect source for new Quebeckers. Haiti was French-speaking, in a primitive way, and it was the most desperately poor, backward place in the hemisphere. Haitians would provide both a fresh dose of francophone vigor and an opportunity for white Quebeckers to open their hearts to the downtrodden.
[. . .]
The population of Montreal, where most of the Haitians ended up, is now 30 percent non-white. Thanks to Mr. Couture, it got an instant underclass that behaves almost exactly like its counterpart in the United States. Black neighborhoods have become violent, crime-ridden, drug-sodden slums. French newspapers have invented a new word to describe the transformation: se bronxifier, or to become like the Bronx. Without so much as a hint of the “400 years of slavery and oppression” that is supposed to account for black failure in the United States, Canadian blacks are in exactly the same social and economic position as their brothers to the south.
Other aspects of Mr. Couture's experiment mirror the United States. Although Quebec could not possibly have recruited more poverty- and crime-prone immigrants, their failures are inevitably blamed on white racism. Whenever a white policeman shoots a black criminal, for example, there are shouts of “racism.”
Journalists and even the police have been so intimidated by charges of racism that it is nearly impossible to report on the extent of black crime in Quebec. In one notorious case last fall, police arrested hundreds of Haitians who had forced women into a huge prostitution business. The women invariably white—were treated abominably. Some were branded like cattle. Others were forced to eat their own menstrual tampons. Some of the Haitians liked to shove a gun barrel up a woman's vagina and threaten to shoot her.
Police are normally eager to publicize big successes, but not in the charged, whites-are-always-to-blame racial atmosphere of Quebec. As the Montreal Gazette, which finally broke the whole sordid story explained (11/17/90), “police say they could hardly afford to call a news conference to say they had been arresting young Haitians by the hundreds.”
[. . .]
Read all of Marian Evans' article.
See also:
Bernard Mathieu - Montreal gang leader gets 10 years
Gang violence - in some parts of Montreal it's dangerous to wear red
Speaking the truth about immigration and crime cost Gwyn Morgan his federal appointment
What has changed in the last forty years to make Toronto a violent city? It wouldn't have anything to do with immigration, would it?
16 BLACK students charged after WHITE girl complained of 18 months of sexual harassment and abuse at Toronto Catholic school
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Controversial ruling on Canada's anti-money laundering rules
From the National Post (Immigrants decry anti-money laundering rules by Adrian Humphreys, April 28, 2007):
Bujar Mehmeti, an Albanian man living in Toronto, was boarding a plane to his homeland in August, 2005, when he was stopped by border agents interested in his luggage. Inside, they found $50,000 in undeclared American cash.
Canada Border Services Agency officials seized the money, saying they had reasonable grounds to suspect it was the proceeds of crime or terrorist funding, touching off a case that may have wide implications on Canada's ability to track money crossing its borders.
Mr. Mehmeti, who denied it was related to any nefarious activity, applied to the Minister of Public Safety for its return, a challenge the minister rejected.
Five Albanian men in Toronto then stepped forward and said the money was, in fact, theirs; that it had been lawfully earned and entrusted to Mr. Mehmeti to give to their families as gifts and for other benign purposes.
The men went to court to get their money back.
[. . .]
And critics say the ruling puts further loopholes in Canada's already uneven anti-money laundering rules and is another in a growing list of legal challenges eroding the government's antiterror measures.
Some see the ruling as legal approval of "smurfing," a moneylaundering technique where a large pool of cash is divided into smaller amounts, often below the $10,000 reporting limit, and deposited by numerous individuals so as not to attract suspicion.
[. . .]
Read all of Adrian Humphreys's article.
See also:
A distinguished economist's memoirs of the financial war on terror
The Judiciary and Politicians put Canadian National Security At Risk
York Regional Police break up massive forgery operation run by visiting Chinese students in Markham
Bujar Mehmeti, an Albanian man living in Toronto, was boarding a plane to his homeland in August, 2005, when he was stopped by border agents interested in his luggage. Inside, they found $50,000 in undeclared American cash.
Canada Border Services Agency officials seized the money, saying they had reasonable grounds to suspect it was the proceeds of crime or terrorist funding, touching off a case that may have wide implications on Canada's ability to track money crossing its borders.
Mr. Mehmeti, who denied it was related to any nefarious activity, applied to the Minister of Public Safety for its return, a challenge the minister rejected.
Five Albanian men in Toronto then stepped forward and said the money was, in fact, theirs; that it had been lawfully earned and entrusted to Mr. Mehmeti to give to their families as gifts and for other benign purposes.
The men went to court to get their money back.
[. . .]
And critics say the ruling puts further loopholes in Canada's already uneven anti-money laundering rules and is another in a growing list of legal challenges eroding the government's antiterror measures.
Some see the ruling as legal approval of "smurfing," a moneylaundering technique where a large pool of cash is divided into smaller amounts, often below the $10,000 reporting limit, and deposited by numerous individuals so as not to attract suspicion.
[. . .]
Read all of Adrian Humphreys's article.
See also:
A distinguished economist's memoirs of the financial war on terror
The Judiciary and Politicians put Canadian National Security At Risk
York Regional Police break up massive forgery operation run by visiting Chinese students in Markham
American advertisers seek out Muslim customers
From the New York Times (Rewriting the Ad Rules for Muslim-Americans by Louise Story, April 28, 2007):
For years, few advertisers in the United States have dared to reach out to Muslims.
Either they did not see much potential for sales or they feared a political backlash. And there were practical reasons: American Muslims come from so many ethnic backgrounds that their only common ground is their religion, a subject most marketers avoid.
That is beginning to change. Consumer companies and advertising executives are focusing on ways to use the cultural aspects of the Muslim religion to help sell their products.
Grocers and consumer product companies are considering ways to adapt their goods to Muslim rules, which forbid among other things, gelatin and pig fat, which is often used in cosmetics and cleaning products. Retailers are looking into providing more conservative skirts, even during the summer months, and mainstream advertisers are planning to place some commercials on the satellite channels that Muslims often watch.
Marketing to Muslims carries some risks. But advertising executives, used to dividing American consumers into every sort of category, say that ignoring this group — estimated to be about five million to eight million people, and growing fast — would be like missing the Hispanic market in the 1990s.
[. . .]
Read all of Louise Story's article.
No one knows for sure how many Muslims there are in the US, but the number is probably lower than what the Times says. See here: Number of Muslims in the United States
See also:
Canadian chicken producer makes special "Zabiha Halal" products for the Muslim market
For years, few advertisers in the United States have dared to reach out to Muslims.
Either they did not see much potential for sales or they feared a political backlash. And there were practical reasons: American Muslims come from so many ethnic backgrounds that their only common ground is their religion, a subject most marketers avoid.
That is beginning to change. Consumer companies and advertising executives are focusing on ways to use the cultural aspects of the Muslim religion to help sell their products.
Grocers and consumer product companies are considering ways to adapt their goods to Muslim rules, which forbid among other things, gelatin and pig fat, which is often used in cosmetics and cleaning products. Retailers are looking into providing more conservative skirts, even during the summer months, and mainstream advertisers are planning to place some commercials on the satellite channels that Muslims often watch.
Marketing to Muslims carries some risks. But advertising executives, used to dividing American consumers into every sort of category, say that ignoring this group — estimated to be about five million to eight million people, and growing fast — would be like missing the Hispanic market in the 1990s.
[. . .]
Read all of Louise Story's article.
No one knows for sure how many Muslims there are in the US, but the number is probably lower than what the Times says. See here: Number of Muslims in the United States
See also:
Canadian chicken producer makes special "Zabiha Halal" products for the Muslim market
Ban on hijab in Quebec tae kwon do tournaments remains in place
From the Montreal Gazette (Hijab to remain banned from tae kwon do by Ren ):
The Muslim hijab will remain banned from tae kwon do tournaments in Quebec despite an offer of compromise in the guise of a sporty, head-hugging head scarf used in international competitions, provincial officials ruled yesterday.
Coaches and an athlete from the Ultimate Tae Kwon Do club demonstrated a tight-fitting hijab to the eight-member board of directors of the Quebec Tae Kwon Do Federation at their Olympic Stadium headquarters.
Five girls age 8 to 13 from the club who were sent to a provincial competition in Longueuil two weeks ago were barred from competition because they were wearing hijabs. The club is based out of the Centre Communautaire Musulman de Montral.
After consultation, federation members said they would present the suggestion of a sport-hijab to the World Tae Kwon Do Federation Council, the sport's international governing body based in South Korea.
[. . .]
Read all of Ren Bruemmer's article.
See also:
Tae kwon do hijab ban rarely enforced - world federation officials say
McMaster professor who sponsored 'Wear a Hijab Day' says she was targeted before
The Québecois Nation versus Multiculturalism
Heroville, Canada
The Muslim hijab will remain banned from tae kwon do tournaments in Quebec despite an offer of compromise in the guise of a sporty, head-hugging head scarf used in international competitions, provincial officials ruled yesterday.
Coaches and an athlete from the Ultimate Tae Kwon Do club demonstrated a tight-fitting hijab to the eight-member board of directors of the Quebec Tae Kwon Do Federation at their Olympic Stadium headquarters.
Five girls age 8 to 13 from the club who were sent to a provincial competition in Longueuil two weeks ago were barred from competition because they were wearing hijabs. The club is based out of the Centre Communautaire Musulman de Montral.
After consultation, federation members said they would present the suggestion of a sport-hijab to the World Tae Kwon Do Federation Council, the sport's international governing body based in South Korea.
[. . .]
Read all of Ren Bruemmer's article.
See also:
Tae kwon do hijab ban rarely enforced - world federation officials say
McMaster professor who sponsored 'Wear a Hijab Day' says she was targeted before
The Québecois Nation versus Multiculturalism
Heroville, Canada
Warrant issued for American fugitive who claimed refugee status in Canada
From the Toronto Sun (Fugitive wanted on new charges by Kathleen Harris, April 28, 2007):
A Canada-wide arrest warrant has been issued for an American con artist who escaped state custody then claimed refugee status in Canada, Sun Media has learned.
Jeremy Clark-Erskine, a 33-year-old fugitive from Indiana state prison, was arrested in Jasper, Alta., last April for carrying false documents, phoney passports and stolen property. He served 21 days in jail.
Despite his fugitive status in the U.S., he was later released when a Jewish community group posted a $10,000 bond.
The Federal Court of Canada this week granted a judicial review of his case which had been rejected by the Immigration and Refugee Board.
[. . .]
Read all of Kathleen Harris' article.
For a thorough discussion of the problems with Canada's refugee system, read the Fraser Institute report: Canada's Dysfunctional Refugee Determination System. It can be downloaded free of charge in pdf format. See also Martin Collacott's report: Canada's Inadequate Response to Terrorism.
See also:
China accuses Canada of harbouring fugitive criminals
Canada's refugee determination board is staffed by amateurs. Some adjudicators barely speak English
Another refugee board scandal - this time in Quebec. Isn't $125,000 a year enough?
A Canada-wide arrest warrant has been issued for an American con artist who escaped state custody then claimed refugee status in Canada, Sun Media has learned.
Jeremy Clark-Erskine, a 33-year-old fugitive from Indiana state prison, was arrested in Jasper, Alta., last April for carrying false documents, phoney passports and stolen property. He served 21 days in jail.
Despite his fugitive status in the U.S., he was later released when a Jewish community group posted a $10,000 bond.
The Federal Court of Canada this week granted a judicial review of his case which had been rejected by the Immigration and Refugee Board.
[. . .]
Read all of Kathleen Harris' article.
For a thorough discussion of the problems with Canada's refugee system, read the Fraser Institute report: Canada's Dysfunctional Refugee Determination System. It can be downloaded free of charge in pdf format. See also Martin Collacott's report: Canada's Inadequate Response to Terrorism.
See also:
China accuses Canada of harbouring fugitive criminals
Canada's refugee determination board is staffed by amateurs. Some adjudicators barely speak English
Another refugee board scandal - this time in Quebec. Isn't $125,000 a year enough?
$273 million in questionable charitable receipts issued in the name of a Toronto Greek Orthodox church
From the Toronto Star (Charity tax dodge entangles parish by Kevin Donovan, April 28, 2007):
A small Greek Orthodox church in Toronto has been hijacked by a fundraising company that used the church's good name to issue $273 million in apparently phoney charitable tax receipts over the past five years.
It's part of a dubious tax shelter scheme cooked up by a Concord, Ont., company that promised to spread relief to the world. Some medical supplies, comics and crayons were distributed, but nothing on the scale that $273 million would buy.
"We were absolutely stunned when we found out about this," said Bill Arvanitis, a long-standing member of All Saints Greek Orthodox Church near Bayview Ave. and Finch Ave. E. Arvanitis is part of a new board of directors that recently took office. "Our little parish is struggling to meet its needs. I can tell you we did not receive $273 million in donations."
Federal officials estimate the scheme may have deprived government coffers of more than $100 million in unpaid taxes. The Canada Revenue Agency has begun tax audits on almost 3,000 donors to the "All Saints Giving Trust" – the tax shelter created by the fundraiser.
[. . .]
Read all of Kevin Donovan's article.
A small Greek Orthodox church in Toronto has been hijacked by a fundraising company that used the church's good name to issue $273 million in apparently phoney charitable tax receipts over the past five years.
It's part of a dubious tax shelter scheme cooked up by a Concord, Ont., company that promised to spread relief to the world. Some medical supplies, comics and crayons were distributed, but nothing on the scale that $273 million would buy.
"We were absolutely stunned when we found out about this," said Bill Arvanitis, a long-standing member of All Saints Greek Orthodox Church near Bayview Ave. and Finch Ave. E. Arvanitis is part of a new board of directors that recently took office. "Our little parish is struggling to meet its needs. I can tell you we did not receive $273 million in donations."
Federal officials estimate the scheme may have deprived government coffers of more than $100 million in unpaid taxes. The Canada Revenue Agency has begun tax audits on almost 3,000 donors to the "All Saints Giving Trust" – the tax shelter created by the fundraiser.
[. . .]
Read all of Kevin Donovan's article.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
My quick stab at defining Canada
I sometimes find that thinking clearly involves taking a close look at ordinary words we usually take for granted. Take, for example, the name Canada. Canadians talk about Canada all the time but we don't normally feel the need to say what Canada is. We know what we mean when we use the word but how many of us, if asked, could give a good definition? I don't think most people ever give much thought to what this thing called Canada really is. We all have a rough idea, but it's not something we usually think deeply about.
So, what is Canada? A simple answer would be: Canada is a country. It is one of the hundreds of countries that make up the world. That answer, however, doesn't help much. It just leads to another question. What is a country? I suppose a political scientist could give a very elaborate response, but since I'm not burdened by a degree in political science, I'll keep my own answer simple. A country is a political community consisting of people who inhabit territory defined by firm borders. Members of this political community live under one government and follow a common set of laws. Membership in the community carries with it rights and responsibilties not shared by those who aren't members.
If my definition of a country is accurate, then what specifically is the country we call Canada? Canada is the particular political community that occupies most of the northern half of North America. Who belongs to this community? Canadians do, obviously, but what do we mean when we say one person is Canadian and another person is not. Ultimately it comes down to legal status. A Canadian is a person who possesses Canadian citizenship or to put it another way, a Canadian is someone who the Canadian government recognizes as being part of the Canadian political community.
To say that some people are Canadian implies that others are not. Of the over 6 billion people who live on this planet, a mere 32 million are recognized as Canadian by Ottawa. Thirty-two million of us belong to this political community; the vast majority of humanity does not. It has to be that way. The well-being of Canadians depends on maintaining the distinction between those who belong to our political community and those who don't. Canada is an island of peace and prosperity in a world full of misery. If we don't restrict access to the island, we will be overrun by the world's poor. I feel compelled to point this out, because if some fools had their way, the whole world would be able to join our community and we would lose everything we have.
See also:
We are not all immigrants and immigrants did not create Canada
Vimy Ridge and the role of myth in fostering a shared sense of national identity
Respecting Canada's British heritage
So, what is Canada? A simple answer would be: Canada is a country. It is one of the hundreds of countries that make up the world. That answer, however, doesn't help much. It just leads to another question. What is a country? I suppose a political scientist could give a very elaborate response, but since I'm not burdened by a degree in political science, I'll keep my own answer simple. A country is a political community consisting of people who inhabit territory defined by firm borders. Members of this political community live under one government and follow a common set of laws. Membership in the community carries with it rights and responsibilties not shared by those who aren't members.
If my definition of a country is accurate, then what specifically is the country we call Canada? Canada is the particular political community that occupies most of the northern half of North America. Who belongs to this community? Canadians do, obviously, but what do we mean when we say one person is Canadian and another person is not. Ultimately it comes down to legal status. A Canadian is a person who possesses Canadian citizenship or to put it another way, a Canadian is someone who the Canadian government recognizes as being part of the Canadian political community.
To say that some people are Canadian implies that others are not. Of the over 6 billion people who live on this planet, a mere 32 million are recognized as Canadian by Ottawa. Thirty-two million of us belong to this political community; the vast majority of humanity does not. It has to be that way. The well-being of Canadians depends on maintaining the distinction between those who belong to our political community and those who don't. Canada is an island of peace and prosperity in a world full of misery. If we don't restrict access to the island, we will be overrun by the world's poor. I feel compelled to point this out, because if some fools had their way, the whole world would be able to join our community and we would lose everything we have.
See also:
We are not all immigrants and immigrants did not create Canada
Vimy Ridge and the role of myth in fostering a shared sense of national identity
Respecting Canada's British heritage
One fellow who won't be voting Conservative next election
Edward Michael George explains why he won't be voting Conservative next election: It's Official: They're Liberals! Paul Martin Liberals!.
See also Kathy Shaidle's blog post: Gerry Nichols for PM
I offer my own comments on Stephen Harper-style 'conservatism' here: Paul Gottfried says Ann Coulter is a Republican shill who keeps the American Right from taking off
See also Kathy Shaidle's blog post: Gerry Nichols for PM
I offer my own comments on Stephen Harper-style 'conservatism' here: Paul Gottfried says Ann Coulter is a Republican shill who keeps the American Right from taking off
Sex imbalance in China threatens social stability
There's an article in today's Globe and Mail about the growing imbalance between the number of men and women in China. This problem should also concern Canadians because thanks to immigration we now have large Chinese and South Asian populations where couples often abort girls in the womb because they would rather have a son. Read this blog entry: Women from Punjab pressured to abort female babies. See also Brenda Walker's article Dogs, Frogs and Dalits. It has links to articles about the sex imbalance in India.
From the Globe and Mail (Beijing's bachelor bulge: the unprecedented surplus of boys by Geoffrey York, April 28, 2007):
All across China, the dangerous combination of modern technology and traditional beliefs is creating a huge army of single men. By 2020, more than 30 million men of marriageable age will be unable to find wives. Ultrasound machines and selective abortions, combined with China's restrictive one-child policy, are helping parents to skew the gender ratio, with potentially disastrous consequences.
In China, the trend has become so extreme that it is believed to be unprecedented in human history. A recent Chinese government report warned that 118 boys were born for every 100 girls in 2005. The unbalance is most dramatic in the southern and rural regions where people still hold traditional biases in favour of male children. Hainan province, where 137 boys are born for every 100 girls, has the worst ratio in the country, and could be a harbinger of China's future.
[. . .]
Western scholars have predicted that China's demographic trend could trigger a rise in violent crime. “When single young men congregate, the potential for more organized aggression is likely to increase substantially, and this has worrying implications for organized crime and terrorism,” said Therese Hesketh, a researcher at University College London, in a commentary last year.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Canada already has a problem with Indo-Canadian gangs.]
[. . .]
One of the key questions is whether the bachelor hordes could become linked to political uprisings or wars. Scholars have pointed to the Nien Rebellion in northern China in the 1850s. After a series of failed harvests, the local inhabitants adopted a policy of infanticide, and eventually 25 per cent of the men were unable to marry because of a shortage of women. About 100,000 unmarried men formed bandit gangs, which merged into armies that tried to overthrow the Qing Dynasty in a war that lasted for years.
At the peak of the uprising, the population imbalance was 129 men for every 100 women, smaller than the gender gap that is already developing today on Hainan Island.
And the current problem is compounded by the migration of young women to the cities in search of jobs. The young men, as heirs to their families, are obliged to stay in their villages.
[. . .]
Read all of Geoffrey York's article.
From the Globe and Mail (Beijing's bachelor bulge: the unprecedented surplus of boys by Geoffrey York, April 28, 2007):
All across China, the dangerous combination of modern technology and traditional beliefs is creating a huge army of single men. By 2020, more than 30 million men of marriageable age will be unable to find wives. Ultrasound machines and selective abortions, combined with China's restrictive one-child policy, are helping parents to skew the gender ratio, with potentially disastrous consequences.
In China, the trend has become so extreme that it is believed to be unprecedented in human history. A recent Chinese government report warned that 118 boys were born for every 100 girls in 2005. The unbalance is most dramatic in the southern and rural regions where people still hold traditional biases in favour of male children. Hainan province, where 137 boys are born for every 100 girls, has the worst ratio in the country, and could be a harbinger of China's future.
[. . .]
Western scholars have predicted that China's demographic trend could trigger a rise in violent crime. “When single young men congregate, the potential for more organized aggression is likely to increase substantially, and this has worrying implications for organized crime and terrorism,” said Therese Hesketh, a researcher at University College London, in a commentary last year.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Canada already has a problem with Indo-Canadian gangs.]
[. . .]
One of the key questions is whether the bachelor hordes could become linked to political uprisings or wars. Scholars have pointed to the Nien Rebellion in northern China in the 1850s. After a series of failed harvests, the local inhabitants adopted a policy of infanticide, and eventually 25 per cent of the men were unable to marry because of a shortage of women. About 100,000 unmarried men formed bandit gangs, which merged into armies that tried to overthrow the Qing Dynasty in a war that lasted for years.
At the peak of the uprising, the population imbalance was 129 men for every 100 women, smaller than the gender gap that is already developing today on Hainan Island.
And the current problem is compounded by the migration of young women to the cities in search of jobs. The young men, as heirs to their families, are obliged to stay in their villages.
[. . .]
Read all of Geoffrey York's article.
Immigration grant uproar: McGuinty backs down after insinuating Tories are racist
From the Globe and Mail (Tory says McGuinty playing 'race card' by Karen Howlett, April 24, 2007):
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty last night attempted to douse a controversy over statements he made suggesting that opposition members are racist for attacking grants handed out to multicultural groups with ties to the Liberal Party.
[Note: The Ontario Liberal Party is separate from the federal Liberal Party although the two organizations have strong ties and overlapping memberships.]
When asked by a reporter whether he was suggesting that the Progressive Conservative and New Democrat members of the legislature are racist, he said: "I'll let Ontarians draw their own conclusions."
In a statement issued at 7 o'clock, more than six hours after he spoke to reporters, he clarified that response.
"The answer is no. I regret any misunderstanding this may have caused," Mr. McGuinty said in a statement.
[. . .]
The government used its majority on Thursday to block an opposition motion to have the Auditor-General investigate the grants. The government instead passed its own motion asking each group that has received funds during the most recent fiscal year to report on the status of its grant within six months - some time after the election. The grants totalled $20.4-million in the fiscal year ending March 31, and $12-million during the previous year.
[. . .]
Read all of Karen Howlett's article.
See also:
Ontario 'slush fund' controversy: McGuinty stands by Colle
$200,000 grant to Iranian group with ties to provincial Liberals
Some Bengalis are more equal than other Bengalis. Canadians just pay the bill
Ontario Conservatives protest grants to Liberal-friendly ethnic organizations
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty last night attempted to douse a controversy over statements he made suggesting that opposition members are racist for attacking grants handed out to multicultural groups with ties to the Liberal Party.
[Note: The Ontario Liberal Party is separate from the federal Liberal Party although the two organizations have strong ties and overlapping memberships.]
When asked by a reporter whether he was suggesting that the Progressive Conservative and New Democrat members of the legislature are racist, he said: "I'll let Ontarians draw their own conclusions."
In a statement issued at 7 o'clock, more than six hours after he spoke to reporters, he clarified that response.
"The answer is no. I regret any misunderstanding this may have caused," Mr. McGuinty said in a statement.
[. . .]
The government used its majority on Thursday to block an opposition motion to have the Auditor-General investigate the grants. The government instead passed its own motion asking each group that has received funds during the most recent fiscal year to report on the status of its grant within six months - some time after the election. The grants totalled $20.4-million in the fiscal year ending March 31, and $12-million during the previous year.
[. . .]
Read all of Karen Howlett's article.
See also:
Ontario 'slush fund' controversy: McGuinty stands by Colle
$200,000 grant to Iranian group with ties to provincial Liberals
Some Bengalis are more equal than other Bengalis. Canadians just pay the bill
Ontario Conservatives protest grants to Liberal-friendly ethnic organizations
Friday, April 27, 2007
Ontario 'slush fund' controversy: McGuinty stands by Colle
From the Toronto Star (Premier stands by Colle by Rob Ferguson, April 25, 2007):
Premier Dalton McGuinty stood by his embattled immigration minister yesterday, exploiting an opposition error in a bid to deflect charges the government is handing out "slush funds" to groups with Liberal ties.
[. . .]
Opposition parties maintain the Liberals have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups with strong ties to the party – including $200,000 to an Iranian-Canadian Community Centre, whose members include the Liberal candidate for Richmond Hill in the Oct. 10 provincial election – without any formal application progress or audits to make sure the money was spent properly.
But the Progressive Conservatives were forced to admit yesterday a group they singled out doesn't appear to have a Liberal connection after all.
[. . .]
Colle moved to close that loophole, promising a formal online application process will be in place by week's end and saying the government relies on the "track records" of organizations to spend the money wisely.
But opposition parties say that won't help taxpayers decide if $32 million handed out to dozens of community groups in the past two years was legitimate.
[. . .]
Read all of Rob Ferguson's article.
See also:
List of immigration and citizenship grants given to groups with Liberal ties
$200,000 grant to Iranian group with ties to provincial Liberals
Some Bengalis are more equal than other Bengalis. Canadians just pay the bill
Ontario Conservatives protest grants to Liberal-friendly ethnic organizations
Premier Dalton McGuinty stood by his embattled immigration minister yesterday, exploiting an opposition error in a bid to deflect charges the government is handing out "slush funds" to groups with Liberal ties.
[. . .]
Opposition parties maintain the Liberals have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups with strong ties to the party – including $200,000 to an Iranian-Canadian Community Centre, whose members include the Liberal candidate for Richmond Hill in the Oct. 10 provincial election – without any formal application progress or audits to make sure the money was spent properly.
But the Progressive Conservatives were forced to admit yesterday a group they singled out doesn't appear to have a Liberal connection after all.
[. . .]
Colle moved to close that loophole, promising a formal online application process will be in place by week's end and saying the government relies on the "track records" of organizations to spend the money wisely.
But opposition parties say that won't help taxpayers decide if $32 million handed out to dozens of community groups in the past two years was legitimate.
[. . .]
Read all of Rob Ferguson's article.
See also:
List of immigration and citizenship grants given to groups with Liberal ties
$200,000 grant to Iranian group with ties to provincial Liberals
Some Bengalis are more equal than other Bengalis. Canadians just pay the bill
Ontario Conservatives protest grants to Liberal-friendly ethnic organizations
$200,000 grant to Iranian group with ties to provincial Liberals
From the Toronto Star (Questions raised over group's grant by Rob Ferguson and Robert Benzie, April 20, 2007):
An Iranian community group, whose members include Ontario Liberals, received a $200,000 immigrant aid grant from the provincial government only three weeks after it was registered as a charity.
New Democrat MPP Michael Prue (Beaches-East York) revealed yesterday an apparently bizarre transaction involving the Iranian-Canadian Community Centre.
The centre was first listed with the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency as a charitable organization in the category "protection of animals," but later was changed to the category "recreation, playgrounds and vacation camps."
Its directors include the Liberal candidate for the new riding of Richmond Hill in the Oct. 10 provincial election and the riding association president, whose North York law office is listed as the charity's mailing address.
Another director, Bohran Fouladi, is a long-time acquaintance of Finance Minister Greg Sorbara who received official notification from Citizenship and Immigration Minister Mike Colle that the grant was approved March 27, 2006.
[. . .]
Read all of the Star article.
See also:
List of immigration and citizenship grants given to groups with Liberal ties
Some Bengalis are more equal than other Bengalis. Canadians just pay the bill
Ontario Conservatives protest grants to Liberal-friendly ethnic organizations
An Iranian community group, whose members include Ontario Liberals, received a $200,000 immigrant aid grant from the provincial government only three weeks after it was registered as a charity.
New Democrat MPP Michael Prue (Beaches-East York) revealed yesterday an apparently bizarre transaction involving the Iranian-Canadian Community Centre.
The centre was first listed with the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency as a charitable organization in the category "protection of animals," but later was changed to the category "recreation, playgrounds and vacation camps."
Its directors include the Liberal candidate for the new riding of Richmond Hill in the Oct. 10 provincial election and the riding association president, whose North York law office is listed as the charity's mailing address.
Another director, Bohran Fouladi, is a long-time acquaintance of Finance Minister Greg Sorbara who received official notification from Citizenship and Immigration Minister Mike Colle that the grant was approved March 27, 2006.
[. . .]
Read all of the Star article.
See also:
List of immigration and citizenship grants given to groups with Liberal ties
Some Bengalis are more equal than other Bengalis. Canadians just pay the bill
Ontario Conservatives protest grants to Liberal-friendly ethnic organizations
Some Bengalis are more equal than other Bengalis. Canadians just pay the bill
Ian Urquhart writes in the Toronto Star (Grant turns into gift that keeps on griping, April 18, 2007):
There were smiles all around when Citizenship Minister Mike Colle handed over a cheque for $250,000 to the Bengali Cultural Society at a press conference last month.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Colle was born in Italy.]
The ceremony took place in the Crescent Town community at Danforth and Victoria Park, home to several thousand Bangladeshi Canadians.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: There are a lot of Bengalis in my neighbourhood as well, which helps explain the big mosque on Bloor St.]
Maria Minna, federal representative for the area and a Liberal, was in attendance. Mike Prue, the provincial member and a New Democrat, was not invited to the event.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: In May 2000, Maria Minna along with future Prime Minister Paul Martin attended a fundraising dinner for the Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils (FACT), a group identified as a Tamil Tiger front by the US state department and CSIS. When the members of the now defunct Canadian Alliance party criticized the pair, they responded with charges of racism. That Minna still has a political career tells us all we need to know about the debased nature of Canadian politics. That Paul Martin was able to become Prime Minister after this scandal says even more.]
[. . .]
Prominent Bangladeshi Canadians say that the Bengali Cultural Society is not a big player in the community, that it is not even based in Crescent Town, and that higher-profile groups were unaware that a grant was in the offing.
Furthermore, they suggest the Bengali Cultural Society obtained the grant because it is politically connected.
"We welcome the money in the community," said Mustaq Ahmed of Bangladeshi Canadian Community Services, an organization that receives funding from the United Way and the city. "But who (sic) is this organization?"
He said Bangladeshi Canadian Community Services would have welcomed the grant, "but we had no clue it (the provincial government) was giving out that sort of money."
Abdul Khandakar of the Bangladesh Association of Toronto said the Bengali Cultural Society "is not well known" and added: "We would like that money."
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Wonderful. Why should any ethnic organization get any money from the public purse? Cut taxes and let the taxpayer spend his own money however he chooses.]
Both men pointed to connections between the Bengali Cultural Society and the Liberals, particularly Minna, as the likely explanation for the grant.
[. . .]
Read all of Ian Urquhart's column.
See also:
Ontario Conservatives protest grants to Liberal-friendly ethnic organizations
Tarek Fatah describes demands made by ethnic delegates at the Liberal convention. Tamils wanted terrorist group delisted
The perils of ethnic pandering: Canadian branch of Pakistani political movement accused of terrorism actively supports the federal Conservatives
Pandering to Ukrainians part of Harper strategy
There were smiles all around when Citizenship Minister Mike Colle handed over a cheque for $250,000 to the Bengali Cultural Society at a press conference last month.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Colle was born in Italy.]
The ceremony took place in the Crescent Town community at Danforth and Victoria Park, home to several thousand Bangladeshi Canadians.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: There are a lot of Bengalis in my neighbourhood as well, which helps explain the big mosque on Bloor St.]
Maria Minna, federal representative for the area and a Liberal, was in attendance. Mike Prue, the provincial member and a New Democrat, was not invited to the event.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: In May 2000, Maria Minna along with future Prime Minister Paul Martin attended a fundraising dinner for the Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils (FACT), a group identified as a Tamil Tiger front by the US state department and CSIS. When the members of the now defunct Canadian Alliance party criticized the pair, they responded with charges of racism. That Minna still has a political career tells us all we need to know about the debased nature of Canadian politics. That Paul Martin was able to become Prime Minister after this scandal says even more.]
[. . .]
Prominent Bangladeshi Canadians say that the Bengali Cultural Society is not a big player in the community, that it is not even based in Crescent Town, and that higher-profile groups were unaware that a grant was in the offing.
Furthermore, they suggest the Bengali Cultural Society obtained the grant because it is politically connected.
"We welcome the money in the community," said Mustaq Ahmed of Bangladeshi Canadian Community Services, an organization that receives funding from the United Way and the city. "But who (sic) is this organization?"
He said Bangladeshi Canadian Community Services would have welcomed the grant, "but we had no clue it (the provincial government) was giving out that sort of money."
Abdul Khandakar of the Bangladesh Association of Toronto said the Bengali Cultural Society "is not well known" and added: "We would like that money."
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Wonderful. Why should any ethnic organization get any money from the public purse? Cut taxes and let the taxpayer spend his own money however he chooses.]
Both men pointed to connections between the Bengali Cultural Society and the Liberals, particularly Minna, as the likely explanation for the grant.
[. . .]
Read all of Ian Urquhart's column.
See also:
Ontario Conservatives protest grants to Liberal-friendly ethnic organizations
Tarek Fatah describes demands made by ethnic delegates at the Liberal convention. Tamils wanted terrorist group delisted
The perils of ethnic pandering: Canadian branch of Pakistani political movement accused of terrorism actively supports the federal Conservatives
Pandering to Ukrainians part of Harper strategy
Ontario Conservatives protest grants to Liberal-friendly ethnic organizations
From the Globe and Mail (Tories in uproar over grants by Karen Howlett, April 27, 2007):
The Ontario government, facing an increasingly irate opposition, blocked a motion yesterday to have the Auditor-General investigate an alleged multimillion-dollar slush fund used to hand out grants to community groups with ties to the Liberal Party.
[A note to readers outside Canada: Canada is a federation consisting of ten provinces and three territories. (Territories have less autonomy than provinces.) Three of the four main federal political parties: the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP have provincial counterparts bearing the same name, but these provincial parties are separate entities. The federal Liberals and the Ontario provincial Liberals are separate organizations though there are strong ties between the two. I mention this because in the past I've blogged about the influence of ethnic lobbies inside the federal Liberal party. This story is about the Ontario Liberal party, but the federal Liberals in the person of Maria Minna are also involved.]
Its refusal to have the provincial auditor scrutinize the grants paved the way for a raucous Question Period that saw two Progressive Conservative members ejected from the chamber, the governing Liberals accused of "low-brow, low-down disgusting tactics" by Opposition Leader John Tory, and the Speaker of the legislature on the verge of losing control over MPPs' behaviour.
[Another note to readers outside Canada: Tory is a nickname for Conservatives so it's both appropriate and kind of funny to have an Ontario Conservative leader named Tory.]
In the end, the government used its majority to pass its own motion asking each group that has received funding during the most recent fiscal year to report on the status of its grant within six months -- which would fall weeks after the provincial election on Oct. 10.
The grants to multicultural groups have been rushed out at the end of the past two fiscal years and totalled $20.4-million in the year ended March 31 and $12-million during the previous fiscal year. The government has conceded there was no formal application process for the unadvertised funding.
[. . .}
Read all of Karen Howlett's article.
See also:
McGuinty's visit to Punjab a 'giant photo op' for Sikh voters in Ontario
Toronto Sun: Punjabi newspapers accuse provincial cabinet minister of trying to shut them down
Politics in Brampton, Ontario: "non-ethnics" need not apply
The Ontario government, facing an increasingly irate opposition, blocked a motion yesterday to have the Auditor-General investigate an alleged multimillion-dollar slush fund used to hand out grants to community groups with ties to the Liberal Party.
[A note to readers outside Canada: Canada is a federation consisting of ten provinces and three territories. (Territories have less autonomy than provinces.) Three of the four main federal political parties: the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP have provincial counterparts bearing the same name, but these provincial parties are separate entities. The federal Liberals and the Ontario provincial Liberals are separate organizations though there are strong ties between the two. I mention this because in the past I've blogged about the influence of ethnic lobbies inside the federal Liberal party. This story is about the Ontario Liberal party, but the federal Liberals in the person of Maria Minna are also involved.]
Its refusal to have the provincial auditor scrutinize the grants paved the way for a raucous Question Period that saw two Progressive Conservative members ejected from the chamber, the governing Liberals accused of "low-brow, low-down disgusting tactics" by Opposition Leader John Tory, and the Speaker of the legislature on the verge of losing control over MPPs' behaviour.
[Another note to readers outside Canada: Tory is a nickname for Conservatives so it's both appropriate and kind of funny to have an Ontario Conservative leader named Tory.]
In the end, the government used its majority to pass its own motion asking each group that has received funding during the most recent fiscal year to report on the status of its grant within six months -- which would fall weeks after the provincial election on Oct. 10.
The grants to multicultural groups have been rushed out at the end of the past two fiscal years and totalled $20.4-million in the year ended March 31 and $12-million during the previous fiscal year. The government has conceded there was no formal application process for the unadvertised funding.
[. . .}
Read all of Karen Howlett's article.
See also:
McGuinty's visit to Punjab a 'giant photo op' for Sikh voters in Ontario
Toronto Sun: Punjabi newspapers accuse provincial cabinet minister of trying to shut them down
Politics in Brampton, Ontario: "non-ethnics" need not apply
Dutch school scraps nature course. Lesson about pigs enrages Muslim pupils
From NIS News (School Scraps Nature Course As Pigs Enrage Muslim Pupils, April 27, 2007):
A school in Amsterdam has halted lessons on rural life because the Islamic children refused to talk about pigs. Reporting this, Alderman Lodewijk Asscher said he wants to take "tough measures." Subsidies for all kinds of dubious groups must stop and parents of unruly children penalised financially.
Asscher told newspaper De Volkskrant: "A primary school in Amsterdam-Noord has decided no longer to teach about living on a farm. Various pupils began to demolish the classroom when the pig came up for discussion. Apparently it has gone that far. These children, 9, 10 years old, have not been given even the most elementary rules at home about why they must go to school."
Asscher, who is also the Labour (PvdA) leader in Amsterdam, wants to subject the parents to an 'upbringing requirement,' enforced with negative financial spurs. He is thinking of cuts in the children's allowance or lower welfare payments. In the Lower House, Youth and Family Minister Rouvoet recently rejected a plea for this from Party for Freedom (PVV).
[. . .]
Read the whole article.
Hat tips: Jihad Watch Relapsed Catholic
See also:
Working class whites riot in Utrecht
Fingers in the Dyke: Dutch Fear Rising Ethnic Tensions
Dutch Immigration (Part 1) -- The Death Of Multiculturalism
Mohammed cartoon discussion: Did you really mean to say Denmark is a Christian country? Perhaps you misspoke.
A school in Amsterdam has halted lessons on rural life because the Islamic children refused to talk about pigs. Reporting this, Alderman Lodewijk Asscher said he wants to take "tough measures." Subsidies for all kinds of dubious groups must stop and parents of unruly children penalised financially.
Asscher told newspaper De Volkskrant: "A primary school in Amsterdam-Noord has decided no longer to teach about living on a farm. Various pupils began to demolish the classroom when the pig came up for discussion. Apparently it has gone that far. These children, 9, 10 years old, have not been given even the most elementary rules at home about why they must go to school."
Asscher, who is also the Labour (PvdA) leader in Amsterdam, wants to subject the parents to an 'upbringing requirement,' enforced with negative financial spurs. He is thinking of cuts in the children's allowance or lower welfare payments. In the Lower House, Youth and Family Minister Rouvoet recently rejected a plea for this from Party for Freedom (PVV).
[. . .]
Read the whole article.
Hat tips: Jihad Watch Relapsed Catholic
See also:
Working class whites riot in Utrecht
Fingers in the Dyke: Dutch Fear Rising Ethnic Tensions
Dutch Immigration (Part 1) -- The Death Of Multiculturalism
Mohammed cartoon discussion: Did you really mean to say Denmark is a Christian country? Perhaps you misspoke.
Project OSALUKI - RCMP investigation of the World Tamil Movement
Stewart Bell writes in the National Post (RCMP's Tamil probe extended, April 27, 2007):
A year after the RCMP raided a Canadian non-profit organization suspected of financing arms purchases for the Tamil Tigers terrorist group, investigators are still sorting through the boxes of materials they hauled away in a moving truck.
Although police have not commented on their investigation into the World Tamil Movement (WTM), an RCMP affidavit filed this week says officers are working full-time to translate and analyze more than 1,000 exhibits.
[. . .]
The RCMP probe, called Project OSALUKI, is one of several underway in the United States, Britain and France that are attempting to unravel the financial and procurement networks of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE.
[. . .]
The RCMP investigation began in July, 2002, but took on new urgency after the Conservatives added the LTTE to Canada's list of outlawed terrorist organizations on April 8, 2006.
Within days, surveillance teams spotted WTM members removing boxes from the group's offices in Montreal and Toronto.
Police obtained search warrants and moved in.
Inside the WTM offices, police found Tamil Tigers flags, manuals on missileguidance systems, books encouraging suicide bombings and paperwork they claim is evidence of terrorist fundraising.
Also seized were "comprehensive lists" of ethnic Tamils living in Canada that showed the amount of money each had donated. Lists of business donors and cancelled cheques to the WTM were found as well, many of them in excess of $10,000.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: In March 2006, Human Rights Watch issued a report describing how the Tamil Tigers use "intimidation, extortion and even violence" to raise money for military operations in Sri Lanka. In December, the organization wrote a letter to Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair and to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day. The letter said Ottawa's decision to outlaw the Tigers had a positive effect, but more needed to be done to combat the Tigers use of extortion and intimidation to raise funds in the Tamil community. ]
The investigators also found evidence the WTM had collected taxes for the Tigers, produced propaganda materials and "specifically promotes and commemorates the activities of LTTE operatives, including suicide bombers."
The RCMP says there are reasonable grounds to believe the WTM has violated three of Canada's terror-financing laws by collecting money knowing it would be used by a terrorist group and terrorist activity. No charges have been laid.
[. . .]
Read all of Stewart Bell's article.
See also:
Toronto Star: RCMP raids Toronto Tamil offices
World Tamil Movement accuses Toronto police of 'discrimination'
Banning Tamil Tigers had positive effects but Ottawa and Toronto police should do more - Human Rights Watch
Ottawa finally bans Tamil Tigers
A year after the RCMP raided a Canadian non-profit organization suspected of financing arms purchases for the Tamil Tigers terrorist group, investigators are still sorting through the boxes of materials they hauled away in a moving truck.
Although police have not commented on their investigation into the World Tamil Movement (WTM), an RCMP affidavit filed this week says officers are working full-time to translate and analyze more than 1,000 exhibits.
[. . .]
The RCMP probe, called Project OSALUKI, is one of several underway in the United States, Britain and France that are attempting to unravel the financial and procurement networks of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE.
[. . .]
The RCMP investigation began in July, 2002, but took on new urgency after the Conservatives added the LTTE to Canada's list of outlawed terrorist organizations on April 8, 2006.
Within days, surveillance teams spotted WTM members removing boxes from the group's offices in Montreal and Toronto.
Police obtained search warrants and moved in.
Inside the WTM offices, police found Tamil Tigers flags, manuals on missileguidance systems, books encouraging suicide bombings and paperwork they claim is evidence of terrorist fundraising.
Also seized were "comprehensive lists" of ethnic Tamils living in Canada that showed the amount of money each had donated. Lists of business donors and cancelled cheques to the WTM were found as well, many of them in excess of $10,000.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: In March 2006, Human Rights Watch issued a report describing how the Tamil Tigers use "intimidation, extortion and even violence" to raise money for military operations in Sri Lanka. In December, the organization wrote a letter to Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair and to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day. The letter said Ottawa's decision to outlaw the Tigers had a positive effect, but more needed to be done to combat the Tigers use of extortion and intimidation to raise funds in the Tamil community. ]
The investigators also found evidence the WTM had collected taxes for the Tigers, produced propaganda materials and "specifically promotes and commemorates the activities of LTTE operatives, including suicide bombers."
The RCMP says there are reasonable grounds to believe the WTM has violated three of Canada's terror-financing laws by collecting money knowing it would be used by a terrorist group and terrorist activity. No charges have been laid.
[. . .]
Read all of Stewart Bell's article.
See also:
Toronto Star: RCMP raids Toronto Tamil offices
World Tamil Movement accuses Toronto police of 'discrimination'
Banning Tamil Tigers had positive effects but Ottawa and Toronto police should do more - Human Rights Watch
Ottawa finally bans Tamil Tigers
Swedish bus driver suspended after complaint from woman in a burka
Fjordman writes in the Brussels Journal (Burqa on the Bus, April 26, 2007):
A bus driver in Malmö, Sweden, has been suspended after he allegedly tried to stop a woman from boarding because she was wearing a burqa. According to the woman the driver said that her burqa made her hard to identify. “I have never before needed to identify myself on a public bus. Wearing a burqa is my own choice and doesn’t make me any more threatening than anyone else,” she says.
Read all of Fjordman's article.
Fjordman calls Malmo the worst town in Sweden. It was the scene of recent riots.
See also:
Toronto bus drivers told not to challenge Muslim women whose faces are covered
Armed robber in Brampton used burqa as disguise
The Times - British terrorist suspect wore burka to evade arrest
A bus driver in Malmö, Sweden, has been suspended after he allegedly tried to stop a woman from boarding because she was wearing a burqa. According to the woman the driver said that her burqa made her hard to identify. “I have never before needed to identify myself on a public bus. Wearing a burqa is my own choice and doesn’t make me any more threatening than anyone else,” she says.
Read all of Fjordman's article.
Fjordman calls Malmo the worst town in Sweden. It was the scene of recent riots.
See also:
Toronto bus drivers told not to challenge Muslim women whose faces are covered
Armed robber in Brampton used burqa as disguise
The Times - British terrorist suspect wore burka to evade arrest
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Scarborough house firebombed. 'Sri Lankan' BNS 'gang' suspected
From the Toronto Star (Bullies suspected in house fire by Tracy Huffman, April 26, 2007):
The day before his home burst into flames, critically injuring his mother, Pream Anandarajah told a friend he was worried the youths bullying him at high school were going to come after his family.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: The school is Stephen Leacock Collegiate.]
"He was telling me yesterday he was scared, that he thought they were going to come and bother the family," said Pream's friend, who asked not to be named because he fears he could become a target.
The friend said 18-year-old Anandarajah is small and was often picked on by a group of Sri Lankan youths who call themselves the BNS gang and hang around Birchmount Rd. and Sheppard Ave. E.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: This is the first I've heard of the BNS gang, but 'Sri Lankan' almost certainly means Tamil because as far as I know there aren't any Sinhalese gangs in Toronto. Also, Stephen Leacock Collegiate has a Tamil Association. Are the police and/or the Star deliberately avoiding the label Tamil? I don't know.]
Now, Pream's mother is in hospital in critical condition with burns to about 30 per cent of her body. She and a younger daughter were asleep in the living room when a bottle was hurled through the window if their Gilroy Dr. home, police said. His sister remains in hospital with non life-threatening burns.
Pream and his younger brother were taken to hospital but released a few hours later. Their father was at work at the time of the blaze.
A bottle was found inside the living room and police haven't ruled out the possibility that the fire was connected to a stabbing hours before at a nearby high school.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: The stabbing took place at Winston Churchill Collegiate and the Toronto Sun reports that Pream Anandarajah (the Sun spells the name Pirasanna "Prem" Anantharajah) knew the victim. Last year, Toronto police refused to send officers to a World Tamil Movement event held at the school.]
[. . .]
Read all of Tracy Huffman's article.
See also:
Tamil refugee to be deported for gang-related activities. Believed to have links to Tamil Tigers.
Legal rulings complicate gang prosecutions
Ontario Safe Schools Act - Liberals plan to abolish zero-tolerance policy. Too many black students being expelled
The day before his home burst into flames, critically injuring his mother, Pream Anandarajah told a friend he was worried the youths bullying him at high school were going to come after his family.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: The school is Stephen Leacock Collegiate.]
"He was telling me yesterday he was scared, that he thought they were going to come and bother the family," said Pream's friend, who asked not to be named because he fears he could become a target.
The friend said 18-year-old Anandarajah is small and was often picked on by a group of Sri Lankan youths who call themselves the BNS gang and hang around Birchmount Rd. and Sheppard Ave. E.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: This is the first I've heard of the BNS gang, but 'Sri Lankan' almost certainly means Tamil because as far as I know there aren't any Sinhalese gangs in Toronto. Also, Stephen Leacock Collegiate has a Tamil Association. Are the police and/or the Star deliberately avoiding the label Tamil? I don't know.]
Now, Pream's mother is in hospital in critical condition with burns to about 30 per cent of her body. She and a younger daughter were asleep in the living room when a bottle was hurled through the window if their Gilroy Dr. home, police said. His sister remains in hospital with non life-threatening burns.
Pream and his younger brother were taken to hospital but released a few hours later. Their father was at work at the time of the blaze.
A bottle was found inside the living room and police haven't ruled out the possibility that the fire was connected to a stabbing hours before at a nearby high school.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: The stabbing took place at Winston Churchill Collegiate and the Toronto Sun reports that Pream Anandarajah (the Sun spells the name Pirasanna "Prem" Anantharajah) knew the victim. Last year, Toronto police refused to send officers to a World Tamil Movement event held at the school.]
[. . .]
Read all of Tracy Huffman's article.
See also:
Tamil refugee to be deported for gang-related activities. Believed to have links to Tamil Tigers.
Legal rulings complicate gang prosecutions
Ontario Safe Schools Act - Liberals plan to abolish zero-tolerance policy. Too many black students being expelled
Meet you at the corner of Crack and Whore
I've been involved for a while with a local community group that is trying to improve my neighbourhood. The area I live in isn't all bad, but there are certain places that are hotspots for crime. In particular, there is an intersection, Lansdowne and Bloor, that is notorious for drugs and to a lesser extent prostitution.
My involvement with the community group includes going to a monthly meeting with the police where residents can discuss local crime and other issues. At the last meeting there was a woman from another neighbourhood. When the subject of Lansdowne and Bloor came up, she said her friends call the intersection Crack and Whore.
I've been trying to remember if I've ever heard anyone else use that name. I seem to vaguely recall hearing that expression being used before, but I'm not sure. I certainly don't know anyone who uses it regularly.
It's interesting to me to see how my neighbourhood is perceived by outsiders. Last fall I was at another event where community groups from across the city got together to exchange ideas and knowledge. While I was manning my group's table, I was approached by an elderly woman from Rosedale, which is a wealthy section of Toronto. She wanted to know where my group was from. Maybe it was my imagination, but when I used Lansdowne and Bloor as a reference point, her demeanour seemed to change. She seemed to become standoffish. As I said, it may have been my imagination, but I remember thinking at the time, 'This woman is acting like I have cooties.'
See also:
Hi. I'm a heroin addict.
Another Sun columnist is disillusioned with Toronto
Toronto is in decline - Sun columnist
My involvement with the community group includes going to a monthly meeting with the police where residents can discuss local crime and other issues. At the last meeting there was a woman from another neighbourhood. When the subject of Lansdowne and Bloor came up, she said her friends call the intersection Crack and Whore.
I've been trying to remember if I've ever heard anyone else use that name. I seem to vaguely recall hearing that expression being used before, but I'm not sure. I certainly don't know anyone who uses it regularly.
It's interesting to me to see how my neighbourhood is perceived by outsiders. Last fall I was at another event where community groups from across the city got together to exchange ideas and knowledge. While I was manning my group's table, I was approached by an elderly woman from Rosedale, which is a wealthy section of Toronto. She wanted to know where my group was from. Maybe it was my imagination, but when I used Lansdowne and Bloor as a reference point, her demeanour seemed to change. She seemed to become standoffish. As I said, it may have been my imagination, but I remember thinking at the time, 'This woman is acting like I have cooties.'
See also:
Hi. I'm a heroin addict.
Another Sun columnist is disillusioned with Toronto
Toronto is in decline - Sun columnist
'I see a devil's brew for future racial and social unrest"
Carol M. Swain is a professor of law and political science at Vanderbilt University. She is also the author of a book called The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration. In 2003, she took part in a Frontpage Magazine symposium on white nationalism, during which she was asked along with her fellow panelists to answer these questions:
What do you see as the future of American race relations? Will we come together as a nation or become increasingly divided over issues of race?
I found her reply interesting because I believe the situation in Canada, or at least in Toronto, is similar to the situation in the US as described by her:
I believe that we are increasingly at risk of unprecedented levels of racial conflict and turmoil because of conditions coming together at this point in history. These conditions include the continuing influx into the country of non-white immigrants and the prospect that America in the not-too-distant future will cease to be a white majority nation. Many Americans are worried about liberal immigration policies, the decline in high paying, low-skill industrial jobs, and globalization.
Census Bureau data show that all Americans have experienced a loss in real wages and that non-Hispanic whites have had the sharpest increase in poverty. Also, certain social, political, and economic conditions can spur rises in hate crimes against disfavored groups. I see a devil's brew for future racial and social unrest. White nationalists stand ready to exploit the frustrations of ordinary white Americans. Another powerful source of future conflict comes from the rising expectations and demands of racial minorities for a greater share of the nation's wealth and political power.
Read the entire transcript from the symposium.
See also:
History about white people for white people
Dalhousie fallout - long National Post article about Jared Taylor, racism and freedom of speech
Princeton sociologist: "Toronto is becoming increasingly segregated along racial and economic lines"
What do you see as the future of American race relations? Will we come together as a nation or become increasingly divided over issues of race?
I found her reply interesting because I believe the situation in Canada, or at least in Toronto, is similar to the situation in the US as described by her:
I believe that we are increasingly at risk of unprecedented levels of racial conflict and turmoil because of conditions coming together at this point in history. These conditions include the continuing influx into the country of non-white immigrants and the prospect that America in the not-too-distant future will cease to be a white majority nation. Many Americans are worried about liberal immigration policies, the decline in high paying, low-skill industrial jobs, and globalization.
Census Bureau data show that all Americans have experienced a loss in real wages and that non-Hispanic whites have had the sharpest increase in poverty. Also, certain social, political, and economic conditions can spur rises in hate crimes against disfavored groups. I see a devil's brew for future racial and social unrest. White nationalists stand ready to exploit the frustrations of ordinary white Americans. Another powerful source of future conflict comes from the rising expectations and demands of racial minorities for a greater share of the nation's wealth and political power.
Read the entire transcript from the symposium.
See also:
History about white people for white people
Dalhousie fallout - long National Post article about Jared Taylor, racism and freedom of speech
Princeton sociologist: "Toronto is becoming increasingly segregated along racial and economic lines"
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Selwyn Pieters says Richard Steele has no obligation to testify - National Post reports
From the National Post (Creba witness says he fears for his life by Shannon Kari, April 25, 2007):
Steele's lawyer, Selwyn Pieters, agreed his client has "material information," but said his life could be at risk if he testifies.
"He does not have a duty to testify," Mr. Pieters said outside court. "Do you ever have a police officer coming forward to testify against other officers? Police don't do it. They have a code of silence."
Ms. Steele, a former head of the Jamaican Canadian Association, said outside court she is concerned her son will not be protected by the authorities if he testifies. "The police came to my home and destroyed it," she said, in reference to officers executing a search warrant last year as part of the Creba investigation.
Read all of Shannon Kari's article.
See also:
Judge says Richard Steele must testify in the Jane Creba shooting trial
Why is the Star treating black leader Valarie Steele as a victim?
What has changed in the last forty years to make Toronto a violent city?
Steele's lawyer, Selwyn Pieters, agreed his client has "material information," but said his life could be at risk if he testifies.
"He does not have a duty to testify," Mr. Pieters said outside court. "Do you ever have a police officer coming forward to testify against other officers? Police don't do it. They have a code of silence."
Ms. Steele, a former head of the Jamaican Canadian Association, said outside court she is concerned her son will not be protected by the authorities if he testifies. "The police came to my home and destroyed it," she said, in reference to officers executing a search warrant last year as part of the Creba investigation.
Read all of Shannon Kari's article.
See also:
Judge says Richard Steele must testify in the Jane Creba shooting trial
Why is the Star treating black leader Valarie Steele as a victim?
What has changed in the last forty years to make Toronto a violent city?
The sequence of events that led to Jane Creba's death
From the Globe and Mail (How a flurry of fists led to teenager's fatal shooting by Anthony Reinhart, April 25, 2007):
A veil of secrecy was lifted from the investigation of the Boxing Day, 2005, shooting death of Toronto teenager Jane Creba Tuesday when a judge allowed the publication of a sworn statement from one of the lead detectives.
In his affidavit, which The Globe and Mail successfully argued should be made public, Detective Brian Borg summarizes information from wiretaps and interviews and shines a light into the murky world of street thuggery carried out by youths who tuck their “burners” into their waistbands and get “merked” or shot. It also describes a day of otherwise typical teen behaviour by these same individuals – hanging at the mall, chatting on cellphones – until the guns came out.
Det. Borg's account was entered in evidence for a court proceeding involving Richard Steele, now 20.
According to the affidavit, Mr. Steele was overheard saying he was “standing right beside” Ms. Creba when she was shot.
Twelve people, including three youths, face murder or manslaughter charges. None of those charges have been tried in court, and Det. Borg's timeline has yet to be tested before a judge.
[. . .]
Read all of Anthony Reinhart's article.
See also:
Judge says Richard Steele must testify in the Jane Creba shooting trial
What has changed in the last forty years to make Toronto a violent city?
A veil of secrecy was lifted from the investigation of the Boxing Day, 2005, shooting death of Toronto teenager Jane Creba Tuesday when a judge allowed the publication of a sworn statement from one of the lead detectives.
In his affidavit, which The Globe and Mail successfully argued should be made public, Detective Brian Borg summarizes information from wiretaps and interviews and shines a light into the murky world of street thuggery carried out by youths who tuck their “burners” into their waistbands and get “merked” or shot. It also describes a day of otherwise typical teen behaviour by these same individuals – hanging at the mall, chatting on cellphones – until the guns came out.
Det. Borg's account was entered in evidence for a court proceeding involving Richard Steele, now 20.
According to the affidavit, Mr. Steele was overheard saying he was “standing right beside” Ms. Creba when she was shot.
Twelve people, including three youths, face murder or manslaughter charges. None of those charges have been tried in court, and Det. Borg's timeline has yet to be tested before a judge.
[. . .]
Read all of Anthony Reinhart's article.
See also:
Judge says Richard Steele must testify in the Jane Creba shooting trial
What has changed in the last forty years to make Toronto a violent city?
Judge says Richard Steele must testify in the Jane Creba shooting trial
From the National Post (Creba witness says he fears for his life by Shannon Kari, April 25, 2007):
A key Crown witness in the trial of the young men charged in the Jane Creba shooting accused a judge of handing down a death sentence yesterday when he refused to quash a subpoena forcing him to testify against the alleged killers.
"I hope you are happy. You just killed me. That is what you did," Richard Steele yelled at Justice Ian Nordheimer. "This is justice at its best."
Steele swore at the Crown attorney as his mother, Valerie Steele, called out, "Richard, stop it. Don't lose your cool" from the public gallery. A court guard removed Steele from the courtroom.
"Mr. Steele may be considered a 'rat' by some individuals," said Judge Nordheimer of the Superior Court. "But the fact some individuals have a misguided, in fact, perverse notion of what it is to be a citizen is a not a basis to quash a subpoena."
The 20-year-old is serving a 21-month sentence after pleading guilty in February to conspiracy to traffic in firearms and cocaine unrelated to the Creba shooting.
The evidence used to convict Steele on those charges was from some of the estimated 250,000 wiretapped conversations obtained by police as part of Project
Green Apple, the investigation into Ms. Creba's shooting. The Riverdale schoolgirl was shopping on Boxing Day, 2005, when she was hit by a stray bullet.
[. . .]
Read all of Shannon Kari's article
For some background about this story read Peter Small's Toronto Star article: The Creba case, blow by blow
See also:
Jane Creba investigation - Richard Steele may have been target of shooting
Why is the Star treating black leader Valarie Steele as a victim?
Wiretap reveals Valarie Steele tipped off friend before housing tribunal hearing
CTV News: three of the men charged in Jane Creba's shooting death were out on bail
A key Crown witness in the trial of the young men charged in the Jane Creba shooting accused a judge of handing down a death sentence yesterday when he refused to quash a subpoena forcing him to testify against the alleged killers.
"I hope you are happy. You just killed me. That is what you did," Richard Steele yelled at Justice Ian Nordheimer. "This is justice at its best."
Steele swore at the Crown attorney as his mother, Valerie Steele, called out, "Richard, stop it. Don't lose your cool" from the public gallery. A court guard removed Steele from the courtroom.
"Mr. Steele may be considered a 'rat' by some individuals," said Judge Nordheimer of the Superior Court. "But the fact some individuals have a misguided, in fact, perverse notion of what it is to be a citizen is a not a basis to quash a subpoena."
The 20-year-old is serving a 21-month sentence after pleading guilty in February to conspiracy to traffic in firearms and cocaine unrelated to the Creba shooting.
The evidence used to convict Steele on those charges was from some of the estimated 250,000 wiretapped conversations obtained by police as part of Project
Green Apple, the investigation into Ms. Creba's shooting. The Riverdale schoolgirl was shopping on Boxing Day, 2005, when she was hit by a stray bullet.
[. . .]
Read all of Shannon Kari's article
For some background about this story read Peter Small's Toronto Star article: The Creba case, blow by blow
See also:
Jane Creba investigation - Richard Steele may have been target of shooting
Why is the Star treating black leader Valarie Steele as a victim?
Wiretap reveals Valarie Steele tipped off friend before housing tribunal hearing
CTV News: three of the men charged in Jane Creba's shooting death were out on bail
Hindu rituals for Tamil girls who've had their first period
There was a lengthy story in last Saturday's Star about the way Tamils celebrate the coming of age of young girls. From the Toronto Star (Coming of age in Toronto by Thulasi Srikanthan, April 21, 2007):
This ritual, often written in English as pooppunitha neerattu vizha, is observed by Hindu Tamils in India as well as Sri Lanka. In Canada, among Sri Lankans, the celebration has taken on a distinct identity, not only growing more opulent but also becoming a way for families to pass on their traditions.
"When you are at home, you'd realize a lot of these traditions. You are a part of it. It was there," says Dharini Sivakumar, secretary of the Tamil Cultural Association of Waterloo Region.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Some may think this unfair, but when I see the words Tamil Cultural Association I think Tamil Tiger front, because the Tigers have used our refugee system to establish themselves in Canada. I can't say this particular group is a Tiger front, but such groups do exist in Canada.]
"When you are away from it, you see the difference from the Western culture. You want to maintain this to your own children to a certain extent. That way, they can say, `This is who I am. This is my identity.'"
[Hyphenated_Canadian: I realize this is one man's opinion and he doesn't speak for all Tamils in Canada, but it does show what's wrong with the neoconservative view that mass immigration would be fine if it weren't for multiculturalism. It's naive to assume immigrants want to assimilate. Many do, but not all, and maybe not most.]
In keeping with these traditions, when a girl in Canada gets her first period, her family phones all their close relatives. On the same day, they give her a bath at home with saffron and milk – considered an auspicious act.
The girl then stays at home to rest. Though in Sri Lanka, girls could be absent from school up to 10 days, in Canada, it's only for two to three – if at all.
Some people think treating the girl like Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, during this time will mean good fortune and happiness for the family. Relatives bring rich, nutritious foods, including eggs and special oil, so she recovers her strength.
A big ceremony marks the end of this first period. A priest comes early that morning to bless the girl. Another aspect of her moving from girlhood to womanhood is that she wears a sari for the first time.
In Sri Lanka, "the customs vary slightly from village to village," says Mani Pathmarajah, a community activist and elder. In Canada, she says, the ceremony takes place anywhere from one week to several months later, depending on the auspiciousness of the date, the availability of the hall and the parents' preferences.
Read all of Thulasi Srikanthan's article.
I find this custom strange, but I'm not going to make fun of it. Different cultures have different traditions. Catholic First Communion celebrations are strange to some non-Catholics. Some people might find it odd that Ukrainians celebrate Christmas on January 7 instead of December 25, etc.
My concern is the integration of immigrants into Canadian society. It seems to me that if an immigrant's culture is very different from mainstream Canadian culture, that's a barrier to integration, let alone assimilation. I don't fault Tamils for following their own customs, but I find it hard to think of people who celebrate these traditions as Canadian.
I'm under no illusion that my opinion matters much, but if a lot of other Canadians think the way I do, that would be one sign we live in a divided society. The government can't force Canadians to accept newcomers whose traditions are radically different from our own.
I don't care what Stephen Harper or the Toronto Star say. I don't celebrate multiculturalism. I don't embrace cultural diversity. On the contrary, I see cultural diversity as a curse, because that diversity includes a lot more than colourful clothes and exotic foods.
For those who haven't read it yet, I recommend this article by Brenda Walker: Dogs, Frogs and Dalits: The Indian Model Minority Has A Dark Side.
See also:
Immigration and cultural change or why I don't want to celebrate Eid and Diwali
Teacher writes: "I'm sick and tired of celebrating diversity"
We are not all immigrants and immigrants did not create Canada
This ritual, often written in English as pooppunitha neerattu vizha, is observed by Hindu Tamils in India as well as Sri Lanka. In Canada, among Sri Lankans, the celebration has taken on a distinct identity, not only growing more opulent but also becoming a way for families to pass on their traditions.
"When you are at home, you'd realize a lot of these traditions. You are a part of it. It was there," says Dharini Sivakumar, secretary of the Tamil Cultural Association of Waterloo Region.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Some may think this unfair, but when I see the words Tamil Cultural Association I think Tamil Tiger front, because the Tigers have used our refugee system to establish themselves in Canada. I can't say this particular group is a Tiger front, but such groups do exist in Canada.]
"When you are away from it, you see the difference from the Western culture. You want to maintain this to your own children to a certain extent. That way, they can say, `This is who I am. This is my identity.'"
[Hyphenated_Canadian: I realize this is one man's opinion and he doesn't speak for all Tamils in Canada, but it does show what's wrong with the neoconservative view that mass immigration would be fine if it weren't for multiculturalism. It's naive to assume immigrants want to assimilate. Many do, but not all, and maybe not most.]
In keeping with these traditions, when a girl in Canada gets her first period, her family phones all their close relatives. On the same day, they give her a bath at home with saffron and milk – considered an auspicious act.
The girl then stays at home to rest. Though in Sri Lanka, girls could be absent from school up to 10 days, in Canada, it's only for two to three – if at all.
Some people think treating the girl like Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, during this time will mean good fortune and happiness for the family. Relatives bring rich, nutritious foods, including eggs and special oil, so she recovers her strength.
A big ceremony marks the end of this first period. A priest comes early that morning to bless the girl. Another aspect of her moving from girlhood to womanhood is that she wears a sari for the first time.
In Sri Lanka, "the customs vary slightly from village to village," says Mani Pathmarajah, a community activist and elder. In Canada, she says, the ceremony takes place anywhere from one week to several months later, depending on the auspiciousness of the date, the availability of the hall and the parents' preferences.
Read all of Thulasi Srikanthan's article.
I find this custom strange, but I'm not going to make fun of it. Different cultures have different traditions. Catholic First Communion celebrations are strange to some non-Catholics. Some people might find it odd that Ukrainians celebrate Christmas on January 7 instead of December 25, etc.
My concern is the integration of immigrants into Canadian society. It seems to me that if an immigrant's culture is very different from mainstream Canadian culture, that's a barrier to integration, let alone assimilation. I don't fault Tamils for following their own customs, but I find it hard to think of people who celebrate these traditions as Canadian.
I'm under no illusion that my opinion matters much, but if a lot of other Canadians think the way I do, that would be one sign we live in a divided society. The government can't force Canadians to accept newcomers whose traditions are radically different from our own.
I don't care what Stephen Harper or the Toronto Star say. I don't celebrate multiculturalism. I don't embrace cultural diversity. On the contrary, I see cultural diversity as a curse, because that diversity includes a lot more than colourful clothes and exotic foods.
For those who haven't read it yet, I recommend this article by Brenda Walker: Dogs, Frogs and Dalits: The Indian Model Minority Has A Dark Side.
See also:
Immigration and cultural change or why I don't want to celebrate Eid and Diwali
Teacher writes: "I'm sick and tired of celebrating diversity"
We are not all immigrants and immigrants did not create Canada
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The United States also has a British heritage
From time to time on this blog, I have written about Canada's British heritage - a heritage that has been swept under the rug in the name of multiculturalism. The United States also has a British heritage, but it is obscured by the nation of immigrants myth as well as by historical memories of a War of Independence that severed American ties to Britain in a dramatic and decisive way. While Canada's political relationship to Britain evolved over time, the Americans made a clean break of things in 1776. Still, America's British heritage is just as real as Canada's. Back in 2001, Howard Sutherland wrote in Vdare (OpinionJournal unFathers America..., March 22, 2001):
Already by 1776, an American nation had evolved, as nations will, in the Thirteen Colonies of British North America. The Founders were members of that distinct, ethnically British, nation, as they well knew and often said. The Founding Fathers and their fellow Americans of 1776 are the biological fathers of scores of millions of today's Americans. One of the extraordinary things about the United States of America is the relative ease with which it has absorbed immigrants since independence. To claim, presumably for that reason, that the American nation has no original ethnic basis of its own is, however, nonsense.
Read all of Howard Sutherland's article.
See also:
We are not all immigrants and immigrants did not create Canada
Already by 1776, an American nation had evolved, as nations will, in the Thirteen Colonies of British North America. The Founders were members of that distinct, ethnically British, nation, as they well knew and often said. The Founding Fathers and their fellow Americans of 1776 are the biological fathers of scores of millions of today's Americans. One of the extraordinary things about the United States of America is the relative ease with which it has absorbed immigrants since independence. To claim, presumably for that reason, that the American nation has no original ethnic basis of its own is, however, nonsense.
Read all of Howard Sutherland's article.
See also:
We are not all immigrants and immigrants did not create Canada
History about white people for white people
Jared Taylor is a white nationalist. I am not. However, I frequently link to his writing, because he makes points worth thinking about. I'm not sure I agree with his claim that it's impossible to teach American history in a way that will satisfy whites, blacks and Hispanics, but if it's not impossible, it certainly is difficult. In any case, I'm offering this extended excerpt from one of his old articles because he's right about at least one thing. Education, including the teaching of history, has historically been one of the ways nation-states have promoted a sense of patriotism and shared identity among their citizens. I believe a shared sense of national identity is essential to democracy.
From a 1992 American Renaissance article by Jared Taylor (Is a Multiracial Nation Possible?, February, 1992):
The purpose of American public education has never been simply to impart knowledge. One of its central goals has been to make children into Americans. American schools fly the American flag and students pledge allegiance to it. The central events of history are from the American past. The most glorious achievements are American achievements. There is nothing odd about that. Every nation gives its children a national education.
Nevertheless, American schools have had an even more explicitly nation-building purpose than others because of the need to assimilate immigrants. John Quincy Adams wrote that immigrants "must cast off their European skin, never to resume it." Horace Mann argued that "a foreign people . . . cannot be transformed into the full stature of American citizens merely by a voyage across the Atlantic." One of the strongest motives for building public schools was, therefore, the need to make Americans out of Europeans.
Europeans weren't going to be made into Americans by teaching them about the contributions of Africans, Mexicans and Indians. The old, standard history united Americans because it had a coherent purpose and a single voice. It emphasized one point of view and ignored others. To put it bluntly, it was history about white people for white people.
This history served the country well, so long as the population was overwhelmingly white, and the two traditional minorities — blacks and Indians — did not have voices. All this changed, beginning in the 1960s. The civil rights movement gave voices to blacks and Indians, and changes in immigration laws brought a massive influx of non-whites. It was the end of a certain kind of America.
Read all of Jared Taylor's article.
See also:
Dalhousie fallout - long National Post article about Jared Taylor, racism and freedom of speech
Jared Taylor was roughed up by protestors in Halifax
From a 1992 American Renaissance article by Jared Taylor (Is a Multiracial Nation Possible?, February, 1992):
The purpose of American public education has never been simply to impart knowledge. One of its central goals has been to make children into Americans. American schools fly the American flag and students pledge allegiance to it. The central events of history are from the American past. The most glorious achievements are American achievements. There is nothing odd about that. Every nation gives its children a national education.
Nevertheless, American schools have had an even more explicitly nation-building purpose than others because of the need to assimilate immigrants. John Quincy Adams wrote that immigrants "must cast off their European skin, never to resume it." Horace Mann argued that "a foreign people . . . cannot be transformed into the full stature of American citizens merely by a voyage across the Atlantic." One of the strongest motives for building public schools was, therefore, the need to make Americans out of Europeans.
Europeans weren't going to be made into Americans by teaching them about the contributions of Africans, Mexicans and Indians. The old, standard history united Americans because it had a coherent purpose and a single voice. It emphasized one point of view and ignored others. To put it bluntly, it was history about white people for white people.
This history served the country well, so long as the population was overwhelmingly white, and the two traditional minorities — blacks and Indians — did not have voices. All this changed, beginning in the 1960s. The civil rights movement gave voices to blacks and Indians, and changes in immigration laws brought a massive influx of non-whites. It was the end of a certain kind of America.
Read all of Jared Taylor's article.
See also:
Dalhousie fallout - long National Post article about Jared Taylor, racism and freedom of speech
Jared Taylor was roughed up by protestors in Halifax
Neil Bissoondath urges Canadians to join Quebec's debate on reasonable accommodation
From the Ottawa Citizen (Bissoondath backlash by Paul Gessell, April 14, 2007):
Neil Bissoondath shocked the nation and became a best-selling author in 1994 with the publication of his book Selling Illusions, a harsh critique of the "cult of multiculturalism." Bissoondath is an immigrant from Trinidad. His family's roots are in India. Brown-skinned people from away are supposed to cherish, not attack, multiculturalism, according to politically correct thinking.
Well, Bissoondath did attack. And he's at it again, this time with The Age of Confession, a slim volume that suggests western countries must become more preoccupied with integration than multiculturalism if they want to stop the children of immigrants from embracing radical Islam.
[. . .]
The solution is education, says Bissoondath. All Canadians, whether here for generations or for just a few years, need to learn the history of the country; they need to feel part of the "narrative" of Canada.
[Hyphenated Canadian: Is it possible to create a single "narrative of Canada" that will satisfy all Canadians? See this article by Jared Taylor: Is a Multiracial Nation possible? I'm not sure I agree with Taylor, but he makes points I can't dismiss out of hand.]
At the same time, all Canadians must join the debate present in Quebec right now about "reasonable accommodation." Quebecers have become increasingly disturbed and vocal about some of the outward symbols of multiculturalism, such as the kirpans of Sikh males and the hajibs of Muslim women. "People aren't against accommodating differences but people are tired of being the only ones to accommodate and are putting on the brakes," says Bissoondath. "I think it's that sense that too much space has been given to the detriment of the society that's already here with its values and knowledge of itself. It's not surprising. It's healthy. I think things will eventually come back to a middle ground." The Quebec government has formed a commission headed by philosopher Charles Taylor and sociologist Gerard Bouchard to study multiculturalism within Quebec.
[. . .]
Read all of Paul Gessell's article.
Bissoondath makes some good points, but opposing multiculturalism isn't enough. Canada must also drastically reduce immigration. While the government can and should encourage assimilation, it can't force immigrants to adopt Canadian customs and to identify with Canada. If immigrants settle in large enough numbers to establish ethnic enclaves where they are surrounded by people who share their language and culture, there is less pressure to integrate and assimilate.
See also:
The Québecois Nation versus Multiculturalism
No Quebec election campaign has focused so viscerally on identity - Globe and Mail
Anthony Giddens on Will Kymlicka and Canadian multiculturalism
Neil Bissoondath shocked the nation and became a best-selling author in 1994 with the publication of his book Selling Illusions, a harsh critique of the "cult of multiculturalism." Bissoondath is an immigrant from Trinidad. His family's roots are in India. Brown-skinned people from away are supposed to cherish, not attack, multiculturalism, according to politically correct thinking.
Well, Bissoondath did attack. And he's at it again, this time with The Age of Confession, a slim volume that suggests western countries must become more preoccupied with integration than multiculturalism if they want to stop the children of immigrants from embracing radical Islam.
[. . .]
The solution is education, says Bissoondath. All Canadians, whether here for generations or for just a few years, need to learn the history of the country; they need to feel part of the "narrative" of Canada.
[Hyphenated Canadian: Is it possible to create a single "narrative of Canada" that will satisfy all Canadians? See this article by Jared Taylor: Is a Multiracial Nation possible? I'm not sure I agree with Taylor, but he makes points I can't dismiss out of hand.]
At the same time, all Canadians must join the debate present in Quebec right now about "reasonable accommodation." Quebecers have become increasingly disturbed and vocal about some of the outward symbols of multiculturalism, such as the kirpans of Sikh males and the hajibs of Muslim women. "People aren't against accommodating differences but people are tired of being the only ones to accommodate and are putting on the brakes," says Bissoondath. "I think it's that sense that too much space has been given to the detriment of the society that's already here with its values and knowledge of itself. It's not surprising. It's healthy. I think things will eventually come back to a middle ground." The Quebec government has formed a commission headed by philosopher Charles Taylor and sociologist Gerard Bouchard to study multiculturalism within Quebec.
[. . .]
Read all of Paul Gessell's article.
Bissoondath makes some good points, but opposing multiculturalism isn't enough. Canada must also drastically reduce immigration. While the government can and should encourage assimilation, it can't force immigrants to adopt Canadian customs and to identify with Canada. If immigrants settle in large enough numbers to establish ethnic enclaves where they are surrounded by people who share their language and culture, there is less pressure to integrate and assimilate.
See also:
The Québecois Nation versus Multiculturalism
No Quebec election campaign has focused so viscerally on identity - Globe and Mail
Anthony Giddens on Will Kymlicka and Canadian multiculturalism
Monday, April 23, 2007
Religion and cultural change - Canada's loss of faith
Last November I wrote a message about immigration and cultural change. More recently I posted an excerpt from a New York Times article about a former Christian church in Clitheroe, England that will be turned into a mosque. It is clear that immigration is changing both Canada and Britain. Non-Christians are moving into our two historically Christian countries with the result that religions such as Islam and Hinduism are becoming more prominent. To the extent that religion is an element of culture, immigration from non-Christian countries represents cultural change.
Culture, however, never stands still and even without immigration Canada would still be changing though in different ways and not to the same extent. One change in culture that Canada and Britain have both experienced is a widespread loss of faith in Christian teaching. While Christianity in its many forms hasn't disappeared, our two societies are far more secular than they were in the past. People today just don't go to church the way earlier generations did.
Obviously some Canadians still find themselves in church on Sunday but attendance isn't what it used to be. I realize I'm not saying anything people don't already know, but since I have written a little bit about the cultural impact of immigration, I thought it was important to acknowledge there are sources of cultural change other than immigration.
I was thinking about this over the weekend, because I want to do a better job of explaining why I am alarmed by Canada's current immigration policies. To do that I need to put immigration into context. Immigration policy doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is tied to other public policies as well as to general changes in Canadian society, one of which is increasing secularism.
I can't summarize my objections to current immigration policy in a single blog post and I have a lot more thinking and writing to do, but since religion and secularism were on my mind this weekend, I thought I'd mention this on the blog.
Culture, however, never stands still and even without immigration Canada would still be changing though in different ways and not to the same extent. One change in culture that Canada and Britain have both experienced is a widespread loss of faith in Christian teaching. While Christianity in its many forms hasn't disappeared, our two societies are far more secular than they were in the past. People today just don't go to church the way earlier generations did.
Obviously some Canadians still find themselves in church on Sunday but attendance isn't what it used to be. I realize I'm not saying anything people don't already know, but since I have written a little bit about the cultural impact of immigration, I thought it was important to acknowledge there are sources of cultural change other than immigration.
I was thinking about this over the weekend, because I want to do a better job of explaining why I am alarmed by Canada's current immigration policies. To do that I need to put immigration into context. Immigration policy doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is tied to other public policies as well as to general changes in Canadian society, one of which is increasing secularism.
I can't summarize my objections to current immigration policy in a single blog post and I have a lot more thinking and writing to do, but since religion and secularism were on my mind this weekend, I thought I'd mention this on the blog.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
York Regional Police break up massive forgery operation run by visiting Chinese students in Markham
Last Saturday Louise Brown reported in the Toronto Star (Forgers caught with passports, visas, degrees by Louise Brown, April 14, 2007):
But the jig is up after York Regional Police say they shut down what is believed to be one of the most ambitious counterfeit document rackets in Ontario history.
Displaying an array of confiscated fake degrees from universities from Toronto and Montreal to the Maritimes – plus crisp copies of passports from Canada and China, Ontario driver's licenses and even fake legal stamps from colleges and lawyers – police announced yesterday they have charged five visiting Chinese students with forgery of alarming proportions.
"This was a full-service agency; a complex operation that would allow people to obtain entry into Canada or stay in Canada, get jobs around the world unlawfully," said York Detective Fred Kerr at the announcement (pdf document) yesterday in Markham.
"In my 30 years on the job, I've never seen forged university degrees or mark transcripts – they even produced high school diplomas."
[. . .]
The counterfeit ring advertised over the Internet in Chinese, including a price list with jazzy lightning bolts beside each item for sale and the breathless headline "Best Price! Best Service! Fastest!"
Police and university officials say the fakes were indistinguishable from the real thing; the accused only got caught when police grew suspicious of their behaviour while investigating a different crime nearby.
"This was quite a brazen operation. You could create an entire false identity" with the range of documents being pumped out of the high-quality printers in the house once shared by all five accused students, said York Police Chief Armand La Barge.
On display yesterday were replicated degrees from the University of Toronto, York, the University of Western Ontario, Carleton, Brock, Concordia, the University of Montreal, Seneca College, George Brown College, Fanshawe College, Cape Breton University, and the seal of Cambrian College.
Police said these are merely a sample of the schools whose degrees were copied.
[. . .]
Read all of Louise Brown's article
We hear a lot about skilled immigrants who can't find work in their fields because their credentials aren't recognized. One of the problems with foreign credentials is that they are sometimes fake.
We also hear from time to time about illegal immigrants who are denied access to Canadian health care. Well, the fact is many illegals are getting free health care because they have obtained forged documents.
One of the consequences of turning a blind eye to illegal immigration is the creation of underground networks where forgery thrives. If a country has a large number of illegal immigrants, there were will be a demand for fake IDs, fake licenses, fake healthcare cards, etc.
Certain employers, in the construction industry for example, benefit from the cheap labour of illegal immigrants, but much of the cost of that labour is passed onto the taxpayer in the form of illegally obtained healthcare and free schooling for the children of illegals, etc.
Tolerating illegal immigration undermines the rule of law. Ottawa's refusal to enforce our immigration laws is a scandal.
But the jig is up after York Regional Police say they shut down what is believed to be one of the most ambitious counterfeit document rackets in Ontario history.
Displaying an array of confiscated fake degrees from universities from Toronto and Montreal to the Maritimes – plus crisp copies of passports from Canada and China, Ontario driver's licenses and even fake legal stamps from colleges and lawyers – police announced yesterday they have charged five visiting Chinese students with forgery of alarming proportions.
"This was a full-service agency; a complex operation that would allow people to obtain entry into Canada or stay in Canada, get jobs around the world unlawfully," said York Detective Fred Kerr at the announcement (pdf document) yesterday in Markham.
"In my 30 years on the job, I've never seen forged university degrees or mark transcripts – they even produced high school diplomas."
[. . .]
The counterfeit ring advertised over the Internet in Chinese, including a price list with jazzy lightning bolts beside each item for sale and the breathless headline "Best Price! Best Service! Fastest!"
Police and university officials say the fakes were indistinguishable from the real thing; the accused only got caught when police grew suspicious of their behaviour while investigating a different crime nearby.
"This was quite a brazen operation. You could create an entire false identity" with the range of documents being pumped out of the high-quality printers in the house once shared by all five accused students, said York Police Chief Armand La Barge.
On display yesterday were replicated degrees from the University of Toronto, York, the University of Western Ontario, Carleton, Brock, Concordia, the University of Montreal, Seneca College, George Brown College, Fanshawe College, Cape Breton University, and the seal of Cambrian College.
Police said these are merely a sample of the schools whose degrees were copied.
[. . .]
Read all of Louise Brown's article
We hear a lot about skilled immigrants who can't find work in their fields because their credentials aren't recognized. One of the problems with foreign credentials is that they are sometimes fake.
We also hear from time to time about illegal immigrants who are denied access to Canadian health care. Well, the fact is many illegals are getting free health care because they have obtained forged documents.
One of the consequences of turning a blind eye to illegal immigration is the creation of underground networks where forgery thrives. If a country has a large number of illegal immigrants, there were will be a demand for fake IDs, fake licenses, fake healthcare cards, etc.
Certain employers, in the construction industry for example, benefit from the cheap labour of illegal immigrants, but much of the cost of that labour is passed onto the taxpayer in the form of illegally obtained healthcare and free schooling for the children of illegals, etc.
Tolerating illegal immigration undermines the rule of law. Ottawa's refusal to enforce our immigration laws is a scandal.
Deseronto - Mohawks lift blockade but warn of more protests to come
From the Toronto Star (Next target chosen, Mohawks warn by Matthew Chung, April 21, 2007):
The leader of an aboriginal blockade that paralyzed rail traffic between Toronto and Montreal for more than 30 hours promised this morning there will be more “economic disruptions” like the protest ended ahead of schedule.
“Believe it or not, it was the first soft step of the campaign,” said Shawn Brant around 8 a.m., two hours after the group removed a school bus blocking the tracks. “We have identified three different targets, and we will escalate the degree of severity as is necessary.”
Those targets are the railway, provincial highways and the town of Deseronto, Brant said as he puffed on cigarettes at the gravel quarry that is the heart of the dispute
[. . .]
The aboriginals have been in discussion with a federally appointed land-claims negotiator but Brant says the community is tired of talking while a company continues to operate at the 923-acre quarry.
[. . .]
Federal Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Jim Prentice said in an interview today that the blockade was mounted by a splinter group in the Mohawk community — against the will of its chief and council.
[. . .]
Prentice says he understands the frustration of First Nations who’ve watched unsettled land claims balloon from about 250 cases in 1993 to more than 800 now.
[. . .]
Read all of Matthew Chung's article.
See also:
Mohawks block railroad in Desoronto
The Long Fall of the Mohawk Warriors
The leader of an aboriginal blockade that paralyzed rail traffic between Toronto and Montreal for more than 30 hours promised this morning there will be more “economic disruptions” like the protest ended ahead of schedule.
“Believe it or not, it was the first soft step of the campaign,” said Shawn Brant around 8 a.m., two hours after the group removed a school bus blocking the tracks. “We have identified three different targets, and we will escalate the degree of severity as is necessary.”
Those targets are the railway, provincial highways and the town of Deseronto, Brant said as he puffed on cigarettes at the gravel quarry that is the heart of the dispute
[. . .]
The aboriginals have been in discussion with a federally appointed land-claims negotiator but Brant says the community is tired of talking while a company continues to operate at the 923-acre quarry.
[. . .]
Federal Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Jim Prentice said in an interview today that the blockade was mounted by a splinter group in the Mohawk community — against the will of its chief and council.
[. . .]
Prentice says he understands the frustration of First Nations who’ve watched unsettled land claims balloon from about 250 cases in 1993 to more than 800 now.
[. . .]
Read all of Matthew Chung's article.
See also:
Mohawks block railroad in Desoronto
The Long Fall of the Mohawk Warriors
Mohamed el-Attar - former Toronto bank teller convicted in Egypt of spying for Israel
Writing in the Toronto Star, Oakland Ross reports (Egyptian-Canadian convicted in spy case, April 21, 2007) that Mohamed el-Attar, an Egyptian refugee who had settled in Canada but who had returned to Egypt has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after being convicted of spying for Israel. (Israel denies any involvement in the case.)
According to Ross, the ruling can't be appealed. El-Attar's only hope is a pardon from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Canadian foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay is asking Egypt to investigate el-Attar's claim of have being tortured in prison.
Three other men, one Israeli and two Turks were convicted in absentia at the same time as el-Attar, except that the Israeli, Daniel Levi, may not even exist! From the Star article:
The Israeli was named in a confession that el-Attar signed following his detention in January but that he later disowned completely, alleging that it had been wrung out of him only after weeks of solitary confinement and torture. He said he made the Daniel Levi character up.
More from the article:
According to many observers, the charges against el-Attar are difficult to credit.
After fleeing Egypt in 2001 after being convicted of crashing an uninsured automobile, the former Cairo university student wound up in Turkey, where he is supposed to have sought to recruit people to spy against Egypt, using the promise of homosexual sex as an enticement.
Later, after being admitted to Canada as a refugee, he found work in Toronto, first in a Subway sandwich eatery and later as a teller at a branch on Queen St. West of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
While in Canada, he is supposed to have sought to round up more spies, this time by exploiting his access to financial documents at the bank.
In a boisterous, bravura, and four-hour defence argument delivered late last month, Bassiouni – el-Attar’s lawyer – sought to demolish those allegations and was widely considered to have succeeded.
Since then, however, Bassiouni has had to endure withering criticism in both the independent and the state-controlled media here, accusing him of fabricating evidence favouring his client – a charge he vehemently denies.
[. . .]
Apart from the disputed confession, state prosecutor Hani Hamoodah relied almost entirely on the testimony of a former security guard at the Egyptian Embassy in Ankara, the Turkish capital, who maintained that el-Attar once tried to recruit him as a spy for Israel.
At times during the court case, it seemed el-Attar was on trial, not so much for espionage as for supposedly being a homosexual and for having renounced Islam in favour of Christianity – allegations that may have weighed even more heavily against him in this deeply Islamic and generally homophobic land.
Read all of Oakland Ross' article.
See also:
Egyptian accused of spying for Israel said to have Canadian citizenship. Foreign Affairs investigating
According to Ross, the ruling can't be appealed. El-Attar's only hope is a pardon from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Canadian foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay is asking Egypt to investigate el-Attar's claim of have being tortured in prison.
Three other men, one Israeli and two Turks were convicted in absentia at the same time as el-Attar, except that the Israeli, Daniel Levi, may not even exist! From the Star article:
The Israeli was named in a confession that el-Attar signed following his detention in January but that he later disowned completely, alleging that it had been wrung out of him only after weeks of solitary confinement and torture. He said he made the Daniel Levi character up.
More from the article:
According to many observers, the charges against el-Attar are difficult to credit.
After fleeing Egypt in 2001 after being convicted of crashing an uninsured automobile, the former Cairo university student wound up in Turkey, where he is supposed to have sought to recruit people to spy against Egypt, using the promise of homosexual sex as an enticement.
Later, after being admitted to Canada as a refugee, he found work in Toronto, first in a Subway sandwich eatery and later as a teller at a branch on Queen St. West of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
While in Canada, he is supposed to have sought to round up more spies, this time by exploiting his access to financial documents at the bank.
In a boisterous, bravura, and four-hour defence argument delivered late last month, Bassiouni – el-Attar’s lawyer – sought to demolish those allegations and was widely considered to have succeeded.
Since then, however, Bassiouni has had to endure withering criticism in both the independent and the state-controlled media here, accusing him of fabricating evidence favouring his client – a charge he vehemently denies.
[. . .]
Apart from the disputed confession, state prosecutor Hani Hamoodah relied almost entirely on the testimony of a former security guard at the Egyptian Embassy in Ankara, the Turkish capital, who maintained that el-Attar once tried to recruit him as a spy for Israel.
At times during the court case, it seemed el-Attar was on trial, not so much for espionage as for supposedly being a homosexual and for having renounced Islam in favour of Christianity – allegations that may have weighed even more heavily against him in this deeply Islamic and generally homophobic land.
Read all of Oakland Ross' article.
See also:
Egyptian accused of spying for Israel said to have Canadian citizenship. Foreign Affairs investigating
Legal rulings complicate gang prosecutions
There is an article in today's Toronto Star about the legal hurdles faced by crown attorneys trying to convict gang members. Police and prosecutors complain that vital evidence is being excluded.
From the Toronto Star (Gang culture hard call for judges by Betsy Powell, April 21, 2007):
Legal observers see judges in gang cases struggling to consider evidence that is by nature "highly prejudicial."
"In the city of Toronto where everybody has heard about gang killings, anything gang-related is immediately going to be considered prejudicial, so you really have to put a solid case together," said a Crown attorney who asked not to be named.
And judges and juries are only likely to face more such cases as police, prosecutors and government more aggressively target street gangs and bring an unprecedented number of accused members before the courts. Judges, especially in Toronto, now routinely hear evidence about the geography and rivalry of gangs, turf wars and distinctions on colours and clothing – such as the significance of a blue bandana versus a red bandana.
In recent years, Toronto-area courtrooms have featured video clips of alleged local gang-bangers rapping about guns, drugs and violent reprisals against enemies while prosecutors try to prove that an accused belongs to a gang.
I just love this quote from a defence attorney. Dangerous people are walking around free but so what? At least we don't have racial profiling:
If a hard-core gangster walks free because a judge excludes a piece of prejudicial evidence, that's a price that must be paid to ensure against "unreasonable search and seizure ... random stops and racial profiling," said Struthers, adding that right now "it's the 25th anniversary of the Charter and it's on fire."
Read all of Betsy Powell's article.
See also:
Anti-gang sweeps placing huge strain on Ontario legal aid plan
Toronto Community Housing wants to evict families of gang members
Bloodz vs. Cripps - Toronto housing complex plagued by gangs
Jamestown Crew: Christian Science Monitor reports on Toronto's gang crackdown
Rapper Alias Donmillion - lawyer claims Toronto's violent hip-hop culture forced client to carry gun
Flemingdon Park murder - the brutal death of Omar Wellington
Are teachers losing control of some Toronto schools? Are gangs starting to take over?
From the Toronto Star (Gang culture hard call for judges by Betsy Powell, April 21, 2007):
Legal observers see judges in gang cases struggling to consider evidence that is by nature "highly prejudicial."
"In the city of Toronto where everybody has heard about gang killings, anything gang-related is immediately going to be considered prejudicial, so you really have to put a solid case together," said a Crown attorney who asked not to be named.
And judges and juries are only likely to face more such cases as police, prosecutors and government more aggressively target street gangs and bring an unprecedented number of accused members before the courts. Judges, especially in Toronto, now routinely hear evidence about the geography and rivalry of gangs, turf wars and distinctions on colours and clothing – such as the significance of a blue bandana versus a red bandana.
In recent years, Toronto-area courtrooms have featured video clips of alleged local gang-bangers rapping about guns, drugs and violent reprisals against enemies while prosecutors try to prove that an accused belongs to a gang.
I just love this quote from a defence attorney. Dangerous people are walking around free but so what? At least we don't have racial profiling:
If a hard-core gangster walks free because a judge excludes a piece of prejudicial evidence, that's a price that must be paid to ensure against "unreasonable search and seizure ... random stops and racial profiling," said Struthers, adding that right now "it's the 25th anniversary of the Charter and it's on fire."
Read all of Betsy Powell's article.
See also:
Anti-gang sweeps placing huge strain on Ontario legal aid plan
Toronto Community Housing wants to evict families of gang members
Bloodz vs. Cripps - Toronto housing complex plagued by gangs
Jamestown Crew: Christian Science Monitor reports on Toronto's gang crackdown
Rapper Alias Donmillion - lawyer claims Toronto's violent hip-hop culture forced client to carry gun
Flemingdon Park murder - the brutal death of Omar Wellington
Are teachers losing control of some Toronto schools? Are gangs starting to take over?
Multiculturalism and the coming collapse of the Swedish model
Fjordman writes in the Brussels Journal (Jihad and the Collapse of the Swedish Model, April 19, 2007):
Sweden was presented during the Cold War as a middle way between capitalism and Communism. When this model of a society collapses – and it will collapse, under the combined forces of Islamic Jihad, the European Union, Multiculturalism and ideological overstretch – it is thus not just the Swedish state that will collapse but the symbol of Sweden, the showcase of an entire ideological world view.
Read the whole article.
See also:
Riots in Malmö continue
Nyamko Sabuni - Sweden's Congo-born immigration minister wants newcomers to assimilate
Cultural Suicide in the U.K. and Canada
Demography is destiny: British town will allow old church to become a mosque
Sweden was presented during the Cold War as a middle way between capitalism and Communism. When this model of a society collapses – and it will collapse, under the combined forces of Islamic Jihad, the European Union, Multiculturalism and ideological overstretch – it is thus not just the Swedish state that will collapse but the symbol of Sweden, the showcase of an entire ideological world view.
Read the whole article.
See also:
Riots in Malmö continue
Nyamko Sabuni - Sweden's Congo-born immigration minister wants newcomers to assimilate
Cultural Suicide in the U.K. and Canada
Demography is destiny: British town will allow old church to become a mosque
Friday, April 20, 2007
Mohawks block railroad in Desoronto
From the Toronto Star (Mohawk protest closes rail line by Meghan Waters, April 20, 2007):
Fire crews have arrived at the scene of an aboriginal rail line blockade in eastern Ontario, where plumes of black smoke can be seen down the line from the protest site.
A long-simmering land dispute near Deseronto, Ont., erupted overnight as aboriginal protesters blockaded the region’s main rail line, shutting down freight and passenger train service from Toronto eastward.
The source of the smoke was not immediately clear. Meanwhile, Via Rail passengers travelling between Toronto and Kingston are being forced onto buses after native protesters blocked tracks near Belleville.
The Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte say they set up the barricade because they object to a developer’s plan to build condominiums using material quarried on land they claim is theirs.
[. . .]
Read all of Meghan Waters' article.
See also:
The Long Fall of the Mohawk Warriors (Note: I'm offering this link as general information about Mohawk militancy, but I don't know who exactly is involved in the trouble near Deseronto.)
Fire crews have arrived at the scene of an aboriginal rail line blockade in eastern Ontario, where plumes of black smoke can be seen down the line from the protest site.
A long-simmering land dispute near Deseronto, Ont., erupted overnight as aboriginal protesters blockaded the region’s main rail line, shutting down freight and passenger train service from Toronto eastward.
The source of the smoke was not immediately clear. Meanwhile, Via Rail passengers travelling between Toronto and Kingston are being forced onto buses after native protesters blocked tracks near Belleville.
The Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte say they set up the barricade because they object to a developer’s plan to build condominiums using material quarried on land they claim is theirs.
[. . .]
Read all of Meghan Waters' article.
See also:
The Long Fall of the Mohawk Warriors (Note: I'm offering this link as general information about Mohawk militancy, but I don't know who exactly is involved in the trouble near Deseronto.)
Huseyin Celil - Canadian citizen sentenced to life in China
From the National Post (Canadian sentenced to life in Chinese prison by Allison Hanes, April 20, 2007):
The call came to Kamila Telendibaeva from Canadian consular officials in a remote corner of China at 1 a.m. yesterday: her husband, Huseyin Celil, had been sentenced to life in prison on charges of "terrorist activities and plotting to split the country."
[. . .]
The court in Urumqui, in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, handed down the life term after a one-day, closed-door trial last February where Mr. Celil was grilled by a panel of three judges, in what his Canadian lawyer describes as "an inquisition." Canadian consular officials dispatched to the far-flung region were barred from the courtroom during both the trial and the sentence.
The case has stained relations between Ottawa and Beijing since the activist and member of China's Muslim Uyghur minority was arrested last March in Uzbekistan during a visit to his wife's family and later transferred to the land of his birth. At issue is the refusal of China to recognize 37-year-old Mr. Celil's Canadian citizenship and secretive proceedings that have prevented him from seeking consular assistance, hiring a lawyer of his choosing or presenting a proper defence.
[. . .]
According to news reports relying on the Xinhua agency, the court convicted Mr. Celil for being a senior instructor of the East Turkestan Liberation Organization responsible for recruiting new members and sending them to terror training camps in Pakistan- controlled Kashmir.
[. . .]
Read all of Allison Hanes' article
China's abuse of human rights is well known, but does that mean everything Beijing says is false? Does Ottawa know for sure that Huseyin Celil isn't a terrorist? I certainly wouldn't believe he is one just because China says so, but I wouldn't dismiss the claim out of hand either. And what is Canada's responsibility towards this man? We accepted his asylum claim and allowed him to live here. He chose to go back to Central Asia. (He was extradited to China from Uzbekistan.) Do we know enough about him to strain our relationship with China for his sake?
The call came to Kamila Telendibaeva from Canadian consular officials in a remote corner of China at 1 a.m. yesterday: her husband, Huseyin Celil, had been sentenced to life in prison on charges of "terrorist activities and plotting to split the country."
[. . .]
The court in Urumqui, in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, handed down the life term after a one-day, closed-door trial last February where Mr. Celil was grilled by a panel of three judges, in what his Canadian lawyer describes as "an inquisition." Canadian consular officials dispatched to the far-flung region were barred from the courtroom during both the trial and the sentence.
The case has stained relations between Ottawa and Beijing since the activist and member of China's Muslim Uyghur minority was arrested last March in Uzbekistan during a visit to his wife's family and later transferred to the land of his birth. At issue is the refusal of China to recognize 37-year-old Mr. Celil's Canadian citizenship and secretive proceedings that have prevented him from seeking consular assistance, hiring a lawyer of his choosing or presenting a proper defence.
[. . .]
According to news reports relying on the Xinhua agency, the court convicted Mr. Celil for being a senior instructor of the East Turkestan Liberation Organization responsible for recruiting new members and sending them to terror training camps in Pakistan- controlled Kashmir.
[. . .]
Read all of Allison Hanes' article
China's abuse of human rights is well known, but does that mean everything Beijing says is false? Does Ottawa know for sure that Huseyin Celil isn't a terrorist? I certainly wouldn't believe he is one just because China says so, but I wouldn't dismiss the claim out of hand either. And what is Canada's responsibility towards this man? We accepted his asylum claim and allowed him to live here. He chose to go back to Central Asia. (He was extradited to China from Uzbekistan.) Do we know enough about him to strain our relationship with China for his sake?
Pakistani-Canadian journalist may have been beaten for questioning whether Muslim leader wrote Mohammed's name on the moon
The Globe and Mail reports that last Tuesday Jawaad Faizi, a Pakistani immigrant who writes for the Mississauga-based Pakistani Post was beaten and threatened with death after he wrote a column criticizing a Pakistani Muslim leader.
From the Globe and Mail (Pakistan-based Muslim group behind attack, journalist says by Omar el Akkad, April 20, 2007):
"It was Idara Minhaj-ul-Quran," Mr. Faizi said in an interview yesterday. "[The attackers] were saying, 'Why you publish news about our leader?' "
Minhaj-ul-Quran is a Pakistan-based Muslim group led by a religious scholar named Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri. Mr. Faizi said his own trouble began after Mr. Tahir-ul-Qadri, at a meeting with his followers, pointed to the moon.
Mr. Faizi said that Mr. Tahir-ul-Qadri told his followers he had written the Prophet Mohammed's name on the surface of the moon. Two weeks ago, his newspaper ran an article -- picked up from a Pakistani news outlet -- that questioned whether Mr. Tahir-ul-Qadri could have done this. Mr. Faizi wrote a column on the topic.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: If what Faizi says is true, what kind of people are we bringing into Canada? A man claims to have written Mohammed's name on the moon and not only do his followers believe him, they become violent if someone says he didn't.]
After publication of these and other articles about Minhaj-ul-Quran that the Pakistan Post printed beginning in January, Mr. Faizi said, he and his editor, Amir Arain, began receiving harassing phone calls.
"They were saying very bad words in Punjabi," Mr. Arain said. "They were saying, 'You are not a Muslim, you are supporting Christians.'"
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Wait a second. I thought Muslims were the victimized group. Incidents like this are the reason I have little sympathy for people like Muriel Walker who try to make the rest of us feel sorry for Muslims. All Muslims are not alike, but it's hard to feel sorry for a group that displays so much aggression towards people outside their faith. No Muslim should be treated badly because of his religion, but let's not ignore the bad behaviour of Muslims either.]
[. . .]
One local immigrant journalist said that the attack against Mr. Faizi is part of a climate of media intimidation that prevails in many home countries.
"It wouldn't surprise me at all," said Saleem Samad, editor of the Toronto-based Weekly Durdesh. "I've also had similar experiences."
Mr. Samad was forced to leave Bangladesh in 2004 after his writings there provoked a wave of intimidation measures and threats. Since coming to Canada, he said, he received threatening calls after writing about Islamic terrorism, while some of his fellow journalists have received threats after reporting on the Tamil Tigers.
Read all of Omar El Akkad's article.
See also:
The perils of ethnic pandering: Canadian branch of Pakistani political movement accused of terrorism actively supports the federal Conservatives
Sikh extremists in Canada: a culture of fear and intimidation
India won't give visa to Indo-Canadian journalist
From the Globe and Mail (Pakistan-based Muslim group behind attack, journalist says by Omar el Akkad, April 20, 2007):
"It was Idara Minhaj-ul-Quran," Mr. Faizi said in an interview yesterday. "[The attackers] were saying, 'Why you publish news about our leader?' "
Minhaj-ul-Quran is a Pakistan-based Muslim group led by a religious scholar named Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri. Mr. Faizi said his own trouble began after Mr. Tahir-ul-Qadri, at a meeting with his followers, pointed to the moon.
Mr. Faizi said that Mr. Tahir-ul-Qadri told his followers he had written the Prophet Mohammed's name on the surface of the moon. Two weeks ago, his newspaper ran an article -- picked up from a Pakistani news outlet -- that questioned whether Mr. Tahir-ul-Qadri could have done this. Mr. Faizi wrote a column on the topic.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: If what Faizi says is true, what kind of people are we bringing into Canada? A man claims to have written Mohammed's name on the moon and not only do his followers believe him, they become violent if someone says he didn't.]
After publication of these and other articles about Minhaj-ul-Quran that the Pakistan Post printed beginning in January, Mr. Faizi said, he and his editor, Amir Arain, began receiving harassing phone calls.
"They were saying very bad words in Punjabi," Mr. Arain said. "They were saying, 'You are not a Muslim, you are supporting Christians.'"
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Wait a second. I thought Muslims were the victimized group. Incidents like this are the reason I have little sympathy for people like Muriel Walker who try to make the rest of us feel sorry for Muslims. All Muslims are not alike, but it's hard to feel sorry for a group that displays so much aggression towards people outside their faith. No Muslim should be treated badly because of his religion, but let's not ignore the bad behaviour of Muslims either.]
[. . .]
One local immigrant journalist said that the attack against Mr. Faizi is part of a climate of media intimidation that prevails in many home countries.
"It wouldn't surprise me at all," said Saleem Samad, editor of the Toronto-based Weekly Durdesh. "I've also had similar experiences."
Mr. Samad was forced to leave Bangladesh in 2004 after his writings there provoked a wave of intimidation measures and threats. Since coming to Canada, he said, he received threatening calls after writing about Islamic terrorism, while some of his fellow journalists have received threats after reporting on the Tamil Tigers.
Read all of Omar El Akkad's article.
See also:
The perils of ethnic pandering: Canadian branch of Pakistani political movement accused of terrorism actively supports the federal Conservatives
Sikh extremists in Canada: a culture of fear and intimidation
India won't give visa to Indo-Canadian journalist
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Immigrants account for more than 90 percent of tuberculosis cases in Toronto
From a March 22 Toronto Public Health press release marking World TB Day:
Toronto is an international city and though TB rates are low in Canada compared to countries around the world, Toronto continues to have one quarter of the reported TB cases in the country," said Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Director of Communicable Disease Control. "It is important for Toronto Public Health to continue to work together with our partners in the prevention, control and reduction of TB in Toronto."
There are approximately 370 to 400 cases of TB disease each year in Toronto. More than 90 per cent of these cases are in people who have immigrated to Canada although they may have been here for many years. Toronto Public Health (TPH) works with community groups, health care professionals and settlement agencies to to increase TB awareness and to advocate for timely medical follow up and treatment. TPH also provides ongoing TB education to new immigrants and refugees through English as a Second Language (ESL) and Language Instruction for Newcomers in Canada (LINC) Programs.
Read the entire press release.
See also:
Immigrants account for two-thirds of tuberculosis cases in Canada
Globe and Mail: research warns that steady influx of unvaccinated immigrants could trigger outbreaks of potentially deadly diseases
Illegal immigrants "most vulnerable to infectious diseases such as typhoid, malaria, tuberculosis and HIV."
Toronto is an international city and though TB rates are low in Canada compared to countries around the world, Toronto continues to have one quarter of the reported TB cases in the country," said Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Director of Communicable Disease Control. "It is important for Toronto Public Health to continue to work together with our partners in the prevention, control and reduction of TB in Toronto."
There are approximately 370 to 400 cases of TB disease each year in Toronto. More than 90 per cent of these cases are in people who have immigrated to Canada although they may have been here for many years. Toronto Public Health (TPH) works with community groups, health care professionals and settlement agencies to to increase TB awareness and to advocate for timely medical follow up and treatment. TPH also provides ongoing TB education to new immigrants and refugees through English as a Second Language (ESL) and Language Instruction for Newcomers in Canada (LINC) Programs.
Read the entire press release.
See also:
Immigrants account for two-thirds of tuberculosis cases in Canada
Globe and Mail: research warns that steady influx of unvaccinated immigrants could trigger outbreaks of potentially deadly diseases
Illegal immigrants "most vulnerable to infectious diseases such as typhoid, malaria, tuberculosis and HIV."
Speakers from Britain tell Canadian Muslims to put faith ahead of politics
It's good there are Muslims in Britain and Canada who see the extremism in their communities and are working to fight it. However, at the risk of sounding mean-spirited, I must point out that Canada wouldn't have to worry about Islamic extremism if we didn't have Muslim immigration to begin with. Without in any way infringing on the legal rights of Canada's Muslim citizens, we must take a hard look at the immigration policies that are changing Canada's demography. Canadians have the right to ask whether our current immigration policy is in the best interests of our country. It's obvious to me it isn't.
From the National Post (Emphasize faith, not political zeal, Muslims told by Kelly Patrick, March 22, 2007):
The five British speakers were in Mississauga as part of a weeklong Canadian tour to share lessons they learned combatting extremism, particularly after the July, 2005, transit bombings in London, and to absorb ideas from their Canadian counterparts.
Abdul-Rehman Malik, a Canadian-born journalist and contributing editor at Q-News, a widely read British Muslim current affairs magazine, extolled the virtues of a program he helped spearhead called the Radical Middle Way Project.
Radical Middle Way is a grassroots movement that has Islamic scholars with credibility among young British Muslims travel the country preaching against violent interpretations of Islam.
"What's happening on the ground is that 'Muslim' is becoming a political identity, not a religious identity," Mr. Malik told the gathering of about 20 Canadian Muslim leaders.
Mr. Malik said moderate leaders must reinvigorate the faith among disenfranchised youth who have adopted a Muslim identity that is more about anger over Iraq, Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than it is about being a good Muslim.
He said the "writing was on the wall" long before the Sept.11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that a small percentage of young British Muslims were isolated, angry and about to veer into violence.
[. . .]
Read all of Kelly Patrick's article.
See also:
Toronto terror bomb plot case inches its way through the court system
Does Muslim alienation start in high school?
Demography is destiny: British town will allow old church to become a mosque
From the National Post (Emphasize faith, not political zeal, Muslims told by Kelly Patrick, March 22, 2007):
The five British speakers were in Mississauga as part of a weeklong Canadian tour to share lessons they learned combatting extremism, particularly after the July, 2005, transit bombings in London, and to absorb ideas from their Canadian counterparts.
Abdul-Rehman Malik, a Canadian-born journalist and contributing editor at Q-News, a widely read British Muslim current affairs magazine, extolled the virtues of a program he helped spearhead called the Radical Middle Way Project.
Radical Middle Way is a grassroots movement that has Islamic scholars with credibility among young British Muslims travel the country preaching against violent interpretations of Islam.
"What's happening on the ground is that 'Muslim' is becoming a political identity, not a religious identity," Mr. Malik told the gathering of about 20 Canadian Muslim leaders.
Mr. Malik said moderate leaders must reinvigorate the faith among disenfranchised youth who have adopted a Muslim identity that is more about anger over Iraq, Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than it is about being a good Muslim.
He said the "writing was on the wall" long before the Sept.11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that a small percentage of young British Muslims were isolated, angry and about to veer into violence.
[. . .]
Read all of Kelly Patrick's article.
See also:
Toronto terror bomb plot case inches its way through the court system
Does Muslim alienation start in high school?
Demography is destiny: British town will allow old church to become a mosque
Can Islam and democracy co-exist in Indonesia?
An excerpt from a recent New York Times article (Indonesia: Gambling That Tolerance Will Trump Fear by Calvin Sims, April 15, 2007):
The many varieties of culture and styles of life in this enormous archipelago had bred a unique form of Islam — or, more precisely, many such forms, thriving side by side and often drawing on a rich pre-Islamic history replete with magic, Buddhism and South Seas gods. I had thought the prospects for retaining this style had only been enhanced by the coming of democracy in 1998.
It has not quite worked out that way, and now the big questions facing Indonesia are: Can Islam and democracy co-exist? And what would such a democracy look like?
Many optimists argue that there may be no place on earth better suited to be a Muslim democracy. Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population — some 207 million people, rivalling the number of Muslims in the Middle East — and the optimists say its relaxed and varied traditions are one reason that the vast majority of Indonesians remain committed to a tolerant form of Islam. The fastest-growing Muslim movements, in fact, are moderate and outspoken in their promises to compete only through democratic processes.
But there is also fear that the global rise of militant fundamentalism has begun to change Indonesia. With democracy’s arrival, radical Islamists were allowed to return from exile, where the former military government had sent them. That was followed by the terrorist bombing of a nightclub on the predominantly Hindu island of Bali in 2002, in which 200 people died, then by other bombings in Jakarta and Bali, again. The government says it has seriously weakened Jemaah Islamiyah, a terrorism network blamed for those attacks. But the Islamic Defenders Front, less lethal but more numerous, still vandalizes bars and discos in Jakarta and beats up their patrons, trying to force the businesses to close.
Read all of Calvin Sims' article.
See also:
The Arab Invasion
Secular Turks say, "We don't want an imam in the presidential palace."
The many varieties of culture and styles of life in this enormous archipelago had bred a unique form of Islam — or, more precisely, many such forms, thriving side by side and often drawing on a rich pre-Islamic history replete with magic, Buddhism and South Seas gods. I had thought the prospects for retaining this style had only been enhanced by the coming of democracy in 1998.
It has not quite worked out that way, and now the big questions facing Indonesia are: Can Islam and democracy co-exist? And what would such a democracy look like?
Many optimists argue that there may be no place on earth better suited to be a Muslim democracy. Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population — some 207 million people, rivalling the number of Muslims in the Middle East — and the optimists say its relaxed and varied traditions are one reason that the vast majority of Indonesians remain committed to a tolerant form of Islam. The fastest-growing Muslim movements, in fact, are moderate and outspoken in their promises to compete only through democratic processes.
But there is also fear that the global rise of militant fundamentalism has begun to change Indonesia. With democracy’s arrival, radical Islamists were allowed to return from exile, where the former military government had sent them. That was followed by the terrorist bombing of a nightclub on the predominantly Hindu island of Bali in 2002, in which 200 people died, then by other bombings in Jakarta and Bali, again. The government says it has seriously weakened Jemaah Islamiyah, a terrorism network blamed for those attacks. But the Islamic Defenders Front, less lethal but more numerous, still vandalizes bars and discos in Jakarta and beats up their patrons, trying to force the businesses to close.
Read all of Calvin Sims' article.
See also:
The Arab Invasion
Secular Turks say, "We don't want an imam in the presidential palace."
Veterans want Canadian War Museum to change World War II bombing exhibit
The article below concerns a plaque in the Canadian War Museum describing the Allies' World War II bombing campaign on German cities. For more information about the controversy read these two Peter Worthington columns: WWII plaque an obscene summation and No feeling in war's portrayal. If the links have expired, you can read excerpts from the columns here and here.
From Canadian Press via the Toronto Star (WWII vets clash with museum over exhibit by John Ward, April 19, 2007):
Veterans are taking on the Canadian War Museum over an exhibit they say labels wartime bomber crews as war criminals – a move reminiscent of their crusade more than a decade ago against the CBC series The Valour and the Horror.
They've chosen the same forum to fight their case: the Senate subcommittee on veterans' affairs. Representatives from the Royal Canadian Legion, the Air Force Association and the Aircrew Association asked the senators yesterday to help them get the museum display rewritten.
[. . .]
The vets said they tried to meet museum officials to discuss a compromise in the wording and were rebuffed. They said the museum enlisted four distinguished historians to comment on the exhibit. Two said it was fine; two said it should be changed.
[. . .]
They may have won at least one supporter.
Senator Roméo Dallaire, a retired general who is no stranger to controversy and harsh accusations, said he found "an accusatory tone" in the exhibit. He said he wants to hear what the museum has to say.
[. . .]
Read all of the John Ward's article.
See also:
Continuing controversy over World War II bombing campaign - Legion calls for boycott of Canadian War Museum
From Canadian Press via the Toronto Star (WWII vets clash with museum over exhibit by John Ward, April 19, 2007):
Veterans are taking on the Canadian War Museum over an exhibit they say labels wartime bomber crews as war criminals – a move reminiscent of their crusade more than a decade ago against the CBC series The Valour and the Horror.
They've chosen the same forum to fight their case: the Senate subcommittee on veterans' affairs. Representatives from the Royal Canadian Legion, the Air Force Association and the Aircrew Association asked the senators yesterday to help them get the museum display rewritten.
[. . .]
The vets said they tried to meet museum officials to discuss a compromise in the wording and were rebuffed. They said the museum enlisted four distinguished historians to comment on the exhibit. Two said it was fine; two said it should be changed.
[. . .]
They may have won at least one supporter.
Senator Roméo Dallaire, a retired general who is no stranger to controversy and harsh accusations, said he found "an accusatory tone" in the exhibit. He said he wants to hear what the museum has to say.
[. . .]
Read all of the John Ward's article.
See also:
Continuing controversy over World War II bombing campaign - Legion calls for boycott of Canadian War Museum
Virginia Tech - one indisputable fact
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
A medieval church in Newfoundland?
I hope this is true:
North America's oldest church may lie beneath a small town in Newfoundland, according to information cobbled together from the research of a historian who recently died before publishing her seminal work.
An Italian friar and sailing companion of explorer John Cabot erected the church during his second trip to the continent in 1498, according to the late Alwyn Ruddock, said Evan Jones, a University of Bristol researcher who investigated and pieced together Ruddock's notes.
[. . .]
North America's oldest church may lie beneath a small town in Newfoundland, according to information cobbled together from the research of a historian who recently died before publishing her seminal work.
An Italian friar and sailing companion of explorer John Cabot erected the church during his second trip to the continent in 1498, according to the late Alwyn Ruddock, said Evan Jones, a University of Bristol researcher who investigated and pieced together Ruddock's notes.
[. . .]
A debate we'll never have in Canada
For better or worse this is a debate we'll never have in Canada:
Should students be allowed to carry concealed weapons?
Should students be allowed to carry concealed weapons?
Secular Turks say, "We don't want an imam in the presidential palace."
Turkey is sometimes held up as an example of a state that successfully combines Islam with secularism. People point to this country as proof that Islam is no barrier to democratic government. However, Islamism (i.e. political Islam) has considerable support in Turkey - enough in fact to give the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) a majority in parliament.
In addition to parliament, Turkey has a president with limited but real power. A new president will be chosen next May and the leading candidate is the current AKP prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The prospect of having both parliament and the presidency controlled by Islamists upsets secular Turks. From the Christian Science Monitor (Prime Minister Recep Erdogan's potential bid for president has sparked protests by secularists by Yigal Schleifer, April 19, 2007):
This past weekend, an estimated 370,000 protesters gathered in Turkey's capital, Ankara, for a rally against the possibility of an Erdogan presidency. Waving Turkish flags and carrying pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey's secularizing founder, the crowd chanted slogans such as "Turkey is secular and will stay secular" and "We don't want an imam in the presidential palace."
[. . .]
Though charismatic and popular with his electorate, Erdogan is very much a lightning rod in Turkish politics. While the country's president is expected to a kind of elder statesmen who sits above the political fray, the straight-shooting Erdogan is seen by many as too deeply involved in party politics to play that kind of role.
Secularists, meanwhile, still remember his efforts a few years ago to make adultery a crime and to rejigger Turkey's educational system to accommodate graduates of religious schools. For many of them, the idea of Erdogan's head-scarfed wife residing in the presidential palace is too much to bear.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Some people wonder why the hijab (Islamic headscarf) causes so much controversy. After all, they say, it's only a piece of cloth. No it's not. It's a symbol that carries with it a lot of political and social baggage. That's what someone like Muriel Walker doesn't seem to understand.]
[. . .]
One of the secularists' worries is that once Erdogan is ensconced in the presidential palace, the AKP will use its parliamentary power to create a system where the president has even more power, something the party has talked about doing before.
But legal and political experts believe the way to avoid recurring tension over who is to become president is to actually take away some of the Turkish president's extraordinary powers and restore the position to that of a figurehead.
[. . .]
Read all of the Christian Science Monitor report.
See also:
Is Turkey going Islamist?
CSIS changes terminology - 'Islamic' terrorists are now 'Islamists'
Assailants slit the throats of 3 people at Turkish Bible company
In addition to parliament, Turkey has a president with limited but real power. A new president will be chosen next May and the leading candidate is the current AKP prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The prospect of having both parliament and the presidency controlled by Islamists upsets secular Turks. From the Christian Science Monitor (Prime Minister Recep Erdogan's potential bid for president has sparked protests by secularists by Yigal Schleifer, April 19, 2007):
This past weekend, an estimated 370,000 protesters gathered in Turkey's capital, Ankara, for a rally against the possibility of an Erdogan presidency. Waving Turkish flags and carrying pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey's secularizing founder, the crowd chanted slogans such as "Turkey is secular and will stay secular" and "We don't want an imam in the presidential palace."
[. . .]
Though charismatic and popular with his electorate, Erdogan is very much a lightning rod in Turkish politics. While the country's president is expected to a kind of elder statesmen who sits above the political fray, the straight-shooting Erdogan is seen by many as too deeply involved in party politics to play that kind of role.
Secularists, meanwhile, still remember his efforts a few years ago to make adultery a crime and to rejigger Turkey's educational system to accommodate graduates of religious schools. For many of them, the idea of Erdogan's head-scarfed wife residing in the presidential palace is too much to bear.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Some people wonder why the hijab (Islamic headscarf) causes so much controversy. After all, they say, it's only a piece of cloth. No it's not. It's a symbol that carries with it a lot of political and social baggage. That's what someone like Muriel Walker doesn't seem to understand.]
[. . .]
One of the secularists' worries is that once Erdogan is ensconced in the presidential palace, the AKP will use its parliamentary power to create a system where the president has even more power, something the party has talked about doing before.
But legal and political experts believe the way to avoid recurring tension over who is to become president is to actually take away some of the Turkish president's extraordinary powers and restore the position to that of a figurehead.
[. . .]
Read all of the Christian Science Monitor report.
See also:
Is Turkey going Islamist?
CSIS changes terminology - 'Islamic' terrorists are now 'Islamists'
Assailants slit the throats of 3 people at Turkish Bible company
House vote on Afghan mission could trigger election
From the Toronto Star (Afghan mission faces vote next week by Bruce Campion-Smith, April 18, 2007):
The future of Canada's dangerous mission in Afghanistan will be put to the test in a key vote that could set the stage for a federal election.
The federal Liberals today announced that they're putting forward a motion demanding the withdrawal of Canada's 2,500 troops from Kandahar by February, 2009.
The motion will be debated tomorrow and voted on next Tuesday. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has staked much of his own political fortunes on the mission, could declare it a confidence motion - meaning a possible election if the NDP and Bloc Quebecois join together to support the Liberals.
[. . .]
Read all of Bruce Campion-Smith's article.
See also:
Most Canadians want troops out of Afghanistan before 2009 deadline - poll
Immigration reform, not Afghanistan, is the key to national security
Afghanistan - how many Canadian casualties? Why are we even there?
The future of Canada's dangerous mission in Afghanistan will be put to the test in a key vote that could set the stage for a federal election.
The federal Liberals today announced that they're putting forward a motion demanding the withdrawal of Canada's 2,500 troops from Kandahar by February, 2009.
The motion will be debated tomorrow and voted on next Tuesday. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has staked much of his own political fortunes on the mission, could declare it a confidence motion - meaning a possible election if the NDP and Bloc Quebecois join together to support the Liberals.
[. . .]
Read all of Bruce Campion-Smith's article.
See also:
Most Canadians want troops out of Afghanistan before 2009 deadline - poll
Immigration reform, not Afghanistan, is the key to national security
Afghanistan - how many Canadian casualties? Why are we even there?
Assailants slit the throats of 3 people at Turkish Bible company
From the Associated Press via the New York Times (3 Slain at Bible Distributor in Turkey, April 18, 2007):
Assailants tied up three people at a publishing house that distributes Bibles in Turkey and then slit their throats Wednesday, adding to a string of attacks apparently targeting the country's tiny Christian minority.
The killings occurred in Malatya, a city in central Turkey known as a hotbed of Turkish nationalism and is the hometown of Mehmet Ali Agca, the gunman who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981.
Malatya Gov. Ibrahim Dasoz said two of the victims at the Zirve publishing house were found already dead and the third died after being taken to the hospital. All had their throats cut and their hands and legs were bound, he said.
[. . .]
Making up less than 1 percent of Turkey's 70 million people, Christians have increasingly become targets amid what some fear is a rising tide of hostility toward non-Muslims.
[. . .]
Read all of the AP article
See also:
Wear My Crucifix Day to show solidarity with Christians persecuted in Muslim countries
Assailants tied up three people at a publishing house that distributes Bibles in Turkey and then slit their throats Wednesday, adding to a string of attacks apparently targeting the country's tiny Christian minority.
The killings occurred in Malatya, a city in central Turkey known as a hotbed of Turkish nationalism and is the hometown of Mehmet Ali Agca, the gunman who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981.
Malatya Gov. Ibrahim Dasoz said two of the victims at the Zirve publishing house were found already dead and the third died after being taken to the hospital. All had their throats cut and their hands and legs were bound, he said.
[. . .]
Making up less than 1 percent of Turkey's 70 million people, Christians have increasingly become targets amid what some fear is a rising tide of hostility toward non-Muslims.
[. . .]
Read all of the AP article
See also:
Wear My Crucifix Day to show solidarity with Christians persecuted in Muslim countries
The redistributional aspects of free trade
Yesterday I posted about the acquisition of Algoma Steel by an Indian firm. In my blog entry, I mentioned some of my misgivings about globalization and free trade. One critic of globalization is Pat Buchanan. In 1998, he wrote a book about it called The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed To the Gods of the Global Economy, which Peter Brimelow reviewed for the American Spectator. Although Brimelow criticized Buchanan's views on free trade, he made this observation (Pat's Protectionism, April 1998):
Finally, even if the U.S. does benefit overall from free trade, it is entirely possible that specific groups do not. Among academic economists, there is increasing interest in these redistributional aspects of free trade. Harvard economist Dani Rodrik published a much-discussed pamphlet on the subject, "has Globalization Gone Too Far," last year. The debate about American income trends is a bit more complex than Buchanan allows for here. But he's right that federal statistics do appear to suggest the bulk of workers are not appreciably better off than they were some two decades ago.
This may not be entirely due to trade. Rodrik's Harvard colleague George Borjas has demonstrated that the effect of immigration is maybe four times more important, at least for unskilled workers. Even if it were, protection may not be the answer. It would just redistribute income some other way and there would probably be less of it. The phenomenon, however, is real. Buchanan is not imagining whose workers who touched his heart while campaigning.
Read all of Peter Brimelow's review.
See also:
Indian company acquires Algoma steel
Bush administration planning EU-style North American Union - Vdare article
Finally, even if the U.S. does benefit overall from free trade, it is entirely possible that specific groups do not. Among academic economists, there is increasing interest in these redistributional aspects of free trade. Harvard economist Dani Rodrik published a much-discussed pamphlet on the subject, "has Globalization Gone Too Far," last year. The debate about American income trends is a bit more complex than Buchanan allows for here. But he's right that federal statistics do appear to suggest the bulk of workers are not appreciably better off than they were some two decades ago.
This may not be entirely due to trade. Rodrik's Harvard colleague George Borjas has demonstrated that the effect of immigration is maybe four times more important, at least for unskilled workers. Even if it were, protection may not be the answer. It would just redistribute income some other way and there would probably be less of it. The phenomenon, however, is real. Buchanan is not imagining whose workers who touched his heart while campaigning.
Read all of Peter Brimelow's review.
See also:
Indian company acquires Algoma steel
Bush administration planning EU-style North American Union - Vdare article
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Tae kwon do hijab ban rarely enforced - world federation officials say
From the Gazette (Hijab ban rarely invoked, tae kwon do officials say by Kazi Stastna, April 17, 2007):
The World Tae Kwon Do Federation competition rule is clear: "Wearing any item on the head other than the head protector shall not be permitted." But in practice, the rule is rarely used to ban the hijab from competition, as was done in Quebec during the weekend, Canadian and international tae kwon do officials say.
Five Muslim girls, age 8 to 13, from a Montreal tae kwon do club were told they could not compete in a Longueuil tournament Sunday unless they removed their head scarves.
The Quebec Federation of Tae Kwon Do cited the world federation regulation and safety concerns as the reasons they decided to forbid the hijab - religious head coverings some Muslim women wear - at the competition, despite allowing them in the past.
"Theoretically, it's against the rules, but most countries accept it," said Gerrit Eissink, a member of the World Tae Kwon Do Federation Council, the sport's international governing body, and secretary-general of the European Tae Kwon Do Union.
[. . .]
Read all of Kazi Stastna's article.
See also:
The Québecois Nation versus Multiculturalism
Soccer and the headscarf
McMaster professor who sponsored 'Wear a Hijab Day' says she was targeted before
The World Tae Kwon Do Federation competition rule is clear: "Wearing any item on the head other than the head protector shall not be permitted." But in practice, the rule is rarely used to ban the hijab from competition, as was done in Quebec during the weekend, Canadian and international tae kwon do officials say.
Five Muslim girls, age 8 to 13, from a Montreal tae kwon do club were told they could not compete in a Longueuil tournament Sunday unless they removed their head scarves.
The Quebec Federation of Tae Kwon Do cited the world federation regulation and safety concerns as the reasons they decided to forbid the hijab - religious head coverings some Muslim women wear - at the competition, despite allowing them in the past.
"Theoretically, it's against the rules, but most countries accept it," said Gerrit Eissink, a member of the World Tae Kwon Do Federation Council, the sport's international governing body, and secretary-general of the European Tae Kwon Do Union.
[. . .]
Read all of Kazi Stastna's article.
See also:
The Québecois Nation versus Multiculturalism
Soccer and the headscarf
McMaster professor who sponsored 'Wear a Hijab Day' says she was targeted before
Toronto terrorism case: Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal says shots were fired at family cars
From the Globe and Mail (Terror suspect's wife ties vandalism to published remarks by Timothy Appleby, April 17, 2007):
The wife of one of the 18 people charged with plotting to blow up public buildings in Toronto says that during the past 10 days an unknown gunman fired bullets into the radiators of both the family's cars in an "act of terrorism" designed to "shut me up."
Peel Regional Police, who have seized one of the vehicles and the radiator of the other, confirmed yesterday that they are investigating what they describe as "a mischief-related incident" but said they would have nothing to add until inquiries are complete.
Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal is a Cape Breton-born mother of four who converted to Islam and married 43-year-old Abdul Qayyum Jamal, the oldest of the suspects accused last year in the alleged terrorism conspiracy.
She said she was sure the vandalism stemmed from remarks she made in a newspaper article published April 4, criticizing the isolation in which her husband is being detained.
[. . .]
Read all of Timothy Appleby's article.
See also:
Hateful chatter behind the veil
Muslims arrested in last year's anti-terror sweep challenge detention conditions
Toronto terror bomb plot case inches its way through the court system
The wife of one of the 18 people charged with plotting to blow up public buildings in Toronto says that during the past 10 days an unknown gunman fired bullets into the radiators of both the family's cars in an "act of terrorism" designed to "shut me up."
Peel Regional Police, who have seized one of the vehicles and the radiator of the other, confirmed yesterday that they are investigating what they describe as "a mischief-related incident" but said they would have nothing to add until inquiries are complete.
Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal is a Cape Breton-born mother of four who converted to Islam and married 43-year-old Abdul Qayyum Jamal, the oldest of the suspects accused last year in the alleged terrorism conspiracy.
She said she was sure the vandalism stemmed from remarks she made in a newspaper article published April 4, criticizing the isolation in which her husband is being detained.
[. . .]
Read all of Timothy Appleby's article.
See also:
Hateful chatter behind the veil
Muslims arrested in last year's anti-terror sweep challenge detention conditions
Toronto terror bomb plot case inches its way through the court system
Vdare on the Virginia Tech shootings
Brenda Walker writes (Unfounded Fears of Backlash Fly around the World, April 17, 2007):
Fear-of-backlash statements and reporting are a form of cultural intimidation, that if you even mention that the killer was an immigrant then you must be some sort of racist.
As a result, the important discussions about the inherent psychological strains of transcultural immigration never occur. The media chatter constantly about how wonderful diversity is and ignore the stress of adjusting to a different society. Immigrants are expected to be happy and grateful, while many are not. Stress is cumulative, and when the difficulties of cultural adjustment are piled on top of the normal problems of young adulthood, some may explode. Just two months ago, a Bosnian teenager living in Salt Lake City killed five in a rampage in a shopping mall.
We do no one any favor by encouraging millions from vastly different cultures to move here. Excessive diversity often creates unhappiness and worse for everyone concerned. How many more innocent Americans have to die before multicultural immigration is recognized as being a monumental failure?
Read all of Brenda Walker's blog post.
See also:
Asian-American Journalists Promote Media Coverup
Fear-of-backlash statements and reporting are a form of cultural intimidation, that if you even mention that the killer was an immigrant then you must be some sort of racist.
As a result, the important discussions about the inherent psychological strains of transcultural immigration never occur. The media chatter constantly about how wonderful diversity is and ignore the stress of adjusting to a different society. Immigrants are expected to be happy and grateful, while many are not. Stress is cumulative, and when the difficulties of cultural adjustment are piled on top of the normal problems of young adulthood, some may explode. Just two months ago, a Bosnian teenager living in Salt Lake City killed five in a rampage in a shopping mall.
We do no one any favor by encouraging millions from vastly different cultures to move here. Excessive diversity often creates unhappiness and worse for everyone concerned. How many more innocent Americans have to die before multicultural immigration is recognized as being a monumental failure?
Read all of Brenda Walker's blog post.
See also:
Asian-American Journalists Promote Media Coverup
Virginia Tech
Once again, Kathy Shaidle says it better than I could: Obligatory Virginia Tech post . I have nothing to add to her comments.
Read also her comments on the death of Toronto social activist June Callwood: June Callwood: 1924-2007
Read also her comments on the death of Toronto social activist June Callwood: June Callwood: 1924-2007
Indian company acquires Algoma steel
From Canadian Press via the Toronto Star (Indian firm buys Algoma, April 16, 2007):
Canada's Algoma Steel is being acquired by a subsidiary of India-based Essar Global Ltd. in a cash buyout valued at $1.85 billion, the latest in a series of takeovers that has put most of the Canadian steel sector in the hands of foreign firms.
Algoma and Essar said in a joint statement yesterday they had signed an agreement in which the Indian company will buy all outstanding shares of Algoma for $56 apiece. With just more than 32 million common shares outstanding and other securities, the transaction values Algoma at $1.85 billion.
[. . .]
The deal is conditional on the approval of two-thirds of shareholders at a meeting expected to be held in June.
Algoma is an integrated steel company that has focused on rolled steel for the auto, construction and manufacturing industries. It has been regarded as a takeover target for bigger steelmakers in the United States, Europe, Asia or South America amid global industry consolidation. Revenues totalled $1.9 billion in 2006, putting it behind industry rivals such as Dofasco, Stelco and Ipsco in sales.
Essar Global is an international conglomerate operating in six business areas – steel, oil and gas, power generation, communications, shipping and construction, with projected revenues of $10 billion (U.S.) this fiscal year.
Algoma has undergone two court-protected restructurings since the 1990s and previously failed to find a buyer after putting itself up for sale in 2005. A few weeks ago, the company and German steelmaker Salzgitter AG broke off takeover talks and the company began negotiating with other potential buyers.
[. . .]
Read all of the CP article.
I don't know what to think when I read stories like this, but I do worry about a global economy in which nation-states are powerless to protect the interests of their own people. I'm not a socialist. I'm not anti-business or anti-trade, but I'm concerned about the concentration of economic power in the hands of a global elite that has no national loyalties. I also worry about the so-called race to the bottom. I don't know if my concern is valid or not, but it's something I think about. I worry that if Canadian workers have to compete with cheap labour in countries like India and China, our standard of living will decline. In theory, free trade creates more wealth for everyone, but is that how things work in the real world? I don't know.
See also:
A free trade agreement between Canada and India?
India poised to become Canada's top source of immigrants. Is this what Canadians want?
Buzz Hargrove warns that cheap Chinese imports threaten Canadian auto industry
Canada's Algoma Steel is being acquired by a subsidiary of India-based Essar Global Ltd. in a cash buyout valued at $1.85 billion, the latest in a series of takeovers that has put most of the Canadian steel sector in the hands of foreign firms.
Algoma and Essar said in a joint statement yesterday they had signed an agreement in which the Indian company will buy all outstanding shares of Algoma for $56 apiece. With just more than 32 million common shares outstanding and other securities, the transaction values Algoma at $1.85 billion.
[. . .]
The deal is conditional on the approval of two-thirds of shareholders at a meeting expected to be held in June.
Algoma is an integrated steel company that has focused on rolled steel for the auto, construction and manufacturing industries. It has been regarded as a takeover target for bigger steelmakers in the United States, Europe, Asia or South America amid global industry consolidation. Revenues totalled $1.9 billion in 2006, putting it behind industry rivals such as Dofasco, Stelco and Ipsco in sales.
Essar Global is an international conglomerate operating in six business areas – steel, oil and gas, power generation, communications, shipping and construction, with projected revenues of $10 billion (U.S.) this fiscal year.
Algoma has undergone two court-protected restructurings since the 1990s and previously failed to find a buyer after putting itself up for sale in 2005. A few weeks ago, the company and German steelmaker Salzgitter AG broke off takeover talks and the company began negotiating with other potential buyers.
[. . .]
Read all of the CP article.
I don't know what to think when I read stories like this, but I do worry about a global economy in which nation-states are powerless to protect the interests of their own people. I'm not a socialist. I'm not anti-business or anti-trade, but I'm concerned about the concentration of economic power in the hands of a global elite that has no national loyalties. I also worry about the so-called race to the bottom. I don't know if my concern is valid or not, but it's something I think about. I worry that if Canadian workers have to compete with cheap labour in countries like India and China, our standard of living will decline. In theory, free trade creates more wealth for everyone, but is that how things work in the real world? I don't know.
See also:
A free trade agreement between Canada and India?
India poised to become Canada's top source of immigrants. Is this what Canadians want?
Buzz Hargrove warns that cheap Chinese imports threaten Canadian auto industry
Bush administration planning EU-style North American Union - Vdare article
Daniel Sheehy writes in Vdare (Chertoff, Gutierrez, Rice: Plotting Bush’s North American Union, April 16, 2007):
What the L.A. Times and other elitist controlled major media outlets do not report is that also behind closed doors, and without legally required congressional oversight, Chertoff and Gutierrez, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have been working together for two years on the economic and political merger of the United States with Mexico and Canada. This is why Bush, Chertoff, Gutierrez, and others are pushing so hard for "comprehensive immigration reform."
The three conspiratorial Cabinet secretaries are coordinating the gradual integration of the three countries into a borderless North American Union patterned after the European Union.
[. . .]
Others traitors are involved in this overthrow of the U.S. government and Constitution, but Chertoff, Gutierrez, and Rice appear to be coordinating the merger for the Bush administration, according to my analysis of government reports and meetings.
This also explains why Chertoff has said he won’t build the more than 700 miles of double-layered fencing on our southern border.
The promoters of a EU-style North American Union began during the George H.W. Bush administration, with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which is a developing economic and political union of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Congress approved the 1,700-page pact into law in 1993 and President Clinton immediately signed it in 1994.
Read all of Daniel Sheehy's article.
See also:
Former Soviet Dissident Warns of EU Dictatorship
Mexican Smugglers Seize U.S. Territory—MSM (And Bush Administration, Needless To Say) Asleep
In George Bush's America, border patrol agents are prosecuted for doing their job
What the L.A. Times and other elitist controlled major media outlets do not report is that also behind closed doors, and without legally required congressional oversight, Chertoff and Gutierrez, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have been working together for two years on the economic and political merger of the United States with Mexico and Canada. This is why Bush, Chertoff, Gutierrez, and others are pushing so hard for "comprehensive immigration reform."
The three conspiratorial Cabinet secretaries are coordinating the gradual integration of the three countries into a borderless North American Union patterned after the European Union.
[. . .]
Others traitors are involved in this overthrow of the U.S. government and Constitution, but Chertoff, Gutierrez, and Rice appear to be coordinating the merger for the Bush administration, according to my analysis of government reports and meetings.
This also explains why Chertoff has said he won’t build the more than 700 miles of double-layered fencing on our southern border.
The promoters of a EU-style North American Union began during the George H.W. Bush administration, with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which is a developing economic and political union of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Congress approved the 1,700-page pact into law in 1993 and President Clinton immediately signed it in 1994.
Read all of Daniel Sheehy's article.
See also:
Former Soviet Dissident Warns of EU Dictatorship
Mexican Smugglers Seize U.S. Territory—MSM (And Bush Administration, Needless To Say) Asleep
In George Bush's America, border patrol agents are prosecuted for doing their job
Monday, April 16, 2007
Mahmoud Jaballah - one more Egyptian terrorist suspect released from jail
From the Globe and Mail (Judge frees 'senior' terrorism suspect by Colin Freeze, April 14, 2007):
An Egyptian terrorism suspect has been released from years of jail, but the Federal Court judge yesterday expressed strong security concerns and a lack of confidence in the man's main bail surety, his wife.
Mahmoud Jaballah was released from a detention centre in Kingston and will be placed under an extreme form of house arrest. He is the second terrorism suspect freed in two days, after the release of Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub on Thursday.
After being detained for nearly six years, Mr. Jaballah was escorted by officials back to his Toronto home, where he will live with his wife and six children, several of whom are now responsible for watching his every move.
“He's out,” the suspect's lawyer, Barbara Jackman, said last night. “I'm just pleased he's out. It's been so hard on them as people, as individuals.”
Since 1999, the Canadian government has been trying to use the federal security-certificate process to deport the terrorism suspect and, after losing its initial case, had Mr. Jaballah rearrested in 2001. He had been jailed ever since as courts, citing concerns about torture in his native Egypt, rejected efforts to deport him.
[. . .]
Read all of Colin Freeze's article.
See also:
Mohamed Mahjoub - Egyptian who worked for Osama bin Laden released from detention
An Egyptian terrorism suspect has been released from years of jail, but the Federal Court judge yesterday expressed strong security concerns and a lack of confidence in the man's main bail surety, his wife.
Mahmoud Jaballah was released from a detention centre in Kingston and will be placed under an extreme form of house arrest. He is the second terrorism suspect freed in two days, after the release of Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub on Thursday.
After being detained for nearly six years, Mr. Jaballah was escorted by officials back to his Toronto home, where he will live with his wife and six children, several of whom are now responsible for watching his every move.
“He's out,” the suspect's lawyer, Barbara Jackman, said last night. “I'm just pleased he's out. It's been so hard on them as people, as individuals.”
Since 1999, the Canadian government has been trying to use the federal security-certificate process to deport the terrorism suspect and, after losing its initial case, had Mr. Jaballah rearrested in 2001. He had been jailed ever since as courts, citing concerns about torture in his native Egypt, rejected efforts to deport him.
[. . .]
Read all of Colin Freeze's article.
See also:
Mohamed Mahjoub - Egyptian who worked for Osama bin Laden released from detention
Mohamed Mahjoub - Egyptian who worked for Osama bin Laden released from detention
From the Globe and Mail (Egyptian terrorism suspect freed from Kingston prison by Colin Freeze and Unnati Gandhi, April 13, 2007):
Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub, an Egyptian who once ran a Sudanese farming operation for Osama bin Laden, was released after seven years of detention last night.
For the first time since 2000, the terrorism suspect, who had been held under Canada's controversial security certificate law, is allowed to live with his Toronto family, albeit under a very strict form of house arrest.
[. . .]
In an earlier interview, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said he's displeased that judges are releasing Mr. Mahjoub and other suspected security threats. "I would prefer that the people would stay in detention," Mr. Day said yesterday. He then reiterated the long-standing allegations against Mr. Mahjoub. "The [Federal] Court agrees that Mr. Mahjoub worked closely with and was paid by Osama bin Laden," Mr. Day said.
But he added that the same court decided to grant bail, and his government is obliged to respect the decision. "We will respect the court ruling and hope that the [house-arrest] safeguards will be enough to keep Canadians safe."
[. . .]
Now that Mr. Mahjoub has been released, officials at the Canada Border Services Agency will monitor the 47-year-old with a GPS ankle bracelet and through video cameras and phone taps at his house.
CBSA agents will also shadow the suspect during the few outings he is permitted each week and his immediate family must make sure he lives up to bail obligations. There is speculation among border officials that they will have to set up a 24-hour surveillance centre in Toronto just to keep tabs on Mr. Mahjoub and Mr. Jaballah.
[. . .]
But the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has argued that Mr. Mahjoub formed part of an Egyptian terror group known as the Vanguards of Conquest. CSIS has further alleged that he knew other important extremists, such as an alleged Canadian al-Qaeda financier and an Iraqi identified by the U.S. 9/11 Commission as al-Qaeda's "principal procurement agent for weapons of mass destruction."
[. . .]
Read all of the Globe article
See also:
A message to Adil Charkaoui and other foreign terrorist suspects: this isn't your country. Shut up and go home!
A threefold assault on Canada’s anti-terrorism laws
Canada can be held for ransom by any foreign terrorist whose lawyer claims his client might be tortured if sent home - James Bissett
Human rights extremists threaten Canada's national security
Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub, an Egyptian who once ran a Sudanese farming operation for Osama bin Laden, was released after seven years of detention last night.
For the first time since 2000, the terrorism suspect, who had been held under Canada's controversial security certificate law, is allowed to live with his Toronto family, albeit under a very strict form of house arrest.
[. . .]
In an earlier interview, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said he's displeased that judges are releasing Mr. Mahjoub and other suspected security threats. "I would prefer that the people would stay in detention," Mr. Day said yesterday. He then reiterated the long-standing allegations against Mr. Mahjoub. "The [Federal] Court agrees that Mr. Mahjoub worked closely with and was paid by Osama bin Laden," Mr. Day said.
But he added that the same court decided to grant bail, and his government is obliged to respect the decision. "We will respect the court ruling and hope that the [house-arrest] safeguards will be enough to keep Canadians safe."
[. . .]
Now that Mr. Mahjoub has been released, officials at the Canada Border Services Agency will monitor the 47-year-old with a GPS ankle bracelet and through video cameras and phone taps at his house.
CBSA agents will also shadow the suspect during the few outings he is permitted each week and his immediate family must make sure he lives up to bail obligations. There is speculation among border officials that they will have to set up a 24-hour surveillance centre in Toronto just to keep tabs on Mr. Mahjoub and Mr. Jaballah.
[. . .]
But the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has argued that Mr. Mahjoub formed part of an Egyptian terror group known as the Vanguards of Conquest. CSIS has further alleged that he knew other important extremists, such as an alleged Canadian al-Qaeda financier and an Iraqi identified by the U.S. 9/11 Commission as al-Qaeda's "principal procurement agent for weapons of mass destruction."
[. . .]
Read all of the Globe article
See also:
A message to Adil Charkaoui and other foreign terrorist suspects: this isn't your country. Shut up and go home!
A threefold assault on Canada’s anti-terrorism laws
Canada can be held for ransom by any foreign terrorist whose lawyer claims his client might be tortured if sent home - James Bissett
Human rights extremists threaten Canada's national security
A threefold assault on Canada’s anti-terrorism laws
Patrick Grady writes (The Judiciary and Politicians put Canadian National Security At Risk, February 27, 2007):
The more time that has passed since the horrific attacks on New York and Washington, the more complacent Canadians have become. . . . This mood has emboldened our Courts and the opposition parties to mount a threefold assault on Canada’s anti-terrorism laws under the banner of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The first strike was delivered last October when an Ontario Superior Court judge struck down the legal definition of terrorist activity in the Anti-Terrorism Act in a response to an appeal by Momin Khawaja.
[. . .]
The second punch was from the Supreme Court on February 23 when it announced its unanimous decision last week that the procedure under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for determining whether a security certificate is reasonable and the detention review procedures both infringe Section 7 of the Charter.
[. . .]
The third blow came on February 27 from the hand of opposition parties who voted down the government motion extending two important provisions in the Anti-Terrorism Act – the investigative hearing and preventive arrest powers – which were scheduled to sunset on that day.
[. . .]
Read all of Patrick Grady's article.
See also:
Canada can be held for ransom by any foreign terrorist whose lawyer claims his client might be tortured if sent home - James Bissett
Human rights extremists threaten Canada's national security
The more time that has passed since the horrific attacks on New York and Washington, the more complacent Canadians have become. . . . This mood has emboldened our Courts and the opposition parties to mount a threefold assault on Canada’s anti-terrorism laws under the banner of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The first strike was delivered last October when an Ontario Superior Court judge struck down the legal definition of terrorist activity in the Anti-Terrorism Act in a response to an appeal by Momin Khawaja.
[. . .]
The second punch was from the Supreme Court on February 23 when it announced its unanimous decision last week that the procedure under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for determining whether a security certificate is reasonable and the detention review procedures both infringe Section 7 of the Charter.
[. . .]
The third blow came on February 27 from the hand of opposition parties who voted down the government motion extending two important provisions in the Anti-Terrorism Act – the investigative hearing and preventive arrest powers – which were scheduled to sunset on that day.
[. . .]
Read all of Patrick Grady's article.
See also:
Canada can be held for ransom by any foreign terrorist whose lawyer claims his client might be tortured if sent home - James Bissett
Human rights extremists threaten Canada's national security
Ex-KGB officer faces deportation from Canada
From Canadian Press via the Globe and Mail (Former KGB man facing deportation by Jim Bronskill, April 15, 2007):
A 70-year-old Vancouver man who spent two decades with the Soviet security service faces deportation from Canada.
Givi Abramishvili, who rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the feared KGB, failed to persuade the appeal division of the federal immigration board he should be allowed to stay.
Adjudicator Erwin Nest issued a deportation order upon finding “ample credible and trustworthy evidence” to reasonably conclude Mr. Abramishvili was a KGB member from 1969 to 1989, when the Soviet empire began crumbling.
Mr. Abramishvili came to Canada on a visitor's visa in 1999 and four years later made a refugee claim, which has yet to be decided.
[. . .]
It is the second case of a former KGB employee to surface in British Columbia this year. Authorities have also made a deportation order against Mikhail Alexander Lennikov, a former Communist youth league leader who participated in spying on behalf of the Soviets.
Mr. Abramishvili, a citizen of the Republic of Georgia, was born in 1937 in Tblisi, then part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
[. . .]
Read all of Jim Bronskill's article.
According to the article, Abramishvili once guarded Andrei Sakharov.
A 70-year-old Vancouver man who spent two decades with the Soviet security service faces deportation from Canada.
Givi Abramishvili, who rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the feared KGB, failed to persuade the appeal division of the federal immigration board he should be allowed to stay.
Adjudicator Erwin Nest issued a deportation order upon finding “ample credible and trustworthy evidence” to reasonably conclude Mr. Abramishvili was a KGB member from 1969 to 1989, when the Soviet empire began crumbling.
Mr. Abramishvili came to Canada on a visitor's visa in 1999 and four years later made a refugee claim, which has yet to be decided.
[. . .]
It is the second case of a former KGB employee to surface in British Columbia this year. Authorities have also made a deportation order against Mikhail Alexander Lennikov, a former Communist youth league leader who participated in spying on behalf of the Soviets.
Mr. Abramishvili, a citizen of the Republic of Georgia, was born in 1937 in Tblisi, then part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
[. . .]
Read all of Jim Bronskill's article.
According to the article, Abramishvili once guarded Andrei Sakharov.
Thou shalt accept public housing. Thus saith the Lord. Thus saith Giorgio Mammoliti.
From the Toronto Star (City housing for 1,500 planned by Donovan Vincent, April 14, 2007):
Ten proposed projects that would house 1,500 people for $160 million – the largest affordable-housing package Toronto has seen in years – will go to a city hall committee for approval Tuesday.
And the politician backing the proposal, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, says he won't tolerate any "NIMBY" arguments from residents in neighbourhoods where the projects are likely to end up.
"I won't accept `not in my back yard.' I will not accept it," vowed the chair of the affordable housing committee yesterday. "In fact, I don't want to talk to anybody if they're going to bring (that) approach ...
"I'm going to move forward with our agenda, and I'll only listen to, and the committee will only listen to, valid planning arguments."
[. . .]
At this early stage, at least one of the projects has already stirred controversy.
A 20-unit proposal for 1120 Ossington Ave. was the subject of "heated and vicious" debate a few months ago, according to one person who was at a neighbourhood meeting where it was discussed.
The St. Clair West Affordable Housing Group's proposal calls for redeveloping a 50-year-old church that's currently used only for that group's meetings. The $4 million project would provide homes with average rents of about $700 for a one-bedroom, and the tenants would include domestic abuse victims.
But the west-end meeting held in December turned nasty, with some residents voicing concerns about "the kind of people" that would live there, said Peter Clutterbuck, volunteer chair of St. Clair West housing group.
His group formed an advisory committee to encourage dialogue with residents, and Clutterbuck said he remains "confident the community is going to welcome the project."
[. . .]
Read all of Donovan Vincent's article.
I don't know anything about the proposal for 1120 Ossington Avenue. I don't live in the area. I can't offer an opinion about this particular project, but given the problems with some other public housing projects in Toronto, I can understand why the local community might be opposed.
I don't like Giorgio Mammoliti's dictatorial tone. We will put these projects in your neighbourhoods whether you want them or not and if you are opposed, you are nothing more than a bigot. That seems to be his attitude. Some public housing projects in Toronto have violent gangs. I can't say that would be problem at 1120 Ossington, but if I lived in that area I would be concerned about any proposal for public housing. I would be worried about the kind of people the project would be bringing to my neighbourhood. I wouldn't automatically be opposed but I would want to ask a lot of questions.
I don't know that the opposition to the Ossington Avenue project has anything to do with race, but I can see race being an issue in at least some proposals to build public housing. On Saturday, I wrote about the possibility of future race riots in Toronto. I imagine that some people who read that blog post thought I was being hysterical. I wasn't. There is racial tension in Toronto. It's not overt. It's hidden below the surface, but it's there. Some of that animosity will come out during community meetings about building public housing. People in Toronto are generally careful to keep their feelings about race to themselves, but when emotions run high, people's true feelings come out.
See also:
Why do people oppose public housing in their neighbourhoods?
Bloodz vs. Cripps - Toronto housing complex plagued by gangs
Toronto Community Housing wants to evict families of gang members
Ten proposed projects that would house 1,500 people for $160 million – the largest affordable-housing package Toronto has seen in years – will go to a city hall committee for approval Tuesday.
And the politician backing the proposal, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, says he won't tolerate any "NIMBY" arguments from residents in neighbourhoods where the projects are likely to end up.
"I won't accept `not in my back yard.' I will not accept it," vowed the chair of the affordable housing committee yesterday. "In fact, I don't want to talk to anybody if they're going to bring (that) approach ...
"I'm going to move forward with our agenda, and I'll only listen to, and the committee will only listen to, valid planning arguments."
[. . .]
At this early stage, at least one of the projects has already stirred controversy.
A 20-unit proposal for 1120 Ossington Ave. was the subject of "heated and vicious" debate a few months ago, according to one person who was at a neighbourhood meeting where it was discussed.
The St. Clair West Affordable Housing Group's proposal calls for redeveloping a 50-year-old church that's currently used only for that group's meetings. The $4 million project would provide homes with average rents of about $700 for a one-bedroom, and the tenants would include domestic abuse victims.
But the west-end meeting held in December turned nasty, with some residents voicing concerns about "the kind of people" that would live there, said Peter Clutterbuck, volunteer chair of St. Clair West housing group.
His group formed an advisory committee to encourage dialogue with residents, and Clutterbuck said he remains "confident the community is going to welcome the project."
[. . .]
Read all of Donovan Vincent's article.
I don't know anything about the proposal for 1120 Ossington Avenue. I don't live in the area. I can't offer an opinion about this particular project, but given the problems with some other public housing projects in Toronto, I can understand why the local community might be opposed.
I don't like Giorgio Mammoliti's dictatorial tone. We will put these projects in your neighbourhoods whether you want them or not and if you are opposed, you are nothing more than a bigot. That seems to be his attitude. Some public housing projects in Toronto have violent gangs. I can't say that would be problem at 1120 Ossington, but if I lived in that area I would be concerned about any proposal for public housing. I would be worried about the kind of people the project would be bringing to my neighbourhood. I wouldn't automatically be opposed but I would want to ask a lot of questions.
I don't know that the opposition to the Ossington Avenue project has anything to do with race, but I can see race being an issue in at least some proposals to build public housing. On Saturday, I wrote about the possibility of future race riots in Toronto. I imagine that some people who read that blog post thought I was being hysterical. I wasn't. There is racial tension in Toronto. It's not overt. It's hidden below the surface, but it's there. Some of that animosity will come out during community meetings about building public housing. People in Toronto are generally careful to keep their feelings about race to themselves, but when emotions run high, people's true feelings come out.
See also:
Why do people oppose public housing in their neighbourhoods?
Bloodz vs. Cripps - Toronto housing complex plagued by gangs
Toronto Community Housing wants to evict families of gang members
Sunday, April 15, 2007
The perils of ethnic pandering: Canadian branch of Pakistani political movement accused of terrorism actively supports the federal Conservatives
From the National Post (The hidden risks of the photo op by Stewart Bell, April 14, 2007):
In Pakistan, Syed Safdar Ali Baqri was a senior official in a political party called MQM, but since moving to Toronto in 1998, he has become an active supporter of the Conservatives.
[. . .]
MQM-Canada endorsed the Conservative party in 2004 and 2006, and held a Support Conservative Car Rally and a "Picnic and BBQ" for the Conservative candidate in Don Mills. It says its volunteers worked on campaigns in seven cities.
"We welcome MQM-Canada's support and hope to receive cooperation from all chapters of MQM-Canada," says a statement attributed to Conservative MP Leon Benoit and posted on the group's Internet site in 2004. (Mr. Benoit said he does not recall making the comment.)
The ties between MQM-Canada and the Conservatives continued post-election. When MQM held its three-day annual convention in Toronto last June, Conservative MP Patrick Brown gave a speech. But what exactly is the MQM?
The Conservatives are apparently beginning to ask that same question. The Privy Council Office did some background research on the group last year and sent a memo to Mr. Harper's chief of staff, Ian Brodie.
The four-page memorandum, released under the Access to Information Act, says the MQM is a Pakistani political party with a history of involvement in ethnic riots, kidnapping, torture and murder.
[. . .]
Among those that immigration officials have claimed were complicit in atrocities in Pakistan: Mr. Baqri, the MQM-Canada leader, who was an MQM party boss in Karachi before coming to Canada.
A former minister of industries in the Sindh region of southern Pakistan, Mr. Baqri served as the head of an MQM zone in Karachi. He fled Pakistan and eventually made his way to the United States, where he was part of a committee that tried to build the MQM in North America.
In 1994, an anti-terrorist court in Pakistan convicted him in absentia of kidnapping and torturing an army major, but a higher court overturned the ruling.
When his U.S. asylum claim was rejected, he came to Canada in 1998. The Canadian immigration board's Convention Refugee Determination Division turned down his refugee claim on the grounds that he was aware of abuses committed by MQM members while he was a party leader.
That decision was set aside in 2001 by the Federal Court of Canada, which said immigration officers had failed to query Mr. Baqri about any specific incidents. The court sent the case back for another review, but Mr. Baqri still does not have landed immigrant status.
"He has continued his political activity while in Canada," Mr. Justice Allan Lufty wrote in his 2001 decision on Mr. Baqri's case. "He has organized protests in Ottawa and in Toronto against the government in Pakistan. There are some 9,000 MQM supporters in Canada."
[. . .]
Read all of Stewart Bell's article.
Stewart Bell has written two important books about terrorism in Canada: Cold Terror and The Martyr's Oath. Reviews of Bell's books can be read here and here.
People interested in an extensive discussion of Canada's failure to address terrorism should download free of charge Martin Collacott's Fraser Institute report: Canada's Inadequate Response to Terrorism. Also worth reading is the Mackenzie Institute's free online book: Other people's wars. Take a look too at Patrick Grady's article: The Judiciary and Politicians put Canadian National Security At Risk .
See also:
Should Canada accept members of Pakistan's Mohajir Quomi Movement as refugees? Or should they be treated as terrorists?
Pandering to Ukrainians part of Harper strategy
Ethnic divisions inside Liberal Party over extending anti-terrorism measures
Tarek Fatah describes demands made by ethnic delegates at the Liberal convention. Tamils wanted terrorist group delisted
Historian Jack Granatstein is concerned about the influence of ethnic groups on Canadian foreign policy
In Pakistan, Syed Safdar Ali Baqri was a senior official in a political party called MQM, but since moving to Toronto in 1998, he has become an active supporter of the Conservatives.
[. . .]
MQM-Canada endorsed the Conservative party in 2004 and 2006, and held a Support Conservative Car Rally and a "Picnic and BBQ" for the Conservative candidate in Don Mills. It says its volunteers worked on campaigns in seven cities.
"We welcome MQM-Canada's support and hope to receive cooperation from all chapters of MQM-Canada," says a statement attributed to Conservative MP Leon Benoit and posted on the group's Internet site in 2004. (Mr. Benoit said he does not recall making the comment.)
The ties between MQM-Canada and the Conservatives continued post-election. When MQM held its three-day annual convention in Toronto last June, Conservative MP Patrick Brown gave a speech. But what exactly is the MQM?
The Conservatives are apparently beginning to ask that same question. The Privy Council Office did some background research on the group last year and sent a memo to Mr. Harper's chief of staff, Ian Brodie.
The four-page memorandum, released under the Access to Information Act, says the MQM is a Pakistani political party with a history of involvement in ethnic riots, kidnapping, torture and murder.
[. . .]
Among those that immigration officials have claimed were complicit in atrocities in Pakistan: Mr. Baqri, the MQM-Canada leader, who was an MQM party boss in Karachi before coming to Canada.
A former minister of industries in the Sindh region of southern Pakistan, Mr. Baqri served as the head of an MQM zone in Karachi. He fled Pakistan and eventually made his way to the United States, where he was part of a committee that tried to build the MQM in North America.
In 1994, an anti-terrorist court in Pakistan convicted him in absentia of kidnapping and torturing an army major, but a higher court overturned the ruling.
When his U.S. asylum claim was rejected, he came to Canada in 1998. The Canadian immigration board's Convention Refugee Determination Division turned down his refugee claim on the grounds that he was aware of abuses committed by MQM members while he was a party leader.
That decision was set aside in 2001 by the Federal Court of Canada, which said immigration officers had failed to query Mr. Baqri about any specific incidents. The court sent the case back for another review, but Mr. Baqri still does not have landed immigrant status.
"He has continued his political activity while in Canada," Mr. Justice Allan Lufty wrote in his 2001 decision on Mr. Baqri's case. "He has organized protests in Ottawa and in Toronto against the government in Pakistan. There are some 9,000 MQM supporters in Canada."
[. . .]
Read all of Stewart Bell's article.
Stewart Bell has written two important books about terrorism in Canada: Cold Terror and The Martyr's Oath. Reviews of Bell's books can be read here and here.
People interested in an extensive discussion of Canada's failure to address terrorism should download free of charge Martin Collacott's Fraser Institute report: Canada's Inadequate Response to Terrorism. Also worth reading is the Mackenzie Institute's free online book: Other people's wars. Take a look too at Patrick Grady's article: The Judiciary and Politicians put Canadian National Security At Risk .
See also:
Should Canada accept members of Pakistan's Mohajir Quomi Movement as refugees? Or should they be treated as terrorists?
Pandering to Ukrainians part of Harper strategy
Ethnic divisions inside Liberal Party over extending anti-terrorism measures
Tarek Fatah describes demands made by ethnic delegates at the Liberal convention. Tamils wanted terrorist group delisted
Historian Jack Granatstein is concerned about the influence of ethnic groups on Canadian foreign policy
Muslims rioting in Malmo Sweden
Jihad Watch reports that Muslims are rioting in Malmo Sweden.
For more about immigration in Sweden, read these articles in the Brussels Journal:
Sweden: The Country that Sacrifices its Children, and Celebrates
Swedish Welfare State Collapses as Immigrants Wage War
Sweden: Politicians Call for Foreign Language Ban in Schools
See also:
Race riots: Los Angeles 1992, France 2005, Toronto 20??
Dutch neighbourhood explodes in violence after police shoot man. Local people complain about immigrant crime
For more about immigration in Sweden, read these articles in the Brussels Journal:
Sweden: The Country that Sacrifices its Children, and Celebrates
Swedish Welfare State Collapses as Immigrants Wage War
Sweden: Politicians Call for Foreign Language Ban in Schools
See also:
Race riots: Los Angeles 1992, France 2005, Toronto 20??
Dutch neighbourhood explodes in violence after police shoot man. Local people complain about immigrant crime
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Race riots: Los Angeles 1992, France 2005, Toronto 20??
Earlier today I a posted an excerpt from a New York Times Magazine article about the French presidential elections. Here's another excerpt worth reading (Battle Over the Banlieues by David Rieff, April 15, 2007)::
It is impossible to understand the French elections of 2007 without first taking the measure of what happened in November 2005, when riots convulsed the French suburbs and shocked the French public. They began in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, after two teenagers from one of the town’s toughest cités were chased by the police into an electric-power substation and electrocuted, but before long they had spread across much of the country. For many voters, the trauma produced by the conflict — which the conservative writer and TV personality Alain Minc calls “the revolt of 2005” — has never been far from the surface, and last month, when a small riot broke out in the Gare du Nord, the principal terminus of the RER suburban rail network that links Paris with its northern suburbs, the issue once more assumed center stage.
An internal report commissioned by the French prime minister’s office called the 2005 riots “unprecedented in their length, their geographic spread, their economic cost and their political impact, both nationally and internationally.” The only proper comparison, the authors argued, was the rioting in Los Angeles in 1992 after the Rodney King verdict. But, they added, those riots did not spread outside greater Los Angeles and only lasted six days, whereas the French riots lasted almost three weeks.
Read all of David Rieff's article.
When the riots occurred in France people in Toronto asked if something similar could happen here. Some Torontonians had a smug response. They said this kind of violence would never happen here because Canada, unlike France, has a policy of official multiculturalism that makes immigrants feel welcome. However, as Steve Sailer pointed out in this article about four failed approaches to immigration, multiculturalism hasn't worked in Britain, Scandinavia and the Netherlands.
Count me among those who disagree with the rosy assessment of race relations that says riots won't happen in Toronto. The violence we saw in France could easily happen here, because this city is beginning to develop immigrant ghettos. A good example would be Flemingdon Park where a teenage boy, Omar Wellington, was savagely beaten to death while witnesses watched and did nothing. The City of Toronto has identified 13 troubled neighbourhoods.
There is ethnic tension in Toronto and while it's muted for the moment, it wouldn't take much for it to explode out into the open. One possibility I've pointed out before is a major soccer riot during a World Cup tournament when different ethnic neighbourhoods are aggressively cheering for different foreign teams. My ultimate nightmare scenario would see Canada's national soccer team playing one of the many foreign teams that are popular here. I could easily imagine a group of fans waving the Maple Leaf clashing with another group waving the Italian, Portuguese or Brazilian flag. Maybe it's just as well Canada doesn't have a winning soccer team.
Another possibility is a police shooting leading to violent protests. There is also the chance that a killing like that of Andrew Stewart in East York or Matthew Daly in Burlington will spark outrage leading to riots.
Torontonians are sleepwalking into disaster and it boggles my mind that no one will do anything about it. Are the ethnic vote and cheap labour so important we will let bad immigration policy destroy Toronto?
See also:
Soccer violence. Is Toronto one out-of-control celebration away from a major riot?
Rival Somali and Jamaican girl gangs connected to seizure of .44 Magnum at Thistletown Collegiate
Globe: Visible-minority immigrants "identify less and less" with Canada
Racial violence in Los Angeles - Latinos vs. blacks
Project USA: Business models never predict race wars
It is impossible to understand the French elections of 2007 without first taking the measure of what happened in November 2005, when riots convulsed the French suburbs and shocked the French public. They began in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, after two teenagers from one of the town’s toughest cités were chased by the police into an electric-power substation and electrocuted, but before long they had spread across much of the country. For many voters, the trauma produced by the conflict — which the conservative writer and TV personality Alain Minc calls “the revolt of 2005” — has never been far from the surface, and last month, when a small riot broke out in the Gare du Nord, the principal terminus of the RER suburban rail network that links Paris with its northern suburbs, the issue once more assumed center stage.
An internal report commissioned by the French prime minister’s office called the 2005 riots “unprecedented in their length, their geographic spread, their economic cost and their political impact, both nationally and internationally.” The only proper comparison, the authors argued, was the rioting in Los Angeles in 1992 after the Rodney King verdict. But, they added, those riots did not spread outside greater Los Angeles and only lasted six days, whereas the French riots lasted almost three weeks.
Read all of David Rieff's article.
When the riots occurred in France people in Toronto asked if something similar could happen here. Some Torontonians had a smug response. They said this kind of violence would never happen here because Canada, unlike France, has a policy of official multiculturalism that makes immigrants feel welcome. However, as Steve Sailer pointed out in this article about four failed approaches to immigration, multiculturalism hasn't worked in Britain, Scandinavia and the Netherlands.
Count me among those who disagree with the rosy assessment of race relations that says riots won't happen in Toronto. The violence we saw in France could easily happen here, because this city is beginning to develop immigrant ghettos. A good example would be Flemingdon Park where a teenage boy, Omar Wellington, was savagely beaten to death while witnesses watched and did nothing. The City of Toronto has identified 13 troubled neighbourhoods.
There is ethnic tension in Toronto and while it's muted for the moment, it wouldn't take much for it to explode out into the open. One possibility I've pointed out before is a major soccer riot during a World Cup tournament when different ethnic neighbourhoods are aggressively cheering for different foreign teams. My ultimate nightmare scenario would see Canada's national soccer team playing one of the many foreign teams that are popular here. I could easily imagine a group of fans waving the Maple Leaf clashing with another group waving the Italian, Portuguese or Brazilian flag. Maybe it's just as well Canada doesn't have a winning soccer team.
Another possibility is a police shooting leading to violent protests. There is also the chance that a killing like that of Andrew Stewart in East York or Matthew Daly in Burlington will spark outrage leading to riots.
Torontonians are sleepwalking into disaster and it boggles my mind that no one will do anything about it. Are the ethnic vote and cheap labour so important we will let bad immigration policy destroy Toronto?
See also:
Soccer violence. Is Toronto one out-of-control celebration away from a major riot?
Rival Somali and Jamaican girl gangs connected to seizure of .44 Magnum at Thistletown Collegiate
Globe: Visible-minority immigrants "identify less and less" with Canada
Racial violence in Los Angeles - Latinos vs. blacks
Project USA: Business models never predict race wars
McMaster professor who sponsored 'Wear a Hijab Day' says she was targeted before
From the Globe and Mail (McMaster professor was targeted before, she says by Unnati Gandhi, April 14, 2007):
A McMaster University professor whose office door was spray painted with anti-Islamic profanity this week says this was not the first time she's been targeted by people on campus for her association with Muslim students.
Muriel Walker, an assistant professor of French at the Hamilton, Ont., university, said she's been told on several occasions "by colleagues and people around" that she shouldn't openly support events like the "Wear a Hijab Day" she organized last week.
"I was told that I would always be remembered as a crazy leftist who supports fanatical terrorists," she told The Globe and Mail yesterday.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: I don't know that she supports terrorism, but 'crazy leftist' sounds right to me. The phrase 'liberal flake' also comes to mind. Given the climate that Muslim terrorists have created with their violence, asking non-Muslims to wear a Muslim religious symbol is a provocation. Wear a Hijab Day doesn't justify vandalism and hateful language, but people have good reason to feel irritated if not angry. Instead of encouraging a much-needed discussion about the national security implications of mass immigration from Muslim countries, Muriel Walker and others like her waste our time with liberal guilt. To people like her, Islamic terrorism isn't the problem. The real threat comes from cultural insensitivity. This professor has a view of the world that is maddening. Enough with the guilt trips already!]
"This equation that Arab equals Muslim equals terrorist . . . is very, very alive here, unfortunately."
[Hyphenated_Canadian: And whose fault is that? I can understand it must be painful for a law-abiding Muslim to see his faith constantly linked to terrorism, but non-Muslims make that link because of real events, not because of stereotyping. As long as Muslim extremists do things like this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this, people will associate Islam with terrorism.]
[. . .]
Sandra Wilson, the police force's community relations co-ordinator, said investigators still have no leads, but believe the perpetrators come from within the McMaster community. Ms. Wilson said the incident highlights the fact that the community is becoming more "racialized and diverse in Hamilton and, certainly, at McMaster. Unfortunately, that means we're going to see more of these types of incidents."
[. . .]
Read all of Unnati Gandhi's article.
Sandra Wilson should talk to Jared Taylor. The man was castigated (not to mention physically assaulted) for pointing out that racial diversity causes tension and conflict. Read the text of his speech Is Racial Diversity Good for Canada? Does it make sense to have an immigration policy that radically alters Canada's ethnic balance? Is it wise to promote diversity for the sake of diversity? These are the things we should be discussing instead of constantly obsessing over Muslim sensitivities.
See also:
Wear My Crucifix Day to show solidarity with Christians persecuted in Muslim countries
McMaster University's Wear a Hijab Day elicits strong response
A McMaster University professor whose office door was spray painted with anti-Islamic profanity this week says this was not the first time she's been targeted by people on campus for her association with Muslim students.
Muriel Walker, an assistant professor of French at the Hamilton, Ont., university, said she's been told on several occasions "by colleagues and people around" that she shouldn't openly support events like the "Wear a Hijab Day" she organized last week.
"I was told that I would always be remembered as a crazy leftist who supports fanatical terrorists," she told The Globe and Mail yesterday.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: I don't know that she supports terrorism, but 'crazy leftist' sounds right to me. The phrase 'liberal flake' also comes to mind. Given the climate that Muslim terrorists have created with their violence, asking non-Muslims to wear a Muslim religious symbol is a provocation. Wear a Hijab Day doesn't justify vandalism and hateful language, but people have good reason to feel irritated if not angry. Instead of encouraging a much-needed discussion about the national security implications of mass immigration from Muslim countries, Muriel Walker and others like her waste our time with liberal guilt. To people like her, Islamic terrorism isn't the problem. The real threat comes from cultural insensitivity. This professor has a view of the world that is maddening. Enough with the guilt trips already!]
"This equation that Arab equals Muslim equals terrorist . . . is very, very alive here, unfortunately."
[Hyphenated_Canadian: And whose fault is that? I can understand it must be painful for a law-abiding Muslim to see his faith constantly linked to terrorism, but non-Muslims make that link because of real events, not because of stereotyping. As long as Muslim extremists do things like this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this, people will associate Islam with terrorism.]
[. . .]
Sandra Wilson, the police force's community relations co-ordinator, said investigators still have no leads, but believe the perpetrators come from within the McMaster community. Ms. Wilson said the incident highlights the fact that the community is becoming more "racialized and diverse in Hamilton and, certainly, at McMaster. Unfortunately, that means we're going to see more of these types of incidents."
[. . .]
Read all of Unnati Gandhi's article.
Sandra Wilson should talk to Jared Taylor. The man was castigated (not to mention physically assaulted) for pointing out that racial diversity causes tension and conflict. Read the text of his speech Is Racial Diversity Good for Canada? Does it make sense to have an immigration policy that radically alters Canada's ethnic balance? Is it wise to promote diversity for the sake of diversity? These are the things we should be discussing instead of constantly obsessing over Muslim sensitivities.
See also:
Wear My Crucifix Day to show solidarity with Christians persecuted in Muslim countries
McMaster University's Wear a Hijab Day elicits strong response
Elections in France: immigration, assimilation and national identity are the centrepieces of Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign
David Rieff writes in the New York Times Magazine (Battle Over the Banlieues by David Rieff, April 15, 2007):
His [Sarkozy's] real break from the past, though, can be seen in the way he has made the interconnected issues of immigration, assimilation and national identity the centerpieces of his campaign. Traditionally, immigration has been a concern of only the French hard right, notably Jean-Marie Le Pen and his National Front. That changed after the unexpected result of the 2002 elections. The French electoral system involves two rounds of voting; the second round is a runoff between the two candidates who get the most votes in the first round. In the past, many French voters have expressed their support for minority parties in the first round in the belief that in the second the contest will revert to a familiar choice between France’s two major parties: the Socialist Party and the Union for a Popular Movement, or U.M.P., the center-right inheritor of Gaullism. In the 2002 elections, however, that strategy helped Le Pen earn more votes than the Socialists in the first round, which gave him a place in the runoff against Chirac. The French left was forced to rally behind Chirac, but Le Pen still managed to get 17 percent of the vote, largely by playing the anti-immigrant card. It was an astonishing result and one that still traumatizes many French voters, who prefer to think of Le Pen’s politics as far outside the mainstream and of limited appeal.
Roland Cayrol, the dean of French pollsters, told me that most French people, like voters everywhere, care more about bread-and-butter issues than questions of immigration and national identity. He added, however, that “those who are concerned with immigration, who form the base of support for Le Pen, are single-issue voters, and in a close election, their votes can determine the outcome.”
Read all of David Rieff's article.
There's a political lesson in this. You don't have to win an election to influence public affairs.
See also:
Jean-Marie Le Pen goes after France's ethnic vote
France is Europe's canary-down-the-mine on Muslim integration
A lengthy New York Times article about controversial Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan
Dutch neighbourhood explodes in violence after police shoot man. Local people complain about immigrant crime
His [Sarkozy's] real break from the past, though, can be seen in the way he has made the interconnected issues of immigration, assimilation and national identity the centerpieces of his campaign. Traditionally, immigration has been a concern of only the French hard right, notably Jean-Marie Le Pen and his National Front. That changed after the unexpected result of the 2002 elections. The French electoral system involves two rounds of voting; the second round is a runoff between the two candidates who get the most votes in the first round. In the past, many French voters have expressed their support for minority parties in the first round in the belief that in the second the contest will revert to a familiar choice between France’s two major parties: the Socialist Party and the Union for a Popular Movement, or U.M.P., the center-right inheritor of Gaullism. In the 2002 elections, however, that strategy helped Le Pen earn more votes than the Socialists in the first round, which gave him a place in the runoff against Chirac. The French left was forced to rally behind Chirac, but Le Pen still managed to get 17 percent of the vote, largely by playing the anti-immigrant card. It was an astonishing result and one that still traumatizes many French voters, who prefer to think of Le Pen’s politics as far outside the mainstream and of limited appeal.
Roland Cayrol, the dean of French pollsters, told me that most French people, like voters everywhere, care more about bread-and-butter issues than questions of immigration and national identity. He added, however, that “those who are concerned with immigration, who form the base of support for Le Pen, are single-issue voters, and in a close election, their votes can determine the outcome.”
Read all of David Rieff's article.
There's a political lesson in this. You don't have to win an election to influence public affairs.
See also:
Jean-Marie Le Pen goes after France's ethnic vote
France is Europe's canary-down-the-mine on Muslim integration
A lengthy New York Times article about controversial Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan
Dutch neighbourhood explodes in violence after police shoot man. Local people complain about immigrant crime
Friday, April 13, 2007
Don Imus and the Duke lacrosse witch-hunt: Pat Buchanan puts things into perspective
Pat Buchanan writes in Vdare (The Imus Lynch Party, April 12, 2007):
And when Imus called the Rutgers women's basketball team "tattooed ... nappy-headed ho's," he went over the top. The women deserved an apology. There was no cause, no call to use those terms. As Ann Coulter said, they were not fair game.
But Imus did apologize, again and again and again.
[. . .]
Compare, if you will, what was done to them—a single nasty insult—to the savage slanders for weeks on end of the Duke lacrosse team and the three players accused by a lying stripper of having gang-raped her at a frat party.
Duke faculty and talking heads took that occasion to vent their venom toward all white "jocks" on college campuses. Where are the demands for apologies from the talk-show hosts, guests, Duke faculty members and smear artists, all of whom bought into the lies about those Duke kids—because the lies comported with their hateful view of America?
And hate is what this is all about.
Read all of Pat Buchanan's article.
For more about the Duke lacrosse witch-hunt, read Nicholas Stix’ Absolutely Definitive Account Of The Incredible Disappearing Duke Rape Hoax
See also:
Finally! Duke lacrosse players cleared
Pat Buchanan on patriots vs. transnationial elites
And when Imus called the Rutgers women's basketball team "tattooed ... nappy-headed ho's," he went over the top. The women deserved an apology. There was no cause, no call to use those terms. As Ann Coulter said, they were not fair game.
But Imus did apologize, again and again and again.
[. . .]
Compare, if you will, what was done to them—a single nasty insult—to the savage slanders for weeks on end of the Duke lacrosse team and the three players accused by a lying stripper of having gang-raped her at a frat party.
Duke faculty and talking heads took that occasion to vent their venom toward all white "jocks" on college campuses. Where are the demands for apologies from the talk-show hosts, guests, Duke faculty members and smear artists, all of whom bought into the lies about those Duke kids—because the lies comported with their hateful view of America?
And hate is what this is all about.
Read all of Pat Buchanan's article.
For more about the Duke lacrosse witch-hunt, read Nicholas Stix’ Absolutely Definitive Account Of The Incredible Disappearing Duke Rape Hoax
See also:
Finally! Duke lacrosse players cleared
Pat Buchanan on patriots vs. transnationial elites
Wear My Crucifix Day to show solidarity with Christians persecuted in Muslim countries
Yesterday, I wrote about Muriel Walker, an associate French professor at McMaster University whose office door had been vandalized last weekend. Apparently the vandalism was a response to Wear My Hijab Day, an April 4 event organized by Walker. On that day the professor had 'invited' female students to wear a hijab (kerchief) so that they could learn what it feels like to be a Muslim woman on campus.
It goes without saying that there is no excuse for vandalizing a professor's office or for promoting hatred towards Muslims or anyone else. If someone doesn't like an event organized by a professor, there are more constructive ways to respond than by damaging property. That said, I find it hard to feel any sympathy for Walker. Given the terrorist crimes committed by Muslim extremists in recent years and also given the aggressive demands for special accommodations made by Muslims in Canada, I resent the professor for promoting the idea that Muslims are a victimized group. I can certainly understand why she would make some people angry. (I am assuming, of course, the vandalism isn't a hate crime hoax perpetrated by people who want to create a false impression about the atmosphere on campus.)
I imagine some people reading this can't understand why anyone would object to Walker's Wear My Hijab Day. Maybe this thought experiment will make things clearer. How would Muslim and other non-Christian students react if a university professor proposed a Wear My Crucifix Day to show solidarity with Christians who are being persecuted in Muslim countries? Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that idea would go over well. I'm pretty sure non-Christians would see Wear My Crucifix Day as an unfair imposition of a Christian symbol on people who don't share that faith. Would Muslim women at McMaster be willing to affix a Christian cross to their hijab for a day to help 'sensitize' them about Christianity? I doubt it, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.
It goes without saying that there is no excuse for vandalizing a professor's office or for promoting hatred towards Muslims or anyone else. If someone doesn't like an event organized by a professor, there are more constructive ways to respond than by damaging property. That said, I find it hard to feel any sympathy for Walker. Given the terrorist crimes committed by Muslim extremists in recent years and also given the aggressive demands for special accommodations made by Muslims in Canada, I resent the professor for promoting the idea that Muslims are a victimized group. I can certainly understand why she would make some people angry. (I am assuming, of course, the vandalism isn't a hate crime hoax perpetrated by people who want to create a false impression about the atmosphere on campus.)
I imagine some people reading this can't understand why anyone would object to Walker's Wear My Hijab Day. Maybe this thought experiment will make things clearer. How would Muslim and other non-Christian students react if a university professor proposed a Wear My Crucifix Day to show solidarity with Christians who are being persecuted in Muslim countries? Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that idea would go over well. I'm pretty sure non-Christians would see Wear My Crucifix Day as an unfair imposition of a Christian symbol on people who don't share that faith. Would Muslim women at McMaster be willing to affix a Christian cross to their hijab for a day to help 'sensitize' them about Christianity? I doubt it, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Pandering to Ukrainians part of Harper strategy
From the Ottawa Citizen (Courting Ukrainians just part of the Tory master plan by Deirdre McMurdy, April 11, 2007):
There's going to be a lot more than chicken Kiev on the menu next Wednesday when senior Tories gather with Ukrainian community leaders at the Chateau Laurier to honour former prime minister Brian Mulroney.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: I am Ukrainian-Canadian and these so-called 'community leaders' don't speak for me. I was never asked if I wanted these people to represent me. More importantly, the vast majority of Ukrainian-Canadians have never heard of them. While self-appointed 'community leaders' have the same right as other citizens to get involved in politics, they can't honestly claim to represent a unified Ukrainian community, because such a community doesn't exist.]
The dinner -- which is being organized by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian Embassy -- marks the 15th anniversary of Mr. Mulroney becoming the first western leader to recognize Ukraine as an independent nation.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: I can still vividly remember Mulroney being hated by some Ukrainian-Canadians for launching the Deschenes Commission on war criminals said to be living in Canada. Many Ukrainians, in Toronto at least, felt our ethnic group was being unfairly targeted. Whether that feeling was justified is another complicated discussion. Still, I find it strange that this has all been forgotten now.]
But at the same time, the fundraising event is also an opportunity for the Tories to push forward even further with their aggressive outreach to various ethnic communities.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: This is a foolish strategy. Liberals will always be able to out-pander the Tories. Harper should try the Sailer strategy.]
"The persistent myth that minorities vote Liberal means that for Tories, the bar is much higher," says Conservative strategist Goldy Hyder. "We have to do more to manage that perception while the Liberals tend to get the benefit of the doubt. We're trying to expand our comfort zone with diverse voters."
He concedes that while Mr. Mulroney deserves much greater credit for increasing Canada's annual immigration numbers -- a selling point with newer Canadians -- the challenge of reaching long-established, non-visible minorities such as Ukrainian-Canadians remains particularly daunting.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Yes, but did Canada need more immigrants? Is there any economic rationale for bringing so many people in? The answer is no. Don't take my word for it. Read these two Fraser Institute reports: Canada's Immigration Policy and Immigration and the Welfare State in Canada. To learn more about the Conservatives' enthusiasm for mass immigration, see Kevin Michael Grace's Vdare article: Canadian Conservative Leader No Immigration “Extremist.” Too Bad.]
Still, there's not much doubt about a strong turnout for the Mulroney dinner, despite the fact it is competing for attention -- and cash -- with a $1,000- to $1,500-a-plate dinner for Ontario Conservative leader John Tory in Toronto on the same night. Ostap Skrypynk, executive director of the Ukrainian congress, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper and about 300 other people have confirmed they'll attend the dinner, at which tables are selling for $5,000 apiece.
[. . .]
Read all of Deirdre McMurdy's article.
See also:
Alberta's new premier has Ukrainian roots. What role did ethnicity play in his win?
Ukrainian-Canadians and the invention of official multiculturalism
Ukrainians want more money to commemorate World War I internment
There's going to be a lot more than chicken Kiev on the menu next Wednesday when senior Tories gather with Ukrainian community leaders at the Chateau Laurier to honour former prime minister Brian Mulroney.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: I am Ukrainian-Canadian and these so-called 'community leaders' don't speak for me. I was never asked if I wanted these people to represent me. More importantly, the vast majority of Ukrainian-Canadians have never heard of them. While self-appointed 'community leaders' have the same right as other citizens to get involved in politics, they can't honestly claim to represent a unified Ukrainian community, because such a community doesn't exist.]
The dinner -- which is being organized by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian Embassy -- marks the 15th anniversary of Mr. Mulroney becoming the first western leader to recognize Ukraine as an independent nation.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: I can still vividly remember Mulroney being hated by some Ukrainian-Canadians for launching the Deschenes Commission on war criminals said to be living in Canada. Many Ukrainians, in Toronto at least, felt our ethnic group was being unfairly targeted. Whether that feeling was justified is another complicated discussion. Still, I find it strange that this has all been forgotten now.]
But at the same time, the fundraising event is also an opportunity for the Tories to push forward even further with their aggressive outreach to various ethnic communities.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: This is a foolish strategy. Liberals will always be able to out-pander the Tories. Harper should try the Sailer strategy.]
"The persistent myth that minorities vote Liberal means that for Tories, the bar is much higher," says Conservative strategist Goldy Hyder. "We have to do more to manage that perception while the Liberals tend to get the benefit of the doubt. We're trying to expand our comfort zone with diverse voters."
He concedes that while Mr. Mulroney deserves much greater credit for increasing Canada's annual immigration numbers -- a selling point with newer Canadians -- the challenge of reaching long-established, non-visible minorities such as Ukrainian-Canadians remains particularly daunting.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Yes, but did Canada need more immigrants? Is there any economic rationale for bringing so many people in? The answer is no. Don't take my word for it. Read these two Fraser Institute reports: Canada's Immigration Policy and Immigration and the Welfare State in Canada. To learn more about the Conservatives' enthusiasm for mass immigration, see Kevin Michael Grace's Vdare article: Canadian Conservative Leader No Immigration “Extremist.” Too Bad.]
Still, there's not much doubt about a strong turnout for the Mulroney dinner, despite the fact it is competing for attention -- and cash -- with a $1,000- to $1,500-a-plate dinner for Ontario Conservative leader John Tory in Toronto on the same night. Ostap Skrypynk, executive director of the Ukrainian congress, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper and about 300 other people have confirmed they'll attend the dinner, at which tables are selling for $5,000 apiece.
[. . .]
Read all of Deirdre McMurdy's article.
See also:
Alberta's new premier has Ukrainian roots. What role did ethnicity play in his win?
Ukrainian-Canadians and the invention of official multiculturalism
Ukrainians want more money to commemorate World War I internment
McMaster University's Wear a Hijab Day elicits strong response
From the Hamilton Spectator (Police probe racist slurs sprayed on prof's door by Paul Morse, April 12, 2007):
A McMaster University professor who organized a campus day in support of Muslim students says racial slurs sprayed onto her office door have left her in complete shock.
Hamilton police have launched a hate crime investigation into the racist attack condemned by Hamilton's Muslim community and McMaster officials.
Investigators believe the incident is a backlash against last week's Wear a Hijab Day, an event organized by associate French professor Muriel Walker to help sensitize people about Islam.
"What have I done, not just to deserve this, but to inspire this kind of strong reaction?" she said. "I am still in disbelief."
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Without in any way condoning harassment or the use of hateful slurs, I would suggest a strong response to Wear a Hijab Day might have something to do with this obscure event or closer to home, this.
That said, we don't know who sprayed the 'racial slurs' on Walker's door or what their motivation was. There is such a thing as a hate crime hoax and while I can't say that's what this is, it's a possibility I wouldn't exclude right away. Maybe someone at the university wants to create the impression that McMaster is rife with hatred. At this point, who knows what the truth is?]
Campus cleaning staff discovered the racist and profane graffiti on Walker's door early Tuesday morning. They also found copies of controversial Danish editorial cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed glued to her door.
"Did I really do something that bad to trigger this whole hysteria?" Walker said.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Yes, you did. You had to know that an event like Wear a Hijab day would be provocative. A lot of Canadians are fed up with having so-called diversity crammed down their throats.]
[. . .]
Read all of the Hamilton Spectator article.
According to the article, Wear a Hijab Day is meant to 'help sensitize people about Islam.' I wonder. Does making students sensitive to Islam include teaching them about what it means to be a dhimmi? I agree that westerners need to know more about Islam. This FrontPage Magazine article by Victor Sharpe might be a good place to start: Dhimmitude for Dummies. See also Michelle Malkin's April 3 Vdare article: Whitewashing Jihad In The Schools.
Islam is often portrayed as a tolerant religion of peace and I don't dispute that for many Muslims their faith is just that. I'm not saying the world's one billion Muslims all think and act alike but if we're going to have a serious discussion about Islam, we need to look at Islam's long history of conquest and oppression.
See also:
Heroville, Canada
Burka-clad Muslims and topless babes in string bikinis. Why can't everyone just get along?
Toronto bus drivers told not to challenge Muslim women whose faces are covered
Teacher writes: "I'm sick and tired of celebrating diversity"
A McMaster University professor who organized a campus day in support of Muslim students says racial slurs sprayed onto her office door have left her in complete shock.
Hamilton police have launched a hate crime investigation into the racist attack condemned by Hamilton's Muslim community and McMaster officials.
Investigators believe the incident is a backlash against last week's Wear a Hijab Day, an event organized by associate French professor Muriel Walker to help sensitize people about Islam.
"What have I done, not just to deserve this, but to inspire this kind of strong reaction?" she said. "I am still in disbelief."
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Without in any way condoning harassment or the use of hateful slurs, I would suggest a strong response to Wear a Hijab Day might have something to do with this obscure event or closer to home, this.
That said, we don't know who sprayed the 'racial slurs' on Walker's door or what their motivation was. There is such a thing as a hate crime hoax and while I can't say that's what this is, it's a possibility I wouldn't exclude right away. Maybe someone at the university wants to create the impression that McMaster is rife with hatred. At this point, who knows what the truth is?]
Campus cleaning staff discovered the racist and profane graffiti on Walker's door early Tuesday morning. They also found copies of controversial Danish editorial cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed glued to her door.
"Did I really do something that bad to trigger this whole hysteria?" Walker said.
[Hyphenated_Canadian: Yes, you did. You had to know that an event like Wear a Hijab day would be provocative. A lot of Canadians are fed up with having so-called diversity crammed down their throats.]
[. . .]
Read all of the Hamilton Spectator article.
According to the article, Wear a Hijab Day is meant to 'help sensitize people about Islam.' I wonder. Does making students sensitive to Islam include teaching them about what it means to be a dhimmi? I agree that westerners need to know more about Islam. This FrontPage Magazine article by Victor Sharpe might be a good place to start: Dhimmitude for Dummies. See also Michelle Malkin's April 3 Vdare article: Whitewashing Jihad In The Schools.
Islam is often portrayed as a tolerant religion of peace and I don't dispute that for many Muslims their faith is just that. I'm not saying the world's one billion Muslims all think and act alike but if we're going to have a serious discussion about Islam, we need to look at Islam's long history of conquest and oppression.
See also:
Heroville, Canada
Burka-clad Muslims and topless babes in string bikinis. Why can't everyone just get along?
Toronto bus drivers told not to challenge Muslim women whose faces are covered
Teacher writes: "I'm sick and tired of celebrating diversity"
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Ontario Safe Schools Act - Liberals plan to abolish zero-tolerance policy. Too many black students being expelled
From Canadian Press via the Globe and Mail (Ontario to ease school policy on expelling students for violence, April 11, 2007):
Delinquent Ontario students are going to be supported -- and not automatically suspended or expelled from school -- this fall after the province abolishes zero-tolerance policies that have prompted appeals to the province's human-rights commission, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said yesterday.
While critics are holding their applause until they see the changes, the move is being hailed by some who say the Safe Schools Act unfairly targets black youth and drives them into gangs.
[. . .]
Selwyn Pieters, a Toronto education lawyer who has dealt with around 150 cases relating to the act, settling two of them before the Ontario Human Rights Commission, said the changes are long overdue.
"You have kids who are expelled for accidentally touching someone, you have kids who are expelled for stealing pop and chips," he said. "It criminalizes them and it diminishes their choices. Those kids are not going to be able to go to university or college."
Worse, Mr. Pieters said, those students often fall into the hands of gangs -- something that has led the Safe Schools Act to be called the "gang recruitment act."
[. . .]
Read all of the CP story.
Reading this I was reminded of something Jared Taylor wrote in the speech (Is Racial Diversity Good for Canada?) he was prevented from giving in Halifax:
We find yet another interesting diversity issue in the case of Toronto's now-defunct zero-tolerance policy on crimes in schools. Students were committing so much robbery, drug dealing, sexual assault, and weapons violations that in 2000 the province passed the Safe Schools Act, requiring that any student guilty of these offences be expelled or suspended. Just four years later the province had to drop the policy. Why? Non-whites were being expelled and suspended all out of proportion to their numbers. More than 1,000 children under the age of seven had been suspended — for things like robbery, weapons possession and drug dealing — and the majority were black. So Toronto had to junk the zero-tolerance policy.
This story illuminates two things: First, we learn that non-whites were the major source of the problem; you did not have a rash of crimes like this when the schools were overwhelmingly white. Second, a sensible, non-discriminatory solution had to be ditched because non-whites were getting more of their share of the punishment. Here, racial diversity both caused the problem and made it impossible to apply an obvious solution.
While we're on the subject of Toronto schools, in 2005, a black school board member proposed setting up an all-black school. Lloyd McKell, who had the title of executive officer of student and community equity, said all-black schools might be a necessary way to fight high dropout and expulsion rates.
Read all of Taylor's remarks.
Note: Although Taylor was prevented from speaking at Dalhousie, he eventually got to debate another Canadian professor on the radio. See here.
See also:
Student shot dead outside Burnhamthorpe Collegiate
Are teachers losing control of some Toronto schools? Are gangs starting to take over?
16 BLACK students charged after WHITE girl complained of 18 months of sexual harassment and abuse at Toronto Catholic school
Toronto schools - "The escalation of guns and violence has made lockdown practices as necessary a routine as recess"
Delinquent Ontario students are going to be supported -- and not automatically suspended or expelled from school -- this fall after the province abolishes zero-tolerance policies that have prompted appeals to the province's human-rights commission, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said yesterday.
While critics are holding their applause until they see the changes, the move is being hailed by some who say the Safe Schools Act unfairly targets black youth and drives them into gangs.
[. . .]
Selwyn Pieters, a Toronto education lawyer who has dealt with around 150 cases relating to the act, settling two of them before the Ontario Human Rights Commission, said the changes are long overdue.
"You have kids who are expelled for accidentally touching someone, you have kids who are expelled for stealing pop and chips," he said. "It criminalizes them and it diminishes their choices. Those kids are not going to be able to go to university or college."
Worse, Mr. Pieters said, those students often fall into the hands of gangs -- something that has led the Safe Schools Act to be called the "gang recruitment act."
[. . .]
Read all of the CP story.
Reading this I was reminded of something Jared Taylor wrote in the speech (Is Racial Diversity Good for Canada?) he was prevented from giving in Halifax:
We find yet another interesting diversity issue in the case of Toronto's now-defunct zero-tolerance policy on crimes in schools. Students were committing so much robbery, drug dealing, sexual assault, and weapons violations that in 2000 the province passed the Safe Schools Act, requiring that any student guilty of these offences be expelled or suspended. Just four years later the province had to drop the policy. Why? Non-whites were being expelled and suspended all out of proportion to their numbers. More than 1,000 children under the age of seven had been suspended — for things like robbery, weapons possession and drug dealing — and the majority were black. So Toronto had to junk the zero-tolerance policy.
This story illuminates two things: First, we learn that non-whites were the major source of the problem; you did not have a rash of crimes like this when the schools were overwhelmingly white. Second, a sensible, non-discriminatory solution had to be ditched because non-whites were getting more of their share of the punishment. Here, racial diversity both caused the problem and made it impossible to apply an obvious solution.
While we're on the subject of Toronto schools, in 2005, a black school board member proposed setting up an all-black school. Lloyd McKell, who had the title of executive officer of student and community equity, said all-black schools might be a necessary way to fight high dropout and expulsion rates.
Read all of Taylor's remarks.
Note: Although Taylor was prevented from speaking at Dalhousie, he eventually got to debate another Canadian professor on the radio. See here.
See also:
Student shot dead outside Burnhamthorpe Collegiate
Are teachers losing control of some Toronto schools? Are gangs starting to take over?
16 BLACK students charged after WHITE girl complained of 18 months of sexual harassment and abuse at Toronto Catholic school
Toronto schools - "The escalation of guns and violence has made lockdown practices as necessary a routine as recess"
Finally! Duke lacrosse players cleared
From the New York Times (Former Duke Players Cleared of All Charges by Duff Wilson, April 11, 2007):
All remaining charges were dropped today against three former Duke University lacrosse players who had been accused of rape more than a year ago, North Carolina’s attorney general announced, concluding a three-month investigation of a racially charged case that polarized and outraged many in the state and nation.
An independent investigation “showed clearly that there is insufficient evidence to proceed,” Roy A. Cooper, the state attorney general, said at a televised news conference. “ We believe these individuals are innocent.”
He said the accounts of the events given by the woman who made the accusations were so inconsistent that they were not credible. “She contradicts herself,” Mr. Cooper said.
“In this case, the inconsistencies were so significant and so contrary to the evidence that we have no credible evidence that an attack occurred in that house on that night,” he said.
The decision brings to an end a 13-month ordeal for the young men, two of whom were dismissed from Duke because of the charges.
[. . .]
Read all of Duff Wilson's article.
If you want to understand what a travesty this case was read this January 13 Vdare article: Nicholas Stix’ Absolutely Definitive Account Of The Incredible Disappearing Duke Rape Hoax
All remaining charges were dropped today against three former Duke University lacrosse players who had been accused of rape more than a year ago, North Carolina’s attorney general announced, concluding a three-month investigation of a racially charged case that polarized and outraged many in the state and nation.
An independent investigation “showed clearly that there is insufficient evidence to proceed,” Roy A. Cooper, the state attorney general, said at a televised news conference. “ We believe these individuals are innocent.”
He said the accounts of the events given by the woman who made the accusations were so inconsistent that they were not credible. “She contradicts herself,” Mr. Cooper said.
“In this case, the inconsistencies were so significant and so contrary to the evidence that we have no credible evidence that an attack occurred in that house on that night,” he said.
The decision brings to an end a 13-month ordeal for the young men, two of whom were dismissed from Duke because of the charges.
[. . .]
Read all of Duff Wilson's article.
If you want to understand what a travesty this case was read this January 13 Vdare article: Nicholas Stix’ Absolutely Definitive Account Of The Incredible Disappearing Duke Rape Hoax
Getting tough on crime works - David Frum
I was doing some research into Toronto's gang problem when I came across an old National Post article by David Frum. Frum wrote: (Reaping what we sow, January 3, 2006):
After a spasm of heart-rending, frightening violence, Toronto's Mayor, David Miller, and its news media want Torontonians to remember one thing: The city is very, very safe. Really.
"Chicago: 445 homicides. Washington D.C.: 195 homicides. Baltimore: 268 homicides. Toronto: 78 homicides." So opened a story in Sunday's Toronto Star.
If there is any problem in Toronto, the Mayor insists, it is traceable to the United States: "The U.S. is exporting its problem of violence to the streets of Toronto," David Miller complained on Dec. 27.
Frum goes on to give three reasons why he thinks Canadians shouldn't be smug:
1) America's crime problem has dramatically improved, while Canada's is becoming seriously worse.
2) America's crime problem is becoming concentrated in ever fewer places, while Canada's is spreading out to ever more places.
3) While American cities and states are adopting anti-crime policies proved to work, Canadian cities and provinces are adopting policies proved to fail.
(I don't know if everyone would agree with his three assertions. Go to the article for more detail.)
After giving his three reasons, Frum writes:
Over a decade of successful crime-fighting in the U.S., criminologists and police departments have learned some important lessons.
Bluntly: prison works. Criminals do not commit crimes while they are held in prison. Yet a Canadian criminal is 80% less likely to go to jail than his American counterpart.
Putting police on the streets works. Yet Canada employs 25% fewer police officers per capita than the United States.
Enforcing laws against vagrancy, prostitution and drug dealing works. Yet Canada is either decriminalizing or tolerating all three. The right kinds of gun laws work too: for example, extending the sentence of any criminal who commits any crime -- down to jaywalking -- while in possession of a gun.
Gun registries and gun bans on the other hand do not work. Youth programs do not work. Counselling does not work. Grants to community activists, peer counsellors and after-school facilities do not work. The $50-million Paul Martin has just announced for local crime-prevention will be directed to individuals and groups connected to the Liberal party's patronage machine. That money will do nothing to enhance the safety of the City of Toronto. And if it finds its way to individuals or groups who lobby against effective law-enforcement, that money will actually make the problem worse.
Read all of David Frum's article.
See also:
Academic says Justice Dept. officials misled politicians about the deterrent value of longer sentences for violent crime
City wants to open rec centre in troubled neighbourhood
Speaking the truth about immigration and crime cost Gwyn Morgan his federal appointment
Los Angeles police chief on race, crime and gangs
After a spasm of heart-rending, frightening violence, Toronto's Mayor, David Miller, and its news media want Torontonians to remember one thing: The city is very, very safe. Really.
"Chicago: 445 homicides. Washington D.C.: 195 homicides. Baltimore: 268 homicides. Toronto: 78 homicides." So opened a story in Sunday's Toronto Star.
If there is any problem in Toronto, the Mayor insists, it is traceable to the United States: "The U.S. is exporting its problem of violence to the streets of Toronto," David Miller complained on Dec. 27.
Frum goes on to give three reasons why he thinks Canadians shouldn't be smug:
1) America's crime problem has dramatically improved, while Canada's is becoming seriously worse.
2) America's crime problem is becoming concentrated in ever fewer places, while Canada's is spreading out to ever more places.
3) While American cities and states are adopting anti-crime policies proved to work, Canadian cities and provinces are adopting policies proved to fail.
(I don't know if everyone would agree with his three assertions. Go to the article for more detail.)
After giving his three reasons, Frum writes:
Over a decade of successful crime-fighting in the U.S., criminologists and police departments have learned some important lessons.
Bluntly: prison works. Criminals do not commit crimes while they are held in prison. Yet a Canadian criminal is 80% less likely to go to jail than his American counterpart.
Putting police on the streets works. Yet Canada employs 25% fewer police officers per capita than the United States.
Enforcing laws against vagrancy, prostitution and drug dealing works. Yet Canada is either decriminalizing or tolerating all three. The right kinds of gun laws work too: for example, extending the sentence of any criminal who commits any crime -- down to jaywalking -- while in possession of a gun.
Gun registries and gun bans on the other hand do not work. Youth programs do not work. Counselling does not work. Grants to community activists, peer counsellors and after-school facilities do not work. The $50-million Paul Martin has just announced for local crime-prevention will be directed to individuals and groups connected to the Liberal party's patronage machine. That money will do nothing to enhance the safety of the City of Toronto. And if it finds its way to individuals or groups who lobby against effective law-enforcement, that money will actually make the problem worse.
Read all of David Frum's article.
See also:
Academic says Justice Dept. officials misled politicians about the deterrent value of longer sentences for violent crime
City wants to open rec centre in troubled neighbourhood
Speaking the truth about immigration and crime cost Gwyn Morgan his federal appointment
Los Angeles police chief on race, crime and gangs
Pat Buchanan on patriots vs. transnationial elites
Commenting on the French presidential elections, Pat Buchanan writes in Vdare (French Nationalism vs. EU Leviathan, April 2, 2007):
The struggle that succeeds the Cold War may not be vertical at all—i.e., between nation-states—but horizontal, between patriots of all nations and transnational elites, like Kroes and her fellow commissioners.
See also:
Jean-Marie Le Pen goes after France's ethnic vote
The struggle that succeeds the Cold War may not be vertical at all—i.e., between nation-states—but horizontal, between patriots of all nations and transnational elites, like Kroes and her fellow commissioners.
See also:
Jean-Marie Le Pen goes after France's ethnic vote
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
The dark side of Indian immigration to the US
Brenda Walker writes in Vdare (Dogs, Frogs and Dalits: The Indian Model Minority Has A Dark Side, April 4, 2007):
Here in the United States, Indian immigrants have a reputation as being a model minority who have above-average incomes and education. We haven't seen many Indian gangs as yet—although they have become a problem in Canada—and for that we are grateful. Indians see themselves as hailing from the "world's largest democracy" (over one billion served). Some among them say openly that this will be the Indian century. And with greater wealth due to the outsourcing of American technology has come the desire to erase the tacky images of bovine creatures roaming city streets.
The Washington Post reported an Indian immigrant mom who objected to U.S. school materials: "American children will think India is some Third World country with pagan beliefs and backward thinking, not a forward-thinking country," Sandhya Kumar complained [Wiping Stereotypes Of India off the Books, By Maria Glod, April 17, 2005].
Frankly, it's hard to regard a country as "forward thinking"—or uniquely spiritual, in the Gandhian view—when it has engaged in an ongoing genocide of females. Males are valued, and females have been killed off through sex-selection abortion and infanticide. The number of "missing" Indian women and girls is estimated to be 50 million.
Read all of Brenda Walker's article.
See also:
India poised to become Canada's top source of immigrants. Is this what Canadians want?
The influence of Indian immigrants on American foreign policy
Canadian immigration - Women from Punjab say they are pressured to abort female babies
Wife abuse "a cancer in the Indo-Canadian community."
Indian politics: Bal Thackeray aspires to be the "Hitler of India"
Here in the United States, Indian immigrants have a reputation as being a model minority who have above-average incomes and education. We haven't seen many Indian gangs as yet—although they have become a problem in Canada—and for that we are grateful. Indians see themselves as hailing from the "world's largest democracy" (over one billion served). Some among them say openly that this will be the Indian century. And with greater wealth due to the outsourcing of American technology has come the desire to erase the tacky images of bovine creatures roaming city streets.
The Washington Post reported an Indian immigrant mom who objected to U.S. school materials: "American children will think India is some Third World country with pagan beliefs and backward thinking, not a forward-thinking country," Sandhya Kumar complained [Wiping Stereotypes Of India off the Books, By Maria Glod, April 17, 2005].
Frankly, it's hard to regard a country as "forward thinking"—or uniquely spiritual, in the Gandhian view—when it has engaged in an ongoing genocide of females. Males are valued, and females have been killed off through sex-selection abortion and infanticide. The number of "missing" Indian women and girls is estimated to be 50 million.
Read all of Brenda Walker's article.
See also:
India poised to become Canada's top source of immigrants. Is this what Canadians want?
The influence of Indian immigrants on American foreign policy
Canadian immigration - Women from Punjab say they are pressured to abort female babies
Wife abuse "a cancer in the Indo-Canadian community."
Indian politics: Bal Thackeray aspires to be the "Hitler of India"
Monday, April 09, 2007
Vimy Ridge and the role of myth in fostering a shared sense of national identity
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I have posted quite a lot recently about the commemorations marking the 90th anniversary of the Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge during World War I. Apart from having a general interest in Canadian history, I am fascinated by nationalism and national identity. Vimy Ridge is interesting to me as an event that has been used to promote a shared sense of Canadian national identity.
Some time ago I read a book called the The Ethnic Origins of Nations by Anthony D. Smith. In this study of nationalism, Smith discusses the role of warfare in creating a sense of ethnic identity in pre-modern societies. He points out that the significance of war lies less in the actual events themselves than in the myths and stories that grow up around those events afterwards. After describing how physical mobilization for war can help to "ignite and maintian ethnic sentiment," Smith writes:
The 'bonding' factor is even more importanly served by myth-making processes. Mobilization and propaganda are, after all, ephemeral. But the myths of war, set down in epics, ballads, dramas or hymns, possess a long-term power to shape distant reactions that far outweigh and surpass the episodes themselves. A couplet by Simonides on the Spartan slain at Thermopylae, a speech by Shakespeare about the meaning of Agincourt, a lamentation by Jeremiah on the fall of the (first) Temple, even Tolstoy's account of Borodino, may be far more effective in the shaping of subsequent generations of ethnically conscious families than the events themselves, and far more potent agents of solidarity than victories or defeats which may at the time have done little to patch up internal factionalism and cleavage. Wars may not increase social cohesion; as Simmel says, they may even be catalysts of communal dissolution; but the myths and legends of heroism and resistance may in the long run, enhance a weakened solidarity and revive flagging spirits.
I think this applies to Vimy Ridge. From what I understand, the battle didn't have much military significance, but it is important as a symbol of Canadian nationhood. Here's what Thomas Walkom wrote in a recent article in the Toronto Star (An epic battle, yes, but signifying very little, March 31, 2007):
The most fundamental omission is that the Battle of Vimy Ridge didn't achieve much. It is true that Canadian forces captured their objective, a piece of high ground of strategic value. But as Lt.-Col. Wilfrid Bovey later wrote in his classic account of the war, the Arras offensive, of which Vimy was a part, did not succeed. The German line held; the stalemate on the Western Front continued for another year and a half.
Walkom isn't the only one who says this. Here's an excerpt from an article in the National Post (The making of Vimy by John F. Vance, April 7, 2007):
Vimy Ridge was a relatively minor success in a season of military disappointments. It lifted Allied morale, but the victory went unexploited and its impact on the war was limited.
How then did Vimy Ridge become so important to Canadians? More from the National Post article:
Yet Vimy quickly developed a mystique, partly because the Canadian Corps' first operation as a unit occurred on Easter Monday, the Christian festival of resurrection and the ideal day to celebrate a nation's birth.
And so within weeks of the battle, writers started to emphasize its symbolism: by achieving a military goal, the Corps had created a new national consciousness. Being Canadian meant something very different after Vimy Ridge than it had before. As Montreal poet Alfred Gordon wrote in 1917, "we shall lift a higher head/ Because of Vimy and its glorious dead!"
This was the conventional wisdom in 1920, as the Canadian Battlefield Memorials Commission got to work erecting memorials on Canada's most important battlefields of the Great War. The intent was to place a similar monument at each of the eight sites, but when the design competition drew many undistinguished entries and one of extraordinary merit, Walter Allward's soaring twin pylons, the plan changed. The design was too good to be rejected, and too good to be copied. The only option was to pick one site for special status.
[. . .]
So the ridge became the site for Allward's masterpiece, and in the years before the monument's unveiling in 1936, the battle grew in the Canadian imagination.
[. . .]
Vimy's primacy in the national imagination was reaffirmed when the federal government decided that the battle was uniquely deserving of commemoration during the Centennial year.
Read all of John F. Vance's article
See also:
Harper pays tribute to Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge
Walter Allward - the artist who designed the Vimy Ridge monument
Some time ago I read a book called the The Ethnic Origins of Nations by Anthony D. Smith. In this study of nationalism, Smith discusses the role of warfare in creating a sense of ethnic identity in pre-modern societies. He points out that the significance of war lies less in the actual events themselves than in the myths and stories that grow up around those events afterwards. After describing how physical mobilization for war can help to "ignite and maintian ethnic sentiment," Smith writes:
The 'bonding' factor is even more importanly served by myth-making processes. Mobilization and propaganda are, after all, ephemeral. But the myths of war, set down in epics, ballads, dramas or hymns, possess a long-term power to shape distant reactions that far outweigh and surpass the episodes themselves. A couplet by Simonides on the Spartan slain at Thermopylae, a speech by Shakespeare about the meaning of Agincourt, a lamentation by Jeremiah on the fall of the (first) Temple, even Tolstoy's account of Borodino, may be far more effective in the shaping of subsequent generations of ethnically conscious families than the events themselves, and far more potent agents of solidarity than victories or defeats which may at the time have done little to patch up internal factionalism and cleavage. Wars may not increase social cohesion; as Simmel says, they may even be catalysts of communal dissolution; but the myths and legends of heroism and resistance may in the long run, enhance a weakened solidarity and revive flagging spirits.
I think this applies to Vimy Ridge. From what I understand, the battle didn't have much military significance, but it is important as a symbol of Canadian nationhood. Here's what Thomas Walkom wrote in a recent article in the Toronto Star (An epic battle, yes, but signifying very little, March 31, 2007):
The most fundamental omission is that the Battle of Vimy Ridge didn't achieve much. It is true that Canadian forces captured their objective, a piece of high ground of strategic value. But as Lt.-Col. Wilfrid Bovey later wrote in his classic account of the war, the Arras offensive, of which Vimy was a part, did not succeed. The German line held; the stalemate on the Western Front continued for another year and a half.
Walkom isn't the only one who says this. Here's an excerpt from an article in the National Post (The making of Vimy by John F. Vance, April 7, 2007):
Vimy Ridge was a relatively minor success in a season of military disappointments. It lifted Allied morale, but the victory went unexploited and its impact on the war was limited.
How then did Vimy Ridge become so important to Canadians? More from the National Post article:
Yet Vimy quickly developed a mystique, partly because the Canadian Corps' first operation as a unit occurred on Easter Monday, the Christian festival of resurrection and the ideal day to celebrate a nation's birth.
And so within weeks of the battle, writers started to emphasize its symbolism: by achieving a military goal, the Corps had created a new national consciousness. Being Canadian meant something very different after Vimy Ridge than it had before. As Montreal poet Alfred Gordon wrote in 1917, "we shall lift a higher head/ Because of Vimy and its glorious dead!"
This was the conventional wisdom in 1920, as the Canadian Battlefield Memorials Commission got to work erecting memorials on Canada's most important battlefields of the Great War. The intent was to place a similar monument at each of the eight sites, but when the design competition drew many undistinguished entries and one of extraordinary merit, Walter Allward's soaring twin pylons, the plan changed. The design was too good to be rejected, and too good to be copied. The only option was to pick one site for special status.
[. . .]
So the ridge became the site for Allward's masterpiece, and in the years before the monument's unveiling in 1936, the battle grew in the Canadian imagination.
[. . .]
Vimy's primacy in the national imagination was reaffirmed when the federal government decided that the battle was uniquely deserving of commemoration during the Centennial year.
Read all of John F. Vance's article
See also:
Harper pays tribute to Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge
Walter Allward - the artist who designed the Vimy Ridge monument
Hitler's SS protected the Vimy memorial during World War II
From the Toronto Star (How Hitler spared Vimy Ridge by Ron Haggart, April 7, 2007):
The monument at Vimy Ridge was Hitler's favourite memorial from World War I, because it is a monument to peace, not a celebration of war. There are no carved guns at Vimy Ridge, no helmeted soldiers, no stacks of cannonballs. Instead, the figures are of Canada grieving for her lost sons.
Hitler went to Vimy Ridge on June 2, 1940, called in the world's press as best he could and insisted they take his picture on the unscathed steps. He then assigned special troops from the Waffen-SS to guard Vimy Ridge.
The SS had a vicious reputation – they were Hitler's personal army, they guarded him. And it was also their job to protect Vimy Ridge, not only from Allied armies but also from regular Wehrmacht soldiers who, rather understandably, might want to deface it. No one would defy the SS.
Hitler's plan was a great success. All the Australian war graves in France from World War I were destroyed in World War II. But the cemetery beside Vimy Ridge and the memorial itself remained untouched because the Waffen-SS did its job.
Read all of Ron Haggart's article.
See also:
Walter Allward - the artist who designed the Vimy Ridge monument
The monument at Vimy Ridge was Hitler's favourite memorial from World War I, because it is a monument to peace, not a celebration of war. There are no carved guns at Vimy Ridge, no helmeted soldiers, no stacks of cannonballs. Instead, the figures are of Canada grieving for her lost sons.
Hitler went to Vimy Ridge on June 2, 1940, called in the world's press as best he could and insisted they take his picture on the unscathed steps. He then assigned special troops from the Waffen-SS to guard Vimy Ridge.
The SS had a vicious reputation – they were Hitler's personal army, they guarded him. And it was also their job to protect Vimy Ridge, not only from Allied armies but also from regular Wehrmacht soldiers who, rather understandably, might want to deface it. No one would defy the SS.
Hitler's plan was a great success. All the Australian war graves in France from World War I were destroyed in World War II. But the cemetery beside Vimy Ridge and the memorial itself remained untouched because the Waffen-SS did its job.
Read all of Ron Haggart's article.
See also:
Walter Allward - the artist who designed the Vimy Ridge monument
Harper pays tribute to Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge
From the Globe and Mail (Vimy 'affirmed our national identity' by Alan Freeman, April 9, 2007):
Prime Minister Stephen Harper paid tribute to the "spectacular victory" of Canadian Forces at the historic Battle of Vimy Ridge today as thousands gathered to mark the 90th anniversary of the bloody assault.
"The events here 90 years ago were, for our country, a coming of age," Mr. Harper said in a speech to a ceremony marking the anniversary in the main square of this town in northern France, 10 kilometres from Vimy.
"At the Battle of Vimy Ridge, troops representing all four divisions of the Canadian army fought together for the first time, achieving a spectacular victory that affirmed our national identity and national character."
The Queen is to rededicate the Vimy memorial, the massive limestone monument to Canada's war dead in the First World War, at a ceremony today attended by Mr. Harper and French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. The memorial, completed in 1936, has just undergone a $20-million refurbishment to reverse years of water damage and general deterioration.
[. . .]
Mr. Harper noted in his speech that the battle had a particular meaning to his family. Mrs. Harper's great uncle, James Teskey, fell in the Battle of Arras at 19 and is buried in one of the hundreds of cemeteries dotting the landscape of northern France.
[. . .]
The anniversary events have attracted pilgrims from Canada and Britain, some with a personal connection to the site, others with none.
[. . .]
Read all of Alan Freeman's article
See also:
Thomas Walkom on the significance of World War I and the battle of Vimy Ridge
Walter Allward - the artist who designed the Vimy Ridge monument
Prime Minister Stephen Harper paid tribute to the "spectacular victory" of Canadian Forces at the historic Battle of Vimy Ridge today as thousands gathered to mark the 90th anniversary of the bloody assault.
"The events here 90 years ago were, for our country, a coming of age," Mr. Harper said in a speech to a ceremony marking the anniversary in the main square of this town in northern France, 10 kilometres from Vimy.
"At the Battle of Vimy Ridge, troops representing all four divisions of the Canadian army fought together for the first time, achieving a spectacular victory that affirmed our national identity and national character."
The Queen is to rededicate the Vimy memorial, the massive limestone monument to Canada's war dead in the First World War, at a ceremony today attended by Mr. Harper and French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. The memorial, completed in 1936, has just undergone a $20-million refurbishment to reverse years of water damage and general deterioration.
[. . .]
Mr. Harper noted in his speech that the battle had a particular meaning to his family. Mrs. Harper's great uncle, James Teskey, fell in the Battle of Arras at 19 and is buried in one of the hundreds of cemeteries dotting the landscape of northern France.
[. . .]
The anniversary events have attracted pilgrims from Canada and Britain, some with a personal connection to the site, others with none.
[. . .]
Read all of Alan Freeman's article
See also:
Thomas Walkom on the significance of World War I and the battle of Vimy Ridge
Walter Allward - the artist who designed the Vimy Ridge monument
Canadian citizen wants to be president of Nigeria
Here we go again. Another immigrant with questionable loyalty to Canada who uses our country as a convenient hotel while his heart remains devoted to the foreign country he came from. From Canadian Press via the Toronto Star (Leading Nigeria his goal by Tobi Cohen, April 9, 2007):
A research scientist and chief executive of a Toronto pharmaceutical company wants to be the next president of the oil-rich West African nation of Nigeria.
Isa Odidi has dual citizenship here and there but longs to bring the ideals of his adopted country to his homeland, now struggling with corruption, human rights abuses and violence.
The 50-year-old plans to campaign there in the run-up to the presidential election April 21.
If elected, the chief executive of IntelliPharmaCeutics Corp. said he will seek to reform Nigeria's judicial system, adopt legislation similar to a bill of rights, push for freedom of information laws and protect freedom of the press.
"I consider Canada home, seriously," Odidi said, noting he fought and won in court the right to keep his Canadian citizenship when Nigerian officials suggested he had to give it up if he wanted to run for the presidency.
[. . .]
Canadians might have a hard time electing a leader who resides outside the country, but Odidi said his New Democrat Party was founded by Nigerian expatriates from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia who feel that the current government's eight-year reign should end.
President Olusegun Obasanjo was considered a marked improvement over his tyrant predecessor, but his government has nonetheless developed a reputation for corruption.
Obasanjo attempted to change the constitution so he could serve a third term and, when unsuccessful, critics say he sought to ensure the victory of his hand-picked candidate.
[. . .]
Read all of Tobi Cohen's article.
The Globe and Mail has more about Isa Odidi. The paper notes (Dual national enters the fray in Nigerian vote by Estanislao Oziewicz, April 08, 2007):
He denied that his somewhat quixotic electoral foray is a bid to draw attention to IntelliPharmaCeutics, which he intends at some point to have a stock market listing.
"In fact, everybody says the opposite," Dr. Odidi said. " 'Are you crazy, Isa?' they say. 'Your shareholders are going to get mad at you because you will not have time to run your company.' "
[. . .]
Dual-national Canadians remaining involved in politics in the countries of their birth are nothing new. In recent years, there have been examples of Canadians not only returning "home" to work as cabinet ministers -- in Somalia, for example -- but also those in quest of the highest political office.
Stanislaw Tyminski, a Polish émigré who is in the computer business, made an unsuccessful bid to challenge Lech Walesa more than a decade ago. Former University of Montreal professor Vaira Vike-Freiberga became the Latvian President in 1999, a post she still holds.
Read all of Estanislao Oziewicz's article.
See also:
Ottawa to review practice of allowing Canadian residents to run in foreign elections
India promotes dual loyalties; Toronto Star, surprise, thinks this is wonderful
Canadian multiculturalism meets globalization. Here a nation. There a nation. Are Tamils another nation inside Canada? Is there a global Tamil nation?
Liberal leadership convention: "A significant number of delegates went to Montreal . . . as pressure points for ethnic and foreign interests."
Iraqi-Canadians playing prominent role in anti-American insurgency
Canadian citizens in Somalia's new transitional government
Former Toronto grocery store owner helps lead Taliban-like group in Somalia
Somali-"Canadians" fighting for Taliban-like group in Africa
CBC: Winnipeg man running for Italian parliament
A research scientist and chief executive of a Toronto pharmaceutical company wants to be the next president of the oil-rich West African nation of Nigeria.
Isa Odidi has dual citizenship here and there but longs to bring the ideals of his adopted country to his homeland, now struggling with corruption, human rights abuses and violence.
The 50-year-old plans to campaign there in the run-up to the presidential election April 21.
If elected, the chief executive of IntelliPharmaCeutics Corp. said he will seek to reform Nigeria's judicial system, adopt legislation similar to a bill of rights, push for freedom of information laws and protect freedom of the press.
"I consider Canada home, seriously," Odidi said, noting he fought and won in court the right to keep his Canadian citizenship when Nigerian officials suggested he had to give it up if he wanted to run for the presidency.
[. . .]
Canadians might have a hard time electing a leader who resides outside the country, but Odidi said his New Democrat Party was founded by Nigerian expatriates from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia who feel that the current government's eight-year reign should end.
President Olusegun Obasanjo was considered a marked improvement over his tyrant predecessor, but his government has nonetheless developed a reputation for corruption.
Obasanjo attempted to change the constitution so he could serve a third term and, when unsuccessful, critics say he sought to ensure the victory of his hand-picked candidate.
[. . .]
Read all of Tobi Cohen's article.
The Globe and Mail has more about Isa Odidi. The paper notes (Dual national enters the fray in Nigerian vote by Estanislao Oziewicz, April 08, 2007):
He denied that his somewhat quixotic electoral foray is a bid to draw attention to IntelliPharmaCeutics, which he intends at some point to have a stock market listing.
"In fact, everybody says the opposite," Dr. Odidi said. " 'Are you crazy, Isa?' they say. 'Your shareholders are going to get mad at you because you will not have time to run your company.' "
[. . .]
Dual-national Canadians remaining involved in politics in the countries of their birth are nothing new. In recent years, there have been examples of Canadians not only returning "home" to work as cabinet ministers -- in Somalia, for example -- but also those in quest of the highest political office.
Stanislaw Tyminski, a Polish émigré who is in the computer business, made an unsuccessful bid to challenge Lech Walesa more than a decade ago. Former University of Montreal professor Vaira Vike-Freiberga became the Latvian President in 1999, a post she still holds.
Read all of Estanislao Oziewicz's article.
See also:
Ottawa to review practice of allowing Canadian residents to run in foreign elections
India promotes dual loyalties; Toronto Star, surprise, thinks this is wonderful
Canadian multiculturalism meets globalization. Here a nation. There a nation. Are Tamils another nation inside Canada? Is there a global Tamil nation?
Liberal leadership convention: "A significant number of delegates went to Montreal . . . as pressure points for ethnic and foreign interests."
Iraqi-Canadians playing prominent role in anti-American insurgency
Canadian citizens in Somalia's new transitional government
Former Toronto grocery store owner helps lead Taliban-like group in Somalia
Somali-"Canadians" fighting for Taliban-like group in Africa
CBC: Winnipeg man running for Italian parliament
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Jean-Marie Le Pen goes after France's ethnic vote
I don't know much about French politics and haven't followed Jean-Marie Le Pen's career closely, so I don't know what to make of this article. However, I found it interesting that Le Pen who has in the past at least taken a tough stand on immigration would be campaigning in an immigrant neighbourhood. From the New York Times (Far-Right French Candidate Visits Ethnic Enclave by Elaine Sciolino and Ariane Bernard, April 6, 2007) (may require free registration):
Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right candidate for president of France, ventured into what might be expected to be hostile terrain today, making a surprise visit to a troubled multiethnic suburb of Paris.
The visit was remarkable for its symbolism: Mr. Le Pen went to the same spot where Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative presidential candidate who is leading in the polls, called young troublemakers “scum” when he visited the area as Interior Minister in 2005.
Trailed by scores of journalists, Mr. Le Pen, the 78-year-old leader of the National Front, stopped for 40 minutes at a concourse in the town, Argenteuil, and told a thin crowd of passersby that they are not outsiders, but part of the French nation. “You are the branches of the tree that is France,” said Mr. Le Pen. “You are full-fledged Frenchmen.”
[. . .]
Mr. Le Pen consistently places fourth in French opinion polls, but he is hoping to stage a repeat of his stunning upset victory over the Socialist candidate in the first round of the 2002 presidential election. He placed second overall in that contest, winning nearly 17 percent of the vote and qualifying for the second round of balloting after no candidate won a majority of the votes in the first round.
[. . .]
Surprisingly to many here, he is making some inroads among older, more established voters of Arab and African ethnicity in the suburbs, who are concerned about improving security in their neighborhoods and are eager to keep out newer immigrants.
Although no one in Argenteuil appeared to step forward today as a firm Le Pen supporter, some residents were not hostile to his message.
“If I had no other choice, I would vote for Le Pen before Sarkozy,” said a 27-year-old mechanic who would identify himself only by his given name, Mehdi. “Le Pen, he’s been in politics for 40 years. We know more or less what he wants, and what he thinks.” As for Mr. Sarkozy, he added, “He’s a newcomer and a fox.”
[. . .]
Read all of the New York Times article. (may require free registration)
See also:
Has the BNP really reformed?
Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right candidate for president of France, ventured into what might be expected to be hostile terrain today, making a surprise visit to a troubled multiethnic suburb of Paris.
The visit was remarkable for its symbolism: Mr. Le Pen went to the same spot where Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative presidential candidate who is leading in the polls, called young troublemakers “scum” when he visited the area as Interior Minister in 2005.
Trailed by scores of journalists, Mr. Le Pen, the 78-year-old leader of the National Front, stopped for 40 minutes at a concourse in the town, Argenteuil, and told a thin crowd of passersby that they are not outsiders, but part of the French nation. “You are the branches of the tree that is France,” said Mr. Le Pen. “You are full-fledged Frenchmen.”
[. . .]
Mr. Le Pen consistently places fourth in French opinion polls, but he is hoping to stage a repeat of his stunning upset victory over the Socialist candidate in the first round of the 2002 presidential election. He placed second overall in that contest, winning nearly 17 percent of the vote and qualifying for the second round of balloting after no candidate won a majority of the votes in the first round.
[. . .]
Surprisingly to many here, he is making some inroads among older, more established voters of Arab and African ethnicity in the suburbs, who are concerned about improving security in their neighborhoods and are eager to keep out newer immigrants.
Although no one in Argenteuil appeared to step forward today as a firm Le Pen supporter, some residents were not hostile to his message.
“If I had no other choice, I would vote for Le Pen before Sarkozy,” said a 27-year-old mechanic who would identify himself only by his given name, Mehdi. “Le Pen, he’s been in politics for 40 years. We know more or less what he wants, and what he thinks.” As for Mr. Sarkozy, he added, “He’s a newcomer and a fox.”
[. . .]
Read all of the New York Times article. (may require free registration)
See also:
Has the BNP really reformed?
New York Times profile of Pope Benedict XVI
This Sunday's New York Times Magazine has a lengthy article about Pope Benedict XVI. Here's a short excerpt from the article (Keeping the faith by Russell Shorto, April 8, 2007) (may require free registration):
Benedict is a man of curious contrasts. People who know him well use the same words to describe his personal demeanor, which runs counter to the image he developed in his previous role: they say he is meek, shy, courtly, modest, and indeed, seeing him in person — his eyes wide, his gaze soft and searching, as if for something he lost — you get the impression less of a holy warrior than of a kindly grandfather. Although a consummate Vatican insider, he has a certain lack of savvy, as evidenced in Regensburg and again in January when he appointed to the archbishopric of Warsaw a man who, it turned out, had ties with Poland’s Communist-era secret police and who was forced to resign two days later. Friends say that at the table he is abstemious, typically taking modest portions of one or two dishes (he has a special fondness for mozzarella cheese) and drinking a small amount of red wine. Yet he has also been known to wear Prada and Gucci.
As a longtime university professor, the pope is well known for his collegiality, his reaching out to, and exchanging ideas with, a broad spectrum of Catholics as well as with nonbelievers. This may explain why, despite the fact that his core conservative convictions are unchanged, he has managed to get many left-leaning church figures to rally around his central focus. Notker Wolf, abbot primate of the worldwide Benedictine order, himself a Bavarian who has known the pope for decades, was critical at the start, based on Ratzinger’s actions in his previous job. But Wolf, too, was won over. As we sat in the serene Sant’Anselmo monastery on the Aventine Hill in Rome, which serves as the headquarters of the Benedictines, he distilled the pope’s core message for me this way: “Western society has become detached from the roots of its creator. This is the basic view of the pope, and it is my view also. What the Muslims say about the decadence of Europe is partly right, and that’s because we think we have to set up everything as if God doesn’t exist. On the other hand, faith also has to be reasonable — it has to stand in front of reason. I would say that he means this not just regarding terrorism but also charismatics. He says we have to remain sober in this religious way of thinking. The old Occidental tradition has been a fruitful tension between faith and reason.”
Read all of Russell Shorto's article. (may require free registration)
The Pope, by the way, has his own fan club.
See also:
Mohammed cartoon discussion: Did you really mean to say Denmark is a Christian country? Perhaps you misspoke.
Thomas Collins - Toronto's new Catholic archbishop
Benedict is a man of curious contrasts. People who know him well use the same words to describe his personal demeanor, which runs counter to the image he developed in his previous role: they say he is meek, shy, courtly, modest, and indeed, seeing him in person — his eyes wide, his gaze soft and searching, as if for something he lost — you get the impression less of a holy warrior than of a kindly grandfather. Although a consummate Vatican insider, he has a certain lack of savvy, as evidenced in Regensburg and again in January when he appointed to the archbishopric of Warsaw a man who, it turned out, had ties with Poland’s Communist-era secret police and who was forced to resign two days later. Friends say that at the table he is abstemious, typically taking modest portions of one or two dishes (he has a special fondness for mozzarella cheese) and drinking a small amount of red wine. Yet he has also been known to wear Prada and Gucci.
As a longtime university professor, the pope is well known for his collegiality, his reaching out to, and exchanging ideas with, a broad spectrum of Catholics as well as with nonbelievers. This may explain why, despite the fact that his core conservative convictions are unchanged, he has managed to get many left-leaning church figures to rally around his central focus. Notker Wolf, abbot primate of the worldwide Benedictine order, himself a Bavarian who has known the pope for decades, was critical at the start, based on Ratzinger’s actions in his previous job. But Wolf, too, was won over. As we sat in the serene Sant’Anselmo monastery on the Aventine Hill in Rome, which serves as the headquarters of the Benedictines, he distilled the pope’s core message for me this way: “Western society has become detached from the roots of its creator. This is the basic view of the pope, and it is my view also. What the Muslims say about the decadence of Europe is partly right, and that’s because we think we have to set up everything as if God doesn’t exist. On the other hand, faith also has to be reasonable — it has to stand in front of reason. I would say that he means this not just regarding terrorism but also charismatics. He says we have to remain sober in this religious way of thinking. The old Occidental tradition has been a fruitful tension between faith and reason.”
Read all of Russell Shorto's article. (may require free registration)
The Pope, by the way, has his own fan club.
See also:
Mohammed cartoon discussion: Did you really mean to say Denmark is a Christian country? Perhaps you misspoke.
Thomas Collins - Toronto's new Catholic archbishop
Happy Easter
Happy Easter. More posts coming soon.
If you are looking for something thoughtful to read, I suggest this:
Easter and the Resurrection of the West
If you are looking for something thoughtful to read, I suggest this:
Easter and the Resurrection of the West
Friday, April 06, 2007
Muslims arrested in last year's anti-terror sweep challenge detention conditions
According to an article in the Toronto Star, lawyers for twelve of the Muslim men arrested last June for allegedly planning bombing attacks aimed at targets in Toronto and other parts of southern Ontario are challenging the constitutionality of the prisoners' jail conditions. The men are being held in segregation in the 'special unit' of the Maplehurst detention centre. From the Toronto Star (Surviving an ordeal by isolation by Michelle Shephard and Isabel Teotonio, April 3, 2007):
With their trial still months, if not years, away – one defence lawyer suggests it may be up to four years before the trial begins – the detention conditions are starting to raise concerns.
Lawyers for the men are slated to go before Brampton's Superior Court next week to launch a constitutional challenge, arguing that the terror suspects should live in the general population of the prison and take advantage of programs available to other prisoners awaiting trial.
Edward Sapiano, who represents one of the accused, says officials at Maplehurst have given various reasons for the suspects' segregation.
"... those officials have refused to discuss their excuses and reasons on any record, and they have declined to put them in writing," Sapiano wrote in his submission to the court.
One of the reasons cited is that due to a court-imposed "non-communication order," the suspects are forbidden from interacting with each other.
But the suspects do interact each time they're brought to court – during transport, in the holding cells and then, sitting side by side in the prisoners' dock. Their lawyers are now asking that this provision be dismissed, which would remove one obstacle cited by the prison.
Even if the lawyers are successful, Sapiano says officials have also cited security concerns as a reason for segregating them.
Read all of the Star article.
See also:
Charges stayed in Toronto terrorism case
Informant in Toronto terrorism case wanted $14-million. Sources say he received at least $500,000
Toronto terror bomb plot case inches its way through the court system
Technorati tags: Toronto terror plot
With their trial still months, if not years, away – one defence lawyer suggests it may be up to four years before the trial begins – the detention conditions are starting to raise concerns.
Lawyers for the men are slated to go before Brampton's Superior Court next week to launch a constitutional challenge, arguing that the terror suspects should live in the general population of the prison and take advantage of programs available to other prisoners awaiting trial.
Edward Sapiano, who represents one of the accused, says officials at Maplehurst have given various reasons for the suspects' segregation.
"... those officials have refused to discuss their excuses and reasons on any record, and they have declined to put them in writing," Sapiano wrote in his submission to the court.
One of the reasons cited is that due to a court-imposed "non-communication order," the suspects are forbidden from interacting with each other.
But the suspects do interact each time they're brought to court – during transport, in the holding cells and then, sitting side by side in the prisoners' dock. Their lawyers are now asking that this provision be dismissed, which would remove one obstacle cited by the prison.
Even if the lawyers are successful, Sapiano says officials have also cited security concerns as a reason for segregating them.
Read all of the Star article.
See also:
Charges stayed in Toronto terrorism case
Informant in Toronto terrorism case wanted $14-million. Sources say he received at least $500,000
Toronto terror bomb plot case inches its way through the court system
Technorati tags: Toronto terror plot
Momin Khawaja - Supreme Court won't hear appeal from Canadian accused of terrorism
From the Globe and Mail (Top court won't hear Khawaja terror appeal by Kirk Makin, April 5, 2007):
The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear an appeal from alleged al-Qaeda
terrorist Momin Khawaja, clearing the way for the Ottawa man to face trial
next month on seven charges of helping fashion a detonator for a fertilizer
bomb.
Mr. Khawaja, a 27-year-old Ottawa computer programmer, was the first person
charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act. The Crown alleges that he was part of
an al-Qaeda cell that intended to explode the bomb at one of several crowded
venues in England to terrorize the population.
In refusing to hear Mr. Khawaja's appeal, the Supreme Court left a Federal
Court of Canada trial decision intact. The gist of that ruling had removed
any need for the Crown to prove that an alleged terrorist act was motivated
by "a political, religious or ideological objective or cause."
University of Toronto law professor Kent Roach said Thursday that he was not
surprised that the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal, given it's
traditional distaste for interrupting trials.
At the same time, Prof. Roach said, the decision leaves the door open for
Mr. Khawaja to later appeal based on the same issue, should he end up being
convicted.
[. . .]
Read all of Kirk Makin's article
See also:
One clause in anti-terrorism law ruled unconstitutional. Khawaja trial will proceed
Ethnic divisions inside Liberal Party over extending anti-terrorism measures
Technorati tags: Momin Khawaja terrorism Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear an appeal from alleged al-Qaeda
terrorist Momin Khawaja, clearing the way for the Ottawa man to face trial
next month on seven charges of helping fashion a detonator for a fertilizer
bomb.
Mr. Khawaja, a 27-year-old Ottawa computer programmer, was the first person
charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act. The Crown alleges that he was part of
an al-Qaeda cell that intended to explode the bomb at one of several crowded
venues in England to terrorize the population.
In refusing to hear Mr. Khawaja's appeal, the Supreme Court left a Federal
Court of Canada trial decision intact. The gist of that ruling had removed
any need for the Crown to prove that an alleged terrorist act was motivated
by "a political, religious or ideological objective or cause."
University of Toronto law professor Kent Roach said Thursday that he was not
surprised that the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal, given it's
traditional distaste for interrupting trials.
At the same time, Prof. Roach said, the decision leaves the door open for
Mr. Khawaja to later appeal based on the same issue, should he end up being
convicted.
[. . .]
Read all of Kirk Makin's article
See also:
One clause in anti-terrorism law ruled unconstitutional. Khawaja trial will proceed
Ethnic divisions inside Liberal Party over extending anti-terrorism measures
Technorati tags: Momin Khawaja terrorism Canada
Paul Gottfried says Ann Coulter is a Republican shill who keeps the American Right from taking off
Paul Gottfried doesn't have a high opinion of Ann Coulter. From Taki's Top Drawer (War Whore, March 30, 2007):
Like Chris, I despise Ann but the reason for my distaste may be different from his. What disgusts me most about this loudmouth is the function she faithfully serves. Ann shills for the Republican Party, and the reason that she is the darling of FOX is that she is good at what she does. Far from being a “right-wing extremist,” as one might imagine from reading about her in the New York Times and the French press, Ann keeps the American Right from taking off as an electoral force. Her predictable answer to “godless” and cowardly Democrats is to go out and vote for generic Republicans or for Lieberman Democrats, a course of action that would allow us to kill more “towel-heads” while giving the social Left a more or less free hand domestically.
I am still waiting for Ann to attack W and Rudy for their views on immigration with the same savagery she regularly unleashes on Democrats. If Dame Coulter were a right-winger, instead of a Republican shill, she would be doing exactly this. Instead she exposes her listeners to endless tirades against “antiwar” Democrats, without even telling us that there are people on the social Right who disapprove of the present neocon-incited war in Iraq as much as the leftist bloggers. It is also never explained why starting a war against Iraq to bring its inhabitants women’s rights and the current American version of “democracy” is a “conservative” enterprise.
Read all of Paul Gottfried's article.
Gottfried's comments may be confusing to people, particularly Canadians, who constantly hear from the media that George W. Bush is a right-wing, even 'far right' president. The history of American conservatism is complicated and at times confusing, but traditionally American conservatives have been cautious about foreign affairs. For example, before Pearl Harbor made war with Japan inevitable, conservatives opposed American involvement in World War II. Exporting democracy to foreign countries is a liberal rather than a conservative idea. I'm simplifying quite a bit for the sake of brevity but conservatives have traditionally believed that you don't tear down social institutions that are the product of a long history.
This was Edmund Burke's objection to the French Revolution. It wasn't that France shouldn't change, but rather that it was foolish to dismantle the country's institutions and to start re-building them from scratch. American democracy is the product of a long history. That the system works, more or less, in the US doesn't mean it will work in Iraq where the culture and social conditions are radically different.
The same holds true for Afghanistan. The conditions for an American- or Canadian-style democracy just aren't there. Stephen Harper's rhetoric about bringing democracy to Afghanistan is one of the reasons I consider him a neoconservative rather than simply a conservative. (Another reason is his support for mass immigration and multiculturalism.) A conservative prime minister would recognize that a system that works in Canada cannot be imposed on a people whose values and traditions are so different from our own. He would also recognize the folly of importing large numbers of people whose values and culture are different from our own.
See also:
Paul Gottfried compares Israel to 1920s Poland
Samuel Francis on multiculturalism
Technorati tags: American conservatism
Like Chris, I despise Ann but the reason for my distaste may be different from his. What disgusts me most about this loudmouth is the function she faithfully serves. Ann shills for the Republican Party, and the reason that she is the darling of FOX is that she is good at what she does. Far from being a “right-wing extremist,” as one might imagine from reading about her in the New York Times and the French press, Ann keeps the American Right from taking off as an electoral force. Her predictable answer to “godless” and cowardly Democrats is to go out and vote for generic Republicans or for Lieberman Democrats, a course of action that would allow us to kill more “towel-heads” while giving the social Left a more or less free hand domestically.
I am still waiting for Ann to attack W and Rudy for their views on immigration with the same savagery she regularly unleashes on Democrats. If Dame Coulter were a right-winger, instead of a Republican shill, she would be doing exactly this. Instead she exposes her listeners to endless tirades against “antiwar” Democrats, without even telling us that there are people on the social Right who disapprove of the present neocon-incited war in Iraq as much as the leftist bloggers. It is also never explained why starting a war against Iraq to bring its inhabitants women’s rights and the current American version of “democracy” is a “conservative” enterprise.
Read all of Paul Gottfried's article.
Gottfried's comments may be confusing to people, particularly Canadians, who constantly hear from the media that George W. Bush is a right-wing, even 'far right' president. The history of American conservatism is complicated and at times confusing, but traditionally American conservatives have been cautious about foreign affairs. For example, before Pearl Harbor made war with Japan inevitable, conservatives opposed American involvement in World War II. Exporting democracy to foreign countries is a liberal rather than a conservative idea. I'm simplifying quite a bit for the sake of brevity but conservatives have traditionally believed that you don't tear down social institutions that are the product of a long history.
This was Edmund Burke's objection to the French Revolution. It wasn't that France shouldn't change, but rather that it was foolish to dismantle the country's institutions and to start re-building them from scratch. American democracy is the product of a long history. That the system works, more or less, in the US doesn't mean it will work in Iraq where the culture and social conditions are radically different.
The same holds true for Afghanistan. The conditions for an American- or Canadian-style democracy just aren't there. Stephen Harper's rhetoric about bringing democracy to Afghanistan is one of the reasons I consider him a neoconservative rather than simply a conservative. (Another reason is his support for mass immigration and multiculturalism.) A conservative prime minister would recognize that a system that works in Canada cannot be imposed on a people whose values and traditions are so different from our own. He would also recognize the folly of importing large numbers of people whose values and culture are different from our own.
See also:
Paul Gottfried compares Israel to 1920s Poland
Samuel Francis on multiculturalism
Technorati tags: American conservatism
Student shot dead outside Burnhamthorpe Collegiate
From the Toronto Sun (Teen slain after class by Chris Doucette, April 6, 2007):
An 18-year-old was gunned down as he left an Etobicoke secondary school yesterday, becoming the city's third murder victim in the last four days.
Police responded to a 911 call at Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Adult Learning Centre, on The East Mall north of Burnhamthorpe Rd., around 3:30 p.m. and found the lifeless teen with an apparent gunshot wound to his head.
"When officers arrived, they found the victim lying on the ground being comforted by a member of the school," Supt. Tom McIlhone, of 22 Division, said at the scene.
The young man, whose name was not immediately released, was rushed with no vital signs to the trauma centre at St. Michael's Hospital where he was pronounced dead around 4 p.m.
[. . .]
This was not the first time the school has been locked down. It was a similar situation last October when two men, 18 and 20, suffered gunshot wounds to their legs when a gunman opened fire in the school's parking lot.
Adult students arriving for night school last night were shocked to learn their classes were cancelled.
The murder is Toronto's 14th homicide of the year and the third this week. Tito "Stretch" Benjamin, 29, was found shot to death in his Cabbagetown apartment Tuesday night. Allen Benn, 20, was fatally stabbed in a stairwell at an apartment complex south of Jane St. and Finch Ave. W. Monday afternoon.
[. . .]
Read all of Chris Doucette's article.
See also:
Toronto schools - "The escalation of guns and violence has made lockdown practices as necessary a routine as recess"
Are teachers losing control of some Toronto schools? Are gangs starting to take over?
Technorati tags: Toronto gangs Toronto crime Toronto schools
An 18-year-old was gunned down as he left an Etobicoke secondary school yesterday, becoming the city's third murder victim in the last four days.
Police responded to a 911 call at Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Adult Learning Centre, on The East Mall north of Burnhamthorpe Rd., around 3:30 p.m. and found the lifeless teen with an apparent gunshot wound to his head.
"When officers arrived, they found the victim lying on the ground being comforted by a member of the school," Supt. Tom McIlhone, of 22 Division, said at the scene.
The young man, whose name was not immediately released, was rushed with no vital signs to the trauma centre at St. Michael's Hospital where he was pronounced dead around 4 p.m.
[. . .]
This was not the first time the school has been locked down. It was a similar situation last October when two men, 18 and 20, suffered gunshot wounds to their legs when a gunman opened fire in the school's parking lot.
Adult students arriving for night school last night were shocked to learn their classes were cancelled.
The murder is Toronto's 14th homicide of the year and the third this week. Tito "Stretch" Benjamin, 29, was found shot to death in his Cabbagetown apartment Tuesday night. Allen Benn, 20, was fatally stabbed in a stairwell at an apartment complex south of Jane St. and Finch Ave. W. Monday afternoon.
[. . .]
Read all of Chris Doucette's article.
See also:
Toronto schools - "The escalation of guns and violence has made lockdown practices as necessary a routine as recess"
Are teachers losing control of some Toronto schools? Are gangs starting to take over?
Technorati tags: Toronto gangs Toronto crime Toronto schools