CyberSmokeBlog.blogspot.com

Do Manitoba courts provide adequate guidelines for social media users?

2012-02-01T15:20:00.000-08:00

Chief Justice McLachlin before and after reading CyberSmokeBlog

Good Day Readers:

Someone recently said, can't remember who it matters not, the personal computer and internet has given everyone the equivalent of a modern day Gutenberg Press. Potentially anyone is a media citizen journalist operating in a global market. As she correctly notes in her address yesterday to Carleton University students, (below) reporting courtroom proceedings in no longer the exclusive purview of the traditional journalist. However, is the system adequately protected from mistrials inadvertently caused by bloggers, those using Twitter and Facebook posting inappropriate information while a trial is underway because they are simply unaware of the rules governing public disclosure? In the case of Manitoba we would respectfully submit the answer is more than likely a resounding "no."

We refer you to our earlier postings, Bloggers' rights coming to Manitoba Law Courts ..... soon? (January 16) and Social media in the courtroom! (January 18) in which issues were raised based on hours spent trolling the hallways of the Law Courts Building going from courtroom to courtroom. In the near future we will be preparing a third article containing further recommendation/suggestions. It too will also be made available to an administrative official.To date we have received no acknowledgement.

Assuming Manitoba's Law Courts use a business management model similar to its Legislature, Queen's Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal will chair an internal committee responsibility for the facility's overall efficient operation. After a reasonable period of time. should we not receive a response we will package these suggestions/recommendations for conveyance to His Honour - they are simply too important not be be brought to his attention. We will have done our duty to God and Queen, so to speak, and will no longer continue to flog a dead horse. Hopefully, we will not find ourselves in a position to say, "We told you so!" when a mistrial is declared because on a social media error.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
____________________________________________________

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin addresses packed room at Carleton

The media are essential to building people’s confidence in the legal system, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin told a packed room at Carleton, January 31.

McLachlin’s address in Carleton’s brand new River Building focused on the court’s relationship with the media as part of the law department’s Chet Mitchell Memorial Lecture Series.

Considered by many as one of the most powerful people in Canada, McLachlin is the first woman ever to serve as the chief justice of Canada.

In her address, McLachlin emphasized the role of the media when it comes to reassuring the public that they enjoy the full confidence of the judiciary system.

“[The media] has the unique ability to inform the public as to legal proceedings and the administration of justice which is essential for building confidence,” she said.

“The media needs to report, not uncritically, but accurately, so that the public knows what kind of judiciary it has, and it can have confidence in it.”

She praised the media for carrying that task out successfully more often than not and said that unfair press coverage in Canada is rare because of the lofty standards of journalism.

“We would be naïve not to acknowledge that occasionally, and I’m happy to say that in Canada it is very occasionally incomplete, distorted, or one-sided press coverage can cause lasting damage,” McLachlin said.

“Fortunately, the high standards of journalistic ethics which we enjoy in Canada make such incidents rare.”

McLachlin urged citizens to get involved with the legal system and check out their local courthouses, reminding them that courts are public property.

“Our courts are open but how many of you have taken the time to go down to the court on Elgin Street or the Supreme Court of Canada?” she asked the crowd.

She also warned of the growing dangers of citizen journalism, and said while some citizen journalists do provide insightful views, others fall desperately short of journalistic standards.

“The explosive growth of new media signals a shift on who reports on legal proceedings,” McLachlin said.

“Court decisions may no longer be the preserve of trained, professional journalists — anyone with a keyboard and access to a blog can now be a reporter.
”
“Will accuracy and fairness be causalities of the social media era?”

The use of social media in courts was also brought under the scanner by McLachlin, who joked about judges tweeting while they passed their verdicts.

Third-year law student Sunny Cohen said the event was a great chance for her to see the most influential figure in the Canadian justice system.

“As a legal studies student, it was great to have the opportunity to listen to somebody like the chief justice talk about the substantive issues we discuss in class,” Cohen said. “It’s nice to see her outside of the ivory towers, just on the basis of talking to us as students. It’s just a great opportunity for students and something we can gain a lot out of.”

What's good for the goose is good for the gander unless, of course, you're a Conservative!

2012-02-01T05:13:00.000-08:00

Clement refuses to shine light on PMO salaries
By Glen McGregor
Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Treasury Board President Tony Clement speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa January 30, 2012. (Photograph by: Chris Wattie/Reuters)

OTTAWA — The New Democrats are calling on Treasury Board President Tony Clement to bring the same sunlight to salaries in the Prime Minister’s Office as the government shone on the highly-paid staff at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The government on Monday tabled a response to a written question from an MP who asked for salary details of top CBC executives and on-air staff.

The response said there are more than 700 CBC staff earning $100,000 annually, though it did not provide the names that MP Brent Rathgeber had asked for before Christmas.

Rathgeber had also asked for the pay levels of CBC newscaster Peter Mansbridge and host George Stroumboulopoulos, but those were not provided.

“Mr. Speaker, CBC/Radio-Canada currently has approximately 730 employees who earn more than $100,000 per year,” Heritage Minister James Moore said in the written answer. “Their names and precise salaries are protected as per the federal Privacy Act and Access to Information Act.”

On the same day, Clement tabled a response to a virtually identical request from the NDP for the same information about the salaries of political staff in the Prime Minister’s Office.

That question was tabled by Quebec NDP MP Tyrone Benskin, in a mischievous response to Rathgeber’s queries about the CBC.

Also citing privacy law, Clement did not provide the names and salaries, but went further by declining to give even the total number of $100,000 salaries in the PMO — the same figure Moore gave for the CBC.

Instead, Clement — who promotes himself as an advocate for open government — listed the web addresses of the government’s public accounts that itemize the total amount each ministers’ office spends and a set of guidelines for ministerial staff salaries.

Benskin said on Monday the difference between the responses given by Clement and Moore shows an enormous double standard.

“The PMO needs to put its money where its mouth is,” he said. “If they want transparency, be transparent.”
Benskin laughed loudly when told that Clement will be hosting a conference in Ottawa next week on open government.

“As a minister, Clement has pushed forward with initiatives to enable Canada’s public servants to use social media in the workplace and a broader initiative to introduce open government principles to the Government of Canada,” says promotional material for the event at the National Arts Centre.

Many of the highly-paid executives at the CBC could making more money with private-sector broadcasters such as CTV or Global, said Benskin, who was an actor before entering politics.

Several Tory MPs are pushing for the CBC to be defunded of its $1-billion parliamentary allocation and one MP has introduced a private member’s bill to see it privatized.

Benskin said Rathgeber’s original request was a further attempt by the Conservatives to discredit the public broadcaster.

Neither minister’s office responded to a request

IPOs 101 .....

2012-01-31T20:15:00.001-08:00

Does and eye patch make you tough eh?

2012-01-31T19:54:00.001-08:00

The Stobbe case!

2012-01-31T18:52:00.000-08:00

Good Evening Readers:

Spent the day at The Law Courts covering the Mark Stobbe trial along with a handful of other media reporters. Rather than regurgitating the online accounts already posted by The Winnipeg Sun, Winnipeg Free Press and CBC Manitoba we thought we'd provide some background not covered:

(1) British Columbia Lead Crown Prosecutor Wendy Dawson was very patient and considerate answering media questions, including ours, during a breaks in the proceedings. For us she explained in cases such as this, where a government employee is on trial, standard operating procedure is to bring in a Crown from another province to avoid any possibility of a conflict of interest or even the appearance of such

You may recall Provincial Judge Brian M. Corrin during February of last year was charged with 1-count of assaulting a family member (his Mother), as well as, 1-count of uttering a threat against said person. An Ontario Crown (Toronto) was brought in to prosecute that case

(2) RCMP Inspector Bruce Prange and expert witness in Crime Scene Investigations testified much of yesterday and today. He came equipped with several poster boards of the Stobbe home, surrounding area and family car where the body of Ms. Rowbotham was discovered in a Selkirk, Manitoba parking lot. Also included in his repertoire of evidence was a large binder containing 475 colour photographs documenting over 40 pieces of evidence discovered at the home and in the vehicle

One of the media reporters passed a note to Ms Dawson who, in turn, had the Court Clerk give it to presiding Queen's Bench Justice Chris Martin. It asked if a copy of the binder, of which jurors already had copies, could be provided to the media. His Honour agreed

(3) A special thank you to Mr. Tim Killeen (Killeen Rolston Wiebe) who along with Co-Counsel is defending Mr. Stobbe. At one point he asked the presiding Judge and witness if they could adjust their microphones as a couple members of the public had approached him indicating they were having trouble hearing. Although we were not one of them, this is a constant, ongoing struggle at The Law Courts involving witnesses, counsel and judges. Mr. Killeen has been most gracious in the past answering our questions

Tomorrow it's back to The Law Courts to listen to Justice Brenda Keyser's charge to the jury in the Michel Hince-Jerome Labossiere triple first degree murder trial in the deaths of parents Fernand, Rita and son Remi Labossiere. We will be particularly interested in Her instructions and the range of options she provides after which the jury will be sequestered to begin deliberating and we'll switch off to the Stobbe proceedings.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

The Stones you silly woman!

2012-01-31T17:34:00.000-08:00

Abolish the backbenchers?

2012-01-31T05:18:00.000-08:00

CBC posted this message after violating Canadian election law by airing results on the national network before the polls closed.

Tories petition to Scrap CBC
Kris Sims | OMI Agency/Monday, January 30, 2012

OTTAWA -- Conservative backbenchers are rekindling their fight to abolish the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Four Tories presented petitions in the House of Commons Monday calling for the state broadcaster to be defunded or sold to private industry.

"Government of Canada funds the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to the sum of $1.1 billion per annum, that the vast amount of Government of Canada funding gives the CBC an unfair advantage over its private sector competitor," Brian Jean, a Conservative MP from Alberta, said as he read aloud from the petition signed by his constituents. "(We) call upon Parliament to end public funding of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation."

Last year, the Liberals launched a petition to maintain or increase funding for the CBC, exempting it from the 5%-10% reduction being sought in all other government departments.

Petitions must contain the signatures of at least 25 individuals, complete with Canadian home addresses. Members of Parliament can present petitions whether or not they agree with the goals.
The documents are largely for public pulse-taking, as governments are not compelled to act on the demands.

Feminazi lawyer?

2012-01-30T21:02:00.001-08:00

Good Day Readers:

First discovered this story on New York legal blog Above the Law (http://abovethelaw.com). In it the attorney representing the two ladies was described as a "feminazi lawyer. You'll notice in the video Gloria Allred is referred to as, "bodyguard of the broken hearted celebrity."

Perhaps Shakespeare's famous quote should be updated to, "Hell hath no fury like the lawyer of a woman scorned."

Sincerely,

Clare L. Pieuk

The view from America .....

2012-01-30T20:38:00.001-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Our day at the courthouse!

2012-01-30T18:07:00.000-08:00

Good Day Readers:

Spent Monday at The Law Courts - the morning covering the Labossiere trial the afternoon following the Mark Stobbe case. The former was devoted to the Crown and Defence attorneys making their final arguments. Wednesday Justice Brenda Keyser is expected to charge the jury after which deliberations will begin.

Evan Roitenberg (representing Michel Hince) as he had done earlier during Crown star witness Jeremie Toupin's testimony continued to pound away at Mr. Toupin's credibility. Jeremie Toupin signed a plea deal agreeing to 3-counts of second degree murder rather than murder one in exchange for his testimony.

It was alleged after the killings of parents Rita, Fernand and their son Remi Labossiere Messrs Hince and Jeremie Toupin stopped at a bridge off Highway 75 to dispose of two guns plus ammunition and spent shell casings. If you can believe this apparently somewhere in all this they lost the keys to the car they were driving so had to flag down a passing motorist to use their cellular phone to call brother Andre Toupin who, according to testimony by Jeremie Toupin, arrived sometime latter in a black truck to drive them back to Winnkipeg.

However, Mr. Roitenberg suggested this was impossible because said truck was at an auto body shop for repair at the time. Here's were it gets interesting. Had Evan Roitenberg called someone from the business to provide detailed evidence regarding who had brought in the vehicle for servicing, when, what was the nature of the repairs, the cost and when and who picked up the vehicle he would have been required to expose said witness to cross-examination. Further, if the Defence introduces any witnesses (which it did not) it is required to present final arguments to the jury before the Crown which some attorneys consider a disadvantage.

Was Mr. Roitenberg's presentation on behalf of his client be enough to sway the jury? You be the judge and jury.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

How the super rich influence the American political process!

2012-01-30T05:28:00.001-08:00

Hey, get back here where you belong eh?

2012-01-29T19:07:00.001-08:00

Snowy owls soar south from Arctic in rare mass migration

By Laura Zuckerman
Reuters
Sunday, January 29, 2012

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Bird enthusiasts are reporting rising numbers of snowy owls from the Arctic winging into the lower 48 states this winter in a mass southern migration that a leading owl researcher called "unbelievable."

Thousands of the snow-white birds, which stand 2 feet tall with 5-foot wingspans, have been spotted from coast to coast, feeding in farmlands in Idaho, roosting on rooftops in Montana, gliding over golf courses in Missouri and soaring over shorelines in Massachusetts.

A certain number of the iconic owls fly south from their Arctic breeding grounds each winter but rarely do so many venture so far away even amid large-scale, periodic southern migrations known as irruptions.
"What we're seeing now -- it's unbelievable," said Denver Holt, head of the Owl Research Institute in Montana.

"This is the most significant wildlife event in decades," added Holt, who has studied snowy owls in their Arctic tundra ecosystem for two decades.

Holt and other owl experts say the phenomenon is likely linked to lemmings, a rodent that accounts for 90 percent of the diet of snowy owls during breeding months that stretch from May into September. The largely nocturnal birds also prey on a host of other animals, from voles to geese.

An especially plentiful supply of lemmings last season likely led to a population boom among owls that resulted in each breeding pair hatching as many as seven offspring. That compares to a typical clutch size of no more than two, Holt said.

Greater competition this year for food in the Far North by the booming bird population may have then driven mostly younger, male owls much farther south than normal.

Research on the animals is scarce because of the remoteness and extreme conditions of the terrain the owls occupy, including northern Russia and Scandinavia, he said.

The surge in snowy owl sightings has brought birders flocking from Texas, Arizona and Utah to the Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest, pouring tourist dollars into local economies and crowding parks and wildlife areas. The irruption has triggered widespread public fascination that appears to span ages and interests.

"For the last couple months, every other visitor asks if we've seen a snowy owl today," said Frances Tanaka, a volunteer for the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge northeast of Olympia, Washington.

But accounts of emaciated owls at some sites -- including a food-starved bird that dropped dead in a farmer's field in Wisconsin -- suggest the migration has a darker side. And Holt said an owl that landed at an airport in Hawaii in November was shot and killed to avoid collisions with planes.

He said snowy owl populations are believed to be in an overall decline, possibly because a changing climate has lessened the abundance of vegetation like grasses that lemmings rely on.

This winter's snowy owl outbreak, with multiple sightings as far south as Oklahoma, remains largely a mystery of nature.

"There's a lot of speculation. As far as hard evidence, we really don't know," Holt said.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and David Bailey)

2012-01-29T14:22:00.000-08:00

Will the F-Bomb land on you?

2012-01-29T08:20:00.000-08:00

Yikes!

DARPA - Funded Hacker's Tiny $50 Spy Computer Hides In Offices, Drops From Drones
By Andy Greenberg
Friday, January 27, 2012

Even more embarrassing than a student discovering your GPS tracking device on his car, as the FBI found out last year, is having to ask him to give the expensive piece of equipment back.

So security researcher Brendan O’Connor is trying a different approach to spy hardware: building a sensor-equipped surveillance-capable computer that’s so cheap it can be sacrificed after one use, with off-the-shelf parts that anyone can buy and assemble for less than fifty dollars.

At the Shmoocon security conference Friday in Washington D.C., O’Connor plans to present the F-BOMB, or Falling or Ballistically-launched Object that Makes Backdoors. Built from just the hardware in a commercially-available PogoPlug mini-computer, a few tiny antennae, eight gigabytes of flash memory and some 3D-printed plastic casing, the F-BOMB serves as 3.5 by 4 by 1 inch spy computer. And O’Connor has designed the cheap gadgets to be dropped from a drone, plugged inconspicuously into a wall socket, thrown over a barrier, or otherwise put into irretrievable positions to quietly collect data and send it back to the owner over any available Wifi network. With PogoPlugs currently on sale at Amazon for $25, O’Connor built his prototypes with gear that added up to just $46 each.

“If some target is surrounded by bad men with guns, you don’t want to have to retrieve this, but you also don’t want to have to pay four or five hundred dollars for every use,” says O’Connor. “The idea is that it’s as close to free as possible. So you can throw a bunch of these sensors at a target and get away with losing a couple nodes in the process.”

Homemade as it may look, the F-BOMB is more than a hacker hobby. O’Connor says his one-man security consultancy Malice Afterthought received a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract earlier this month to develop the devices as part of the Cyber Fast Track program, which awards small sums to inventors.

A prototype of O'Connor's $50 F-Bomb with its case open

An F-Bomb Hidden inside a carbon monoxide casing

Despite its name, O’Connor says the F-BOMB is designed to be a platform for all sorts of applications on its Linux operating system. Outfit it with temperature or humidity sensors, for instance, and it can be used for meteorological research or other innocent data-collecting. But install some Wifi-cracking software or add a $15 GPS module, and it can snoop on data networks or track a target’s location, O’Connor adds. As is often the case with these kinds of hacker projects, he says the devices are only intended for penetration testing–finding security flaws in clients’ networks in order to fix them–and wouldn’t comment on what DARPA might do with the technology.

That hasn’t stopped the 26-year old researcher from coming up with a few clever ways to deliver or hide the tiny spy computers. One version attaches to the Parrot Drone, an iPhone-controllable quadcopter, sucking power off the drone’s rechargeable battery and allowing the user to hover over a target, land it on a roof, or drop the F-BOMB from a hook attachment on the drone.

Another version fits inside a carbon monoxide detector, and can be plugged into a wall socket to hide in plain sight inside a target’s building. (As shown above) In use-cases where it’s not plugged in, the most basic version of the F-BOMB comes with a module of AA batteries that allow for a few hours of use, though O’Connor says he’s working on versions with more longevity.

“It can fit whatever use case you want,” he says. “Put it in a box of stale Triscuits in the office kitchen, and no one will touch it. Or hide it in a carbon monoxide detector and you can leave it there for months.”

O’Connor, who formerly worked for the DARPA-funded contractor SET and as a graduate student in John Hopkins’ sensor research lab, says he was inspired by a pair of talks at last summer’s hacker conference Defcon. One focused on systems for firing camera projectiles, while the other showed off the WASP, or Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform, an adapted Air Force flying drone equipped with gear for cracking Wifi networks and snooping on cell phones.

While O’Connor says he admired both those projects, his own system is far cheaper. And just as important, he says, using off-the-shelf components means the computers can be left behind without its innards revealing who built it, as more custom-designed or expensive parts might.

“If you lose it, it’s not a big deal,” says O’Connor. “And if they take it apart, they don’t learn anything about you.”

Yet another classic textbook flogging a dead horse lawsuit?

2012-01-27T21:11:00.000-08:00

Anonymoushas left a new comment on your post "SLAPPs!":

Duluth News Tribune, January 24, 2012:

A jury should decide if six statements a Duluth man posted on rate-your-doctorwebsites and distributed elsewhere about a Duluth neurologist’s bedside mannerwere defamatory.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals, in a decision released Monday, sent back to St.Louis County District Court for trial the case of Dr. David McKee v. DennisLaurion. District Court Judge Eric Hylden had ruled in April that McKee was notdefamed by the criticism and threw out the doctor’s lawsuit, leading to theappeal.

McKee, a neurologist with Northland Neurology and Myology, filed the defamationlawsuit against the son of one of his patients in June 2010. McKee alleges thatLaurion defamed him and interfered with his business by posting falsestatements on the internet and to various third parties, including the AmericanAcademy of Neurology, the American Neurological Association, two physicians inDuluth, the St. Louis County Public Health and Human Services AdvisoryCommittee and St. Luke’s hospital, among others.

Laurion claims that any statements he made about the doctor were true and thathe is immune from any liability to the plaintiff. McKee is asking for more than$50,000 in damages.

McKee was pleased by the Court of Appeals ruling. “Obviously, that’s good newsand I’m glad that it turned out that way, but I haven’t had a chance to talk tomy attorney about it,’’ he said. McKee is being represented by Minneapolisattorney Marshall Tanick.

Laurion’s defense attorney, John Kelly of Duluth, had gained summary judgmentfrom Hylden by laying out 11 statements his client allegedly related regardingMcKee and asking the court to determine if any of those statements might beconsidered defamatory by jurors. Hylden ruled that none of the 11 weredefamatory. In his order throwing out the case, Hylden wrote that the allegeddefamatory statements constituted opinions, true statements and statements toovague to carry defamatory meaning. He said there wasn’t enough objectiveinformation provided to justify asking a jury to decide the matter.“We werehoping to have Judge Hylden’s decision upheld by the Court of Appeals,’’ Kellysaid. “They decided there are triable issues. That’s why we have trial courts.We’ll go back and try those triable issues.”

The Court of Appeals ruled that Hylden properly dismissed McKee’sinterference-with-business claim, stating that Minnesota does not recognize acause of action for interference with business or economic expectancy.

To establish a defamation claim, a party must prove that the defendantcommunicated to a third party a factual assertion that is false and tends toharm a plaintiff’s reputation in the community.

Laurion was critical of the treatment his father, Kenneth, received from McKeeafter suffering a hemorrhagic stroke and spending four days at St. Luke’shospital from April 17-21 of 2010.

The appellate court determined McKee’s defamation suit should proceed regardingsix claims Laurion publicly made about McKee:

• That McKee told the patient he had to “spend time finding out if you weretransferred or died.’’

• That McKee said, “44 percent of hemorrhagic strokes die within 30 days. Iguess this is the better option.’’

• That McKee said, “You don’t need therapy.’’

• That McKee said, “It doesn’t matter’’ that the patients gown did not coverhis backside.

• That McKee left the patient’s room without talking to the patient’s family.

• That a nurse told Laurion that McKee was “a real tool.”

In an e-mail to the News Tribune, Laurion said he was dismayed by the decision.“While being sued for defamation, I have been called a passive aggressive, anoddball, a liar, a coward, a bully, a malicious person, and a zealot familymember,” Laurion wrote. “I’ve been said to have run a cottage industryvendetta, writing 19 letters, and posting 108 adverse Internet postings inperson or through proxies. In reality, I posted ratings at three consumerrating sites, deleted them, and never rewrote them again . . .
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Anonymous:

Thank you for keeping us updated in this most unusual case. You be the judge and jury readers. Do you find the 6-statements capable of causing significant loss of reputation and financial hardship? We don't!

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

Dennis Laurion

David McKee

2012-01-27T21:06:00.000-08:00

"This is what I've been saying all along but nobody believed me." ..... Vic Toews. That's because you're a politician silly man!

2012-01-27T20:36:00.000-08:00

Prison population growth shower than predicted
Plan to hire thousands of guards aborted

By Jeff Davis
Friday, January 27, 2012

Canada's prison population is not growing as fast as expected following tough-on-crime legislation, prompting Corrections Canada to abort plans to hire 4,000 new prison guards.

According to the most recent data, Canada's federal prison population stood at 14,893 at the end of 2011, significantly fewer than the 17,189 prisoners Corrections Canada predicted would be locked up by then.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said he never believed predictions that the prison population would grow significantly when the government passed legislation that increased mandatory minimum sentences and repealed the twoforone time-served provisions.

Toews said he now feels vindicated. "This is what I've been saying all along but nobody believed me," Toews told Postmedia News Thursday. "The thrust of our legislation is focusing on serious, repeat or violent offenders and doesn't create new prisoners or new criminals."

Instead, Toews said, the Tory tough-on-crime legislative package has shut the "revolving doors" of Canada's prison system, and the prison population is increasing not because there are more convictions, but because sentences are longer.

"We're looking at about 25 per cent of the actual forecast," he said. "Instead of attracting all sorts of new criminals into the system, we're just retaining the old ones."

Corrections Canada Commissioner Don Head circulated a memo to his staff on January 13, saying that because the prison population is not ballooning as expected, the plan to hire thousands of new guards has been abandoned.

"It was based on a projected inmate population of approximately 18,000 by March 2013," Head wrote. "To date, this population stands at just under 15,000, substantially less than our projections for this point in time.
"Let me state very clearly: our hiring of staff is assessed based on the actual number of inmates, not projections," he wrote. "As a result, we will not be hiring 4,000 new employees."

The Correctional Investigator of Canada, Howard Sapers, said that although the prison population has not expanded as predicted, it has grown significantly. In January 2010 there were 13,300 inmates, he said, whereas now there are 14,800.

"If you look back over the last 24 months, the federal inmate population has grown by about 1,500," he said. "That is the equivalent of about three large, medium-security institutions."

Sapers said it is difficult to determine why the inmate population has not grown as much as expected, but suggested the provincial inmate populations may be growing, or there could simply be fewer crimes occurring. In any case, he said, the growth is less than most experts had feared.

Although Corrections Canada has scrapped plans to hire 4,000 new guards, Sapers said, it has already hired hundreds of new staff to deal with the population increase thus far.

On Monday, Ontario Community Safety Minister Madeleine Meilleur said she expects the Tory anti crime Bill C-10 - currently before Parliament - will cost her province around $1 billion extra.

Toews said because the prison population is not growing as fast as expected, efforts to create 2,500 new prison cells will give everyone in the prison system more room to breathe. He said the first new or renovated wards will be opened in summer 2012
.
Some of Canada prisons are very old, such as the Kingston Penitentiary, which was built in 1834.

jdavis@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JeffDavisOttawa

A cordial discussion in the Oval Office or good for book sales?

2012-01-27T20:01:00.001-08:00

Arizona Governor and Obama Clash at Airport

President Obama and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer were seen engaged in an intense conversation at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona on Wednesday. Later Brewer explained the president was "a little disturbed" by parts of her new book. (Video: Fox News/Photo: AP)

Merde jokes .....

2012-01-27T14:50:00.000-08:00

Good Day Readers:

Our favourite? True story. Several years ago when Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister and Canada Post seemed to be on strike about every 3-years, Mr. Trudeau was leaving Parliament Hill for lunch with an English language reporter in tow. One of the picketers shouted something at the PM in French who then replied with, "Manger de la merde!" Upon noticing the demonstrators seemed somewhat agitated with his response the reporter asked what he had said?

"Oh, I just told the boys to enjoy their lunch."

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

The bureaucracy without a cause!

2012-01-27T05:32:00.000-08:00

Bureaucracy set up to support Public Appointments Commission, which was then scrapped

By Greg Weston, National Affairs Specialist
Friday, January 27, 2012

In the six years since the Harper government came to power, Canadian taxpayers have spent millions of dollars on supporting a federal appointments commission that doesn't exist.

The money has disappeared into a bureaucracy set up to support the commission — a bureaucracy that seems to have just about everything except a commission to support.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper personally announced the creation of the Public Appointments Commission in the spring of 2006, one of the first acts of his newly elected Conservative government and a centrepiece of its much-touted accountability policy.

At the same time, the government created a new federal department called the Public Appointments Commission Secretariat to support the commission with a budget of more than $1 million a year.

By cabinet decree, the secretariat reports directly to the prime minister.

In theory, the commission was to oversee the hiring process for hundreds of federal boards and agencies, ensuring appointments are made on merit and not just doled out to partisan pals of the party in power.
It all sounded like a good idea at the time.

But on the same day Harper introduced the new commission, he also announced its first commissioners would be respected Alberta businessman Gwyn Morgan, a prominent Conservative and friend of the PM.
A month later, the federal opposition parties voted to block Morgan's appointment.

Secretariat lived on

Visibly angered and embarrassed, Harper scrapped the commission in retaliation.
But no one scrapped its bureaucracy, the appointments secretariat. Far from it.

Peter Harrison former head of the Public Appointments Commission Secretariat. (CBC)

The morning after Harper killed the commission, the secretariat's top bureaucrat, Peter Harrison, flew to London for a week of research.

In an interview with CBC News this week, Harrison said that in the absence of a commission to support, the secretariat spent its time "developing approaches (to appointments) that an eventual commission could look at and approve."

A highly respected academic and former senior public servant, Harrison says that without a commission in place, his secretariat ran out of useful work to do in less than a year.

By then, government documents show the secretariat had spent $843,000.

The Harper government paid out another $82,000 in severance to laid-off employees, and shut down the whole thing.

But not for long.

Seven months later, there was still no sign of a public appointments commission.

Nicer offices

But suddenly the secretariat supporting the non-existent commission was back in business.

It hired a deputy executive director at a salary of more than $150,000, along with an administrative assistant.
They moved into apparently much nicer offices at more than double the rent Harrison's much larger group had been paying in a government building three blocks away.

The secretariat hired outside consultants and drew on the services of other federal departments.

By fall of last year, government documents show the Public Appointments Commission Secretariat had burned through just over $2.5 million in cash and donated federal services.

And still there is no sign of an appointments commission.

Exactly what the rather unique secretariat accomplished for all that cash remains something of a mystery.
One of its main preoccupations seems to have been writing reports, setting out its annual plans and priorities, most of which are remarkably similar from one year to the next.

$700,000 in pay and benefits

Notably, the bureaucracy with nothing much to do has routinely given itself high marks for exceeding expectations.

The one senior bureaucrat in the operation for the past four years apparently collected over $700,000 in pay and benefits before retiring from the public service last fall.

Officials in the prime minister's department say the secretariat currently has no staff, but otherwise there is no change in its status.

New Democratic Party Interim Leader Nycole Turmel, says the government needs to make an immediate choice: either start up the appointments commission or shut down its secretariat.

For its part, the prime minister shows no signs of doing either.

Documents show the government is budgeting $1.1 million for the secretariat in the coming year — or about $300,000 if there is still no commission to support.

A lot of money to do what, exactly, is not clear.

Greg Weston can be reached at greg.weston@cbc.ca.

2012-01-26T22:29:00.001-08:00

"I have a better knife ..... let me help you with that!"

2012-01-26T22:09:00.001-08:00

Bloggers' rights coming to Manitoba Law Courts ..... soon?

2012-01-26T17:47:00.001-08:00

Good Evening Readers:

Spent a full day at the Law Courts. As fate would have it we found ourself at the end of a long line-up chatting with 4 other journalists from the mainstream media also waiting to enter the courtroom for the Labossiere trial.

By the time we made it to the front all public gallery seats had been taken save for 5 reserved for the Press. The sheriff asked if we had a media pass, however, being a Ma and Pa Kettle operation we didn't. As subsequently explained to two other sheriffs, people like us are Media Citizen Journalists/Blog Masters who cover events and post articles on the internet which the traditional media are free to reproduce since nothing we author is copyright protected.

Felt a twinge of guilt because through no fault of theirs the sheriffs found themselves in a grey area where no policy existed. Regardless, throughout they remained most polite and respectful which we greatly appreciated. The 5th media place became available when the Winnipeg Free Press failed to send a representative so it was offered to us. Presumably had a journalist arrived from that organization we would have been asked to relinquish our seat.

The 5-places reserved had makeshift signs designating them as "Press" something we have not seen previously and hope will becomes a regular feature especially during high profile trials such as the upcoming Mark Stobbe proceeding scheduled to begin Monday, January 30 in Courtroom 120. We have been advised at some point it will be moved to a larger room but we do not know when or where.

Last week (January 18) we sent a copy of our posting, Social media in the courtroom! with a suggestion and received a quick automatic response the intended recipient would not be back in the office until Monday, January, 23. We have yet to receive a reply but are hopeful we will. A copy of this posting has also been sent to the same administrator.

To the best of our knowledge we're the only Blogger regularly covering The Law Courts. Hopefully, there will be others to follow much, much better than us. Our suggestion is one place be reserved among those seats set aside for the Press to include a Blogger.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

Postscript

After entering the courtroom, a couple staff came by to say they were happy to see we had been given a seat. That made our day!

The poster above is from San Francisco-based The Electronic Frontier Foundation one of North America's leading edge digital law advocates that supports blogger rights.

Thank goodness she's not blond!

2012-01-25T19:26:00.001-08:00

Manitoba courts have too much class to talesmen!

2012-01-25T18:19:00.000-08:00

Dear Ms Sims:

We were particularly interested in your article because we spend a lot of time at Winnipeg's Provincial Law Courts - currently covering three high profile murder trials - plus grew up in London, Ontario.

A special thank you to a couple Law Courts staff who generously gave of their time today to explain the process here. Yes, it has happened twice before, however, with a significant difference. Sheriffs were sent out with specific instructions and a list of questions to ask those citizens targeted at random such as, "Do you have a business trip or vacation imminent? Is there a family emergency or illness that requires much of your time and attention?" etc. Only those least inconvenienced are selected.

BTW, a judge saw your article and requested clarification from staff of the process used in Manitoba.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

jane.sims@sunmedia.ca
___________________________________________________

Jury corral empty, posse hits the trail
Court: Little-used section of Criminal Code dusted off as panel comes up on one short

By Jane Sims
Wednesday, January 2012

A jury seat was still empty, but there was no one left to choose from.

The solution?

Send out the sheriff to round up potential jurors off the street.

Like something out of the Wild West, the rare move happened in London after a court ran out of people -- more than 130 had been vetted -- to hear the case against three men charged with assault, threats and forcible confinement.

Relying on a little-used part of the Criminal Code, Justice Kelly Gorman ordered the Middlesex County Sheriff and London police to wrangle up the first 20 people they found in the area of the courthouse and order them to appear in court the next day to be considered for the jury.

Tuesday, those 20 lassoed the previous afternoon waited anxiously to find out if they'd be hearing a week-long trial.

But here's the kicker -- in the end, they weren't needed at all.

The term for people dragooned for jury duty is "talesmen," meaning "reserve member of a jury" from the old English word "tales," or "writ ordering bystanders to serve." Not that the London people hauled in were aware of that old tradition or term.

Instead, they waited to find out if they'd be chosen to hear the trial of Irtiza Hussain, 38, Andrew Singh, 35 and Randy Singh, 37.

No one around the courthouse could clearly remember the last time such a move to find a juror was taken.
The three men faced three charges of assault, forcible confinement and threats to another man, Abbas Mahdiyan on April 4, 2009.

Randy Singh also faced gun-related counts stemming from the same incident.

This was the third attempt to get the case off the ground. In October, it was adjourned after two other juries were chosen from a pool for other cases, leaving too few people left to choose from for the trial.

The case was rescheduled for December, but again had to be adjourned when one defence lawyer had another jury trial go longer than expected, leaving him unavailable.

The defence lawyers -- Brian Chambers, Ken McMillan and Craig McLean -- also wanted a jury selection process involving a so-called "challenge for cause," where each potential juror is asked a question to judge their fitness for duty.

McLean asked potential jurors if their ability to judge the case without bias, prejudice or partiality would be affected by the fact the accused persons were black.

Some potential jurors couldn't serve because of health issues or personal circumstances.
Each of the three defence lawyers was allowed to "challenge" 12 people -- effectively, rejecting them for the jury.

The Crown was given an equal 36 challenges -- and assistant Crown attorney John Hanbidge used them sparingly.

By the end of Monday, there was no one left to pick.

That's when Gorman called in the sheriff and police.

Tuesday morning, the process started again.

The first two potential jurors told Gorman they worked at the nearby federal building at Queens Avenue and Talbot Street.

Gorman explained the court's predicament and why they've been pulled into service so abruptly.

"I'm sure this was quite a shock," she said to the first woman to be questioned.
"It was," she said.

Both women were rejected, but the third potential juror, a bank employee, was accepted.

By late morning, the rest of the corralled jury was summoned into the courtroom. Gorman thanked them and told them of her order to have the police and sheriff "wrangle up members of the public" on short notice.
They were allowed to leave.

Finally, a jury of five women and seven men was ready. They were sent out of the courtroom to allow some legal discussions, and the trial would begin.

But not so fast.

The short recess ran into the lunch hour. After lunch, there were more discussions.

The jury was sent home.

Shortly before 3 p.m., the three men pleaded guilty to the three main charges, while Randy Singh also pleaded guilty to two charges involving an imitation handgun. They're to be sentenced January 25.

The jury, after a very long day, was to have received phone calls informing them their services weren't needed.

Criminal Code of Canada Section 642
(1) If a full jury and any alternate jurors considered advisable cannot be provided . . . the court may, at the request of the prosecutor, order the sheriff or other proper officer to summon without delay as many persons, whether qualified jurors or not, as the court directs for the purpose of providing a full jury and alternate jurors . . .

E-mail jane.sims@sunmedia.ca, or follow JaneatLFPress on Twitter.

Meet Mr. Geek!

2012-01-24T19:02:00.001-08:00

Duhhhhh .....

2012-01-24T18:29:00.000-08:00

Listen, Walmart -- Slapping A Clearance Sign On An Item Without Changing The Price Doesn't Equal A Discount

By Mary Beth Quirk Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Walmart clearly expects that its shoppers can read signs, which is why they've marked a stack of clothing with not only a display reading "Clearance," but also have printed the same word on a balloon and affixed it to said arrangement of apparel. However it seems they think their shoppers aren't so good at the whole cardinal numbers thing.

Mianne sent in a picture using the Consumerist tipster app of a display of clothing at Walmart topped with a "Clearance" sign and balloon, with a shiny happy price of $3, as opposed to the original price of... $3.

Let's see if we can get this straight: 1 +1 +1 = 3, and then by the transitive property of whatchamacallit and the math rules of my freshman year algebra teacher... oh yeah, 3 = 3. It's the same, Walmart, so we call shenanigans on your use of "clearance." We understand that you are indeed, trying to clear out those items. But an actual sale would be nice.

Next time, might we suggest a simple, "It's The Same Price It Always Was So Please Just Buy It" will do. Please print balloons accordingly.

'The jury scoop' ..... sounds like the latest dance fad!

2012-01-24T17:54:00.000-08:00

Lawyer warns about further jury roundups

By Glenn Kauth/Monday, January 23, 2012

Incidents like last week’s jury scoop in London, Ontario will likely happen again, a Toronto criminal defence lawyer is warning.

The problem, says Marcy Segal, is the prevailing attitude towards jury duty. “Unfortunately, in this day and age, most citizens are tied to their jobs in order to pay their mortgages or bills. So I have seen a number of citizens either not appearing for jury duty or asking to be excused for work reasons or serious health issues.”

For justice to work, citizens have to respect the system, says lawyer Marcy Segal.

The result, she says, is that people don’t want to be jurors. “We are losing jurors for all of these reasons. Therefore, it may become more common for a judge to ask the deputy to find potential jurors.”

The comments come as Ontario Superior Court Justice Kelly Gorman raised eyebrows last week when she ordered the sheriff to round up potential jurors off the street. According to the London Free Press, Gorman took advantage of a rarely used provision in the Criminal Code in order to fill a jury seat after coming up one person short of the panel needed to hear a case against three men charged with assault, threats, and forcible confinement.

The sheriff went out to find 20 people, including Scott Johnston, chief information officer at Harrison Pensa LLP in London. Most appeared the next day, and the court was able to assemble the full panel, the Free Press reported. But after the accused pleaded guilty, the court no longer needed the jurors’ services.

For Segal, the incident highlights the challenges of the current system as well as the public’s sometimes contradictory attitudes given people’s reluctance to serve as jurors.

“Quite frankly, the citizens demand that the justice system work,” she says. “Their participation is crucial and there needs to be more respect for the process by the citizens. I think that being a juror is one of the most important functions as a citizen. They should welcome it.”

Johnston, however, in commentary in the Free Press on the weekend, expressed concerns about the way officials handled last week’s roundup. Noting he had a train ticket to go to Toronto the next day for important work, he likened the officers’ treatment of him to bullying. “It was a darkened street corner, it was a stranger who approached me, the person pointed something at me and told me not to leave, a second person moved in closer in what I interpreted as further intimidation, I was stripped of my privacy and freedom on the spot and I was left feeling cheated, angered, and confused,” he wrote.

Johnston said that while he supports the jury system, he would prefer that the sheriff take the person’s hardship into consideration or have the right to do so. He also said the sheriff should provide an explanation for the sudden roundup, something he said didn’t happen in his case.

The Puppets' Court replaces The People's Court!

2012-01-24T05:05:00.001-08:00

Judge Joe Brown: "Oy vey!"

How say you Supreme Court of Canada?

2012-01-23T21:49:00.001-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Lady, if you're stress free you're dead!

2012-01-23T21:16:00.001-08:00

Do taxpayers a favour knock each other out save us some money!

2012-01-23T05:19:00.000-08:00

"Gentlemen, I want a clean fight this is not the House of Commons! No kicking, biting, spitting or calling your opponent a piece of s..t. Protect yourself at all times. Touch gloves and come out fighting."

In this ring! Trudeau and Brazeau hope to float like butterflies, sting like bees in celebrity boxing match

Grit MP Justin Trudeau couldn’t find a Tory who’d step into the ring with him for a celebrity boxing match to raise money for cancer research until he called Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau. But he didn’t know Senator Brazeau was a former military, kick-boxer who has his second degree black belt in karate.

By Bea Vongdouangchanh/Monday, January 23, 2012

You’d think it wouldn’t take much to line up a Conservative MP who would want the opportunity to punch Liberal MP Justin Trudeau in the face—even if it was for charity—but as it happens, it kind of is.

Mr. Trudeau, 40, has been boxing on and off for the last 15 years, but said he’s never stepped into the ring for a real match. When he heard about the annual Fight For the Cure ‘white collar boxing’ event in Ottawa which helps raise money for cancer research, he told The Hill Times that he “got immensely excited” about it and wanted to join.

“I thought wow, what a neat idea, what a great way to both raise money and attention for a great cancer charity but also what a great way to figure out how good a boxer I am and if all that training has been useful. So I said, hey, I’d be interested in doing that,” he told HOH last week. “We started talking, and the only other challenge then was to try and find an opponent.”

He said that the first person he asked was Conservative MP Rob Anders (Calgary West, Alberta).

“I figured Rob, he’s a very big, very bulky, very solid guy, also someone who has a reputation as someone who might want to take a swing at me, and someone who’s fairly pugilistic in his behaviour in the House. So I asked him,” he said. “He thought about it for a day or two and got back to me and said, ‘You know Justin, as tempted as I’d be, it’s just a time commitment, the training that I have to do would take over my life, and I’m not comfortable doing it.’ And I said, ‘Okay, fine.’ I was disappointed because I was looking forward to it, so I said, ‘Okay, I’ll try some other people.’ ”

I then asked Conservative MP Jeff Watson (Essex, Ontario) who he said he didn’t think took him seriously with the request. Mr. Trudeau said Mr. Watson “laughed it off” and didn’t give him a straight answer. His next choice was Defence Minister Peter MacKay (Central Nova, Nova Scotia).

“I asked Peter and I said, ‘I was hesitant to ask you, Peter, because I think perhaps there might be rules against hitting a Cabinet Minister’s face or against them letting you into the ring.’ And he sort of bristled at that, and he said, ‘Look, no they’ll let me under the rugby pitch and that’s fairly violent, so I get to decide what I do.’ I probably said the right thing to get him to think about it, but he got back to me a few hours later and said no, and as we now know, he had a lot going on in his life at that particular moment and he just couldn’t take the time to train,” Mr. Trudeau said. “I totally respect each of their decisions and it’s not an obvious thing to do.”

But Mr. Trudeau said he then started to worry that he wouldn’t be able to find anyone.

“I was wandering around on those green buses saying, ‘Isn’t there any member of the Conservative Party who actually wants to punch me in the face?’ And that got a lot of laughs and funny looks, but no takers,” he said. “I actually sat down in my office with some of my staff who actually went through a list of everyone we could possibly fight and it was this whole production.”

He considered Conservative MP Ryan Leef, a trained mixed martial arts fighter from Yukon, as well, but said there was a weight class difference and he wanted to fight someone who also didn’t have experience in the ring. Finally, a friend texted him to recommend Quebec Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau.

“He said yes, right away. Actually his staffer said yes for him right away, not ‘I’ll check with my boss,’ it was, ‘Oh yes, he’ll do it.’ So, I should’ve been a little worried right off there,” Mr. Trudeau said. “But I said, okay, fair enough, and then Patrick confirmed yes he was in, and then belatedly I decided okay, let’s look up his bio and it was only then I realized that he was former military, kick-boxer, second degree black belt in karate, you know someone who’s very experienced in combat and someone who’s put me instantly in very much an underdog position.”

Page 2 of 3

Senator Brazeau, 37, told HOH that he felt “very good” going into the fight. He said he’s been training at Final Round boxing in Ottawa since mid-November, and he and Mr. Trudeau have the same trainers. When CTV Ottawa ran the story last week, the National Post had fun with the story and other media followed it.

“I look forward to perhaps touching some gloves on a Liberal chin. I know there’s potentially a lot of Conservatives who would like to see that happen, and they will have the opportunity to see that so I’m training hard and I’m taking this seriously, and I’m looking forward to the event,” he said. “All fun aside, it’s for a good cause. On the personal side, I lost my mom [Huguette] in 2004 to lung cancer so even though she may have lost her battle with cancer, I’m continuing the fight in her name. Putting that aside, this is all going to be good fun, and obviously if we can put a smile and a little bit of excitement on people’s faces during that night then it will be a job well done and if it can raise a whole bunch of money then even better.”

The fight, which Senator Brazeau said will be three, two-minute rounds, takes place on March 31 at the Hampton Inn Convention Centre. He said he’s confident he’ll be the winner.

“I’m not very worried. I’m very confident about my skills,” he said. “In past years, at that same event, some people did get knocked out and you got some bloody faces. There will be nothing choreographed, but we’re both being well trained and may the best person win, and I think I will be the one who will win.”

Mr. Trudeau said however that he’s also planning to “do very well” against Senator Brazeau. “The measure of a boxer is not whether you win or lose, it’s how you pick yourself up after getting hit repeatedly. I think I’ll be very good at getting hit. But you know what, I’m also a very competitive person. I plan to do very well,” he said.

Both Mr. Trudeau and Senator Brazeau said there were similarities between boxing and politics. “I think boxing is a little bit more honest at times because there’s a bit of infighting amongst politicians of different colours and stripes and they’re only words. Parliament they have Parliamentary immunity but in the boxing ring, there’s no such thing. There are obviously some rules, but we get to throw some jabs where they’re needed,” Senator Brazeau said.

For Mr. Trudeau’s part, he said you have to be “all in” when it comes to boxing and politics. “You can’t sort of hesitate, you have to really believe in yourself and your capacity to succeed. Otherwise the pain you go through and the pain you put your family through probably isn’t worth it,” he said. “I think boxing is [also] different from politics. There are consequences in boxing when you throw a low blow, less consequences in politics.”

The event also features cocktails, dinner and several other boxing matches and a silent auction. Tickets are $250.

Previous participants in the ring are lobbyist Walter Robinson and CTV Ottawa reporter Terry Marcotte, who fought in 2008 at the first event.

Final Round Boxing Club and the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation teamed up that year to organize the event “to increase survivorship in our region.” Last year’s event raised more than $200,000.

“They sell out the Hampton Inn grand ballroom for 600 or 700 or maybe even 800 people so they do very well with this,” said Mr. Trudeau, whose father and former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had prostate cancer. “I know the kind of visibility that comes from having a couple of high profile political players in a very political town should get even more interest and even more donations.”

2012-01-22T22:16:00.000-08:00

'Freedom 55' after only 6 years?

2012-01-22T10:44:00.001-08:00

Pensions - an MP's just desserts or the taxpayers' burden
Sunday, January 22, 2012

OTTAWA - Just weeks before Canadians find out where the Conservatives plan to slash billions of dollars in spending, some analysts are pointing to the "gold plated" MP pensions as a good place to start.

"You go into the public service to serve the public," said Ian Lee, an economist and financial commentator from the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa. "If you want to just make a lot of money, my answer is always the same: just go into the private sector."

Lee noted it would be difficult to find a private-sector employee who becomes eligible for a pension at 55-years-old.

In order to qualify for a pension, an MP has to be in office at least six years plus one day, and contribute seven per cent of their salary for each of those years.

So if an MP earns the most basic salary and works for six years, they would earn $28,260 when after hitting their 55th birthday .

But for any MP who serves more than six years, or who earns a higher salary because they chaired a committee, were named to cabinet or became party leader or Speaker of the House, that person ends up with a more generous pension.

For example, if Pierre-Luc Dusseault, who became the youngest MP in the House when elected in May, retires in 2019 at the age of 27, he would be eligible for a pension of just more than $40,000, according to a recent study the Canadian Taxpayers Federation published.

If Bob Rae remains leader of the Liberal party and retires in 2019, he would collect a pension of more than $96,765 every year, that same study shows.

And if Stephen Harper -- prime minister of Canada, leader of the Canadian Alliance and Conservative party -- retires in 2019, he will qualify for a pension worth more than $259,500. Bear in mind, that figure doesn't include the four years he opted out of the plan during his time as a Reform MP.

The Taxpayers Federation said their numbers were estimates based on publicly available information and data.

While those figures might seem like a generous gift from the taxpayers, Canadians should consider that being an MP means working 18-hour days, spending loads of time away from family and being under constant public scrutiny, defeated Liberal MP Martha Hall Findley said during an appearance on The West Block.

"There are a lot of people (in Ottawa) who left professional lives, me being one of them, who absolutely took a significant cut," she said, suggesting the pensions could be painted as a perk to help attract good candidates to a job that has several unappealing factors.

"An MP makes a very solid salary compared to most Canadians. Absolutely. And the pensions are good. Absolutely," Hall Findlay said. "But when we consider what a lot of those MPs have given up to be able to contribute to public service, it's significant."

The problem with that logic, Lee said, is that it assumes monetary compensation is the only incentive for anybody seeking public office.

"There's intellectual compensation -- policy. Most people don't pass laws," he said. "Three hundred and six people are controlling the lives of 33 million people."

When asked last week, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said MP pensions don't fall under his watch, but said he expected there to be some discussion round the fund, which taxpayers pour $102 million into every year, according to the Taxpayers Federation.

Follow The West Block on Twitter.

'Stunningly stupid' or just plain stupid?

2012-01-22T10:06:00.000-08:00

Good Day Readers:

Are these the critical questions:

(1) To the extent possible have all environmental and ecological concerns associated with the Northern Gateway Pipeline been adequately addressed?

(2) Will continuous maintenance and monitoring systems be in place to prevent spills before they occur or at least immediately identify them?

(3) Are Enbridge's emergency response plans and resources adequate should there be an accident?

No revenue estimates (royalty payments) have yet been made available of the dollar amounts that will accrue to Alberta, British Columbia and the federal government. Is it not disingenuous on the part of those who oppose the pipeline simultaneously calling for better, improved social safety net programs? From where will the money come?

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
__________________________________________________

Newt gives Prime Minister a nod in victory speech
Bryn Weese
Senior Washington Correspondent
Sunday, January 22, 2012

Republican United States Presidential Candidate and former house speaker Newt Gingrich (Reuters/Eric Thayer)

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- This southern state and the Republican nomination race may be far removed from Canada, but that didn't stop Palmetto State primary winner Newt Gingrich from giving a shout out to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in his victory speech.

While blasting President Barack Obama for rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline and the thousands of jobs it has been estimated it would create, Gingrich warned Canada will send its oil to China instead.

And he praised Harper, too.

"What Prime Minister Harper -- who, by the way, is conservative and pro-American -- what he has said is he's gonna cut a deal with the Chinese and they'll build a pipeline straight across the Rockies to Vancouver," Gingrich said Saturday night. "We'll get none of the jobs, none of the energy, none of the opportunity.

"Now, an American president who can create a Chinese-Canadian partnership is truly a danger to this country."

The Northern Gateway Pipeline would actually run from the Alberta oilsands to Kitimat, British Columbia, which is several hundred kilometres north of Vancouver. And, even if the regulatory process went as well as its proponent Enbridge hopes, it would be at least 2017 before any oil would flow to the west coast and Asian markets.

Earlier this week, the Obama administration rejected TransCanada's bid to build the $7 billion Keystone pipeline, citing the 60-day deadline by which he had to decide on the application imposed by Congressional Republicans didn't allow enough time to review the proposal.

At the time, Gingrich called the president's move "stunningly stupid."

On Saturday, he continued his attacks on Obama, calling him "out of touch with reality.

"The president says, 'no,' we don't want you to build a pipeline from central Canada straight down with no mountains intervening to the largest petrochemical centre in the world, Houston, so that we'd make money on the pipeline, we'd make money on managing the pipeline, we'd make money on refining the oil, and we'd make money on the ports of Houston and Galveston shipping the oil," Gingrich said. "Oh no, we don't want to do that because Barack Obama and his extremist left-wing friends in San Francisco, they think that'll really stop the oil from heading out."

Supporters of the Keystone pipeline, which would ship 700,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Alberta to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico, have estimated the project would create 20,000 jobs and add hundreds of billions to the American economy.

Critics have opposed the project because the original route took the pipeline through an environmentally sensitive area in Nebraska. Even though TransCanada and the Nebraska legislature have since agreed to a new route around the Ogallala Aquifer, some environmentalists still oppose the pipeline because they say crude from Alberta's oilsands is "dirty" and more carbon intensive to produce.

Gingrich won the South Carolina primary Saturday with 40% support ahead of Mitt Romney who finished second with 28%. Rick Santorum and Ron Paul received 17% and 13% respectively.

South Carolina today?

2012-01-21T07:23:00.001-08:00

Worse than the mafia?

2012-01-20T20:01:00.001-08:00

2012-01-20T19:43:00.001-08:00

"Get back on board damn it!"

2012-01-20T19:40:00.000-08:00

Balls! ..... 20,000 little orange ones

2012-01-20T15:44:00.001-08:00

Order for 20,000 Squeezable Toys Cancelled
By Steve Rennie
Friday, January 20, 2012

OTTAWA - These are stressful times at National Defence.

Belt-tightening. Uncertainty. Maybe even pink slips.

Throw in a Cold War-style spy saga, and it's enough to push even the most unflappable worker to the breaking point.

So what does top brass do to keep its staff sane?

Order 20,000 stress balls. Orange ones.

Serenity was on the way — until Defence Minister Peter MacKay got wind of the order.

"As soon as Minister MacKay was made aware of this contract, he instructed officials to immediately cancel this unnecessary expense of taxpayer money," the minister's spokesman, Jay Paxton, said in an email.

The department said it needed the squeezable rubber stress-relievers on the double. The deadline for the order was to be the end of March — just in time for the start of the new fiscal year.

The next Conservative budget is expected to cut deep. Departments and agencies have been ordered to trim their budgets by five to 10 per cent in the hope of saving the government $4 billion annually by 2014.

It's enough to make any bureaucrat sweat.

A notice posted Friday on a website that advertises government contracts didn't say why National Defence needed so many stress balls, or why they had to be orange. It only said the balls were to be a "promotional item."

The small rubber balls are popular giveaways at trade shows. They're also an essential part of any cubicle inhabited by a repetitive-stress-injury-fearing office worker.

It wouldn't have been the first time the department has passed out the malleable toys to its staff.

In October 2010, on International Conflict Resolution Day, soldiers at 8 Wing Trenton were encouraged to stop by a kiosk on the base to "pick up a stress ball, and partake of the cake that will commemorate this auspicious day," according to a military newsletter.

This week has certainly been a stressful one over at National Defence.

One of its naval officers is accused of passing secrets.

Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Delisle is now in custody after being charged with communicating information to a "foreign entity."

The government has so far refused to confirm or deny reports that the foreign power Delisle is accused of sharing information with could be Russia.

Maybe cougars find older women offensive!

2012-01-20T14:51:00.000-08:00

Utah School Rejects 'Cougar' Mascot to Avoid Offending Older Women
By Samantha Grossman
Friday, January 20, 2012

The graceful, agile cougar has been a longtime favourite for school mascots. (Anita Erdmann/Getty Images)

Team mascots have a history of offending. Organizations from professional football franchises to inconspicuous elementary schools have often come under scrutiny for mascots referencing Native Americans, for example. But choosing, say, an animal, and not an ethnic group, has generally been a safe bet. Until now.

Canyons School Board members in Draper, Utah have rejected the “Cougars” as a high school mascot, deeming it offensive to older women. When granted the opportunity to vote, nearly a quarter of Corner Canyon High School’s future students opted for alliteration and settled on the Corner Canyon Cougars, Salt Lake City Fox affiliate KSTU reported. Despite the fact that the Cougar is one of the most common school monikers in the country, the board vetoed the choice.

The term “cougar” has crept into English vernacular to reference an older woman who seeks romantic relationships with younger men. When you search for “cougar” on Google, the Wikipedia entry for “Age disparity in sexual relationships” appears just beneath the traditional feline definition. Late-night jokes and television series like Cougar Town have centered on this unofficial definition of the word.

To avoid any trace of offensive connotations, the school board instead selected the “Chargers” as the mascot for Corner Canyon High, set to open in 2013. The ban does not bode well for cougars — the feline version, that is — who may also be forced to change their name to something less offensive. We hear John Mellencamp went through a similar ordeal.
List: Top 10 Worst Team Names
List: The Most Eccentric College Mascots

The Puppet's Court coming to Manitoba?

2012-01-20T09:07:00.001-08:00

Good Day Readers:

Since television cameras and photographers are not allowed into Manitoba courtrooms why hasn't the media resorted to Puppet's Courts to cover trials especially those involving alleged crimes by politicians, bureaucrats and organizations financed by taxpayer dollars? Careful how you portray the judge!

How say you Manitoba media?

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

Cleveland Television station covers corruption trial with puppets
Friday, January 20, 2012

Puppeteer Kirk Maynard, bottom left, works a puppet representing Defence Attorney Andrea Whitaker cross-examining Ferris Kleem during taping at WOIO-TV in Cleveland. (Mark Duncan/AP)

Thomas J. Sheeran
Associated Press

CLEVELAND—It’s courtroom drama crossed with “Sesame Street,” as a U.S. television station barred from using cameras during a high-profile corruption trial covers the highlights with a nightly puppet show.
It stars a talking squirrel “reporter” who provides the play-by-play in an exaggerated, “You won’t believe this” tone.

“It’s a satirical look at the trial and, again, I think we have it appropriately placed at the end of the newscast,” WOIO news director Dan Salamone said Thursday.

He said the puppets are in addition to the station’s regular coverage of the federal trial of ex-Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora, the longtime Democratic power broker in Cleveland. The city is the largest in Ohio, often a key state in U.S. presidential contests.

“It’s not intended in any way to replace any of the serious coverage of the trial,” Salamone said.
He said the puppets are meant to lampoon the sometimes-steamy testimony, including details of a topless hot tub excursion in Las Vegas and taped phone calls with off-colour and often unprintable comments.
Dimora, a former county Democratic chairman in Cleveland, has pleaded not guilty to bribery and racketeering.

When cameras are barred from courtrooms in the U.S., the news media relies on artist sketches of the proceedings inside and daily video of people walking into court.

This time, the Ohio station uses the puppets repeating testimony and performing as witnesses, reporters and jurors to detail the case, which began last week.

The station is awaiting the arrival of an updated puppet that looks like the newly clean-shaven Dimora. For now, the station has been showing the back of a puppet’s head that doesn’t resemble him, Salamone said.
And if Dimora grows his familiar salt-and-pepper beard back? “We’ve asked for some accessories in the event that he might decide to regrow his beard,” Salamone said.

Taxpayers, please contribute more to your Member of Parliament's pension fund!

2012-01-19T23:05:00.001-08:00

Meet the Oinker family ....."Oink, Oink and Oink!"

MPs' pension plan faces $1 billion shortfall, report finds

Kenyon Wallace/Thursday, January 19, 2012

On paper, the pension plan for MPs and senators is gold-plated and financially sound. In reality, however, the benefits promised to our elected representatives are underfunded by close to $1 billion, according to a new report.

The C.D. Howe Institute, a Toronto-based non-profit think-tank, says taxpayers are on the hook for that amount because the current parliamentary pension plan has set aside no assets to pay for the future benefits.

Unlike other pension plans, such as the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, in which contributions from members are invested in the market to fund future benefits, the Pension Plan for Members of Parliament guarantees retirement incomes that aren’t pegged to investment returns.

“These MP pensions are basically unfunded,” said Alex Laurin, associate director of research at the C.D. Howe Institute. “That means they’ll be paid out by taxpayers through general government funds when they are due.”

The institute found that if ordinary Canadians wanted to secure a retirement income equivalent to an MP’s pension, they would have to save 50 per cent of their income every year. But the Income Tax Act stipulates that Canadians — most of whom have no pensions at all — can contribute only 18 per cent of their annual incomes to their own RRSPs.

The report also takes aim at the federal chief actuary’s assessment last year that found an “excess” of $176 million in the plan — an unlikely scenario at a time when almost every other defined-benefit plan in Canada has more liabilities than assets, the institute found.

“This is just accounting, it’s just on paper,” Laurin said. “There are no real assets.”

The institute recommends MPs start saving for their retirements in a properly funded pooled registered plan, and suggests increasing MPs’ wages in exchange for more modest retirement benefits.

Gregory Thomas, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation — which this week issued a call to parliamentarians to adopt a more realistic pension plan — said the biggest scandal was the fact that MPs ignored a request by the chief actuary two years ago. That request urged them to halve the annualized 10.4 per cent “rate of return” — a rate set by the government — that the plan has been getting over the last 10 years.

After losing his seat in last year’s election, former Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe, 63, walked away with a $140,765 annual pension. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who currently makes $315,000 a year, will be eligible by 2015 to collect a yearly pension of $223,500, according to the federation.

“Every MP needs to answer the question, why in the middle of the biggest economic meltdown in our generation did you insist on a 10.4 per cent annual return on your pension fund?” Thomas said.

“It’s a phony return on an imaginary investment. MPs cannot lead if they don’t lead by example. This pension they’ve been taking all the way through this economic downturn — it’s scandalous.”

Answer the question "Nuclear" Newt!

2012-01-19T20:58:00.001-08:00

Vote for Newt the only open candidate!

2012-01-19T15:08:00.000-08:00

video platform video management video solutions video player

Ex-Wife Says Gingrich Wanted Open Marriage. Marienne Gingrich says she refused GOP candidate's request.

That other woman!

Social media in the courtroom!

2012-01-18T05:51:00.001-08:00

Good Day Readers:

Sorry for the delay we're doing double duty covering a couple high profile murder cases - the Jerome Labossiere and Mark Stobbe trials.

An interesting situation not reported by the mainstream media (presumably deemed "unnewsworthy" - we believe otherwise) occurred a couple days ago during the Labossiere-Hince proceedings. Each are facing three counts of first degree murder in the November 2005 shooting deaths of parents Fernand and Rita Labossiere along with son Remi at their Saint Leon, Manitoba farmhouse .

A couple days ago presiding Queen's Bench Justice Brenda Keyser advised the court one of the jurors had arranged to have a note passed to her. Apparently said juror has a Facebook Page on which one of their "friends" they'd known since childhood (police officer) had testified at the trial. Madam Keyser requested the juror immediately "defriend" the officer from their Page until after the trial. She then read the names of the 18 remaining witnesses to be heard requesting any juror in the same situation do likewise. The quick actions of Her Honour may have prevented a possible mistrial.

That's how it was confirmed the last person to testify will be Jeremie Toupin also originally charged with three counts of first degree murder. According to Provincial Court File Registry records these were stayed by the Crown on June 14, 2010. Mr. Toupin has pled guilty to one charge of second degree murder for which he will be sentenced after the trial.

The Labossiere trial adjourned early Wednesday afternoon until the morning of Monday January 23 at 10 a.m. In the meantime, we've been attending a voir dire hearing before Queen's Bench Justice Chris Martin in Courtroom 120 related to the second degree murder charge against Mr. Mark Stobbe. Since the jury has been excluded we are not allowed to comment any further.

A common practice, we fully endorse, involves secondary school teachers accompanying classes to court proceedings after which students are required to submit written reports for which they receive credit toward a final grade - have encountered such groups several times. We have been advised upon arrival at The Law Courts both teachers and students a given a brief orientation before they're "let loose in the courtroom" so to speak. It's reasonable to assume some teachers/students have Blogs, others FaceBook Pages while there are also "Tweeters."

Here's what we'd like to know. Does their basic orientation include a primer on the rules of public disclosure so they do not inadvertently use the social media to release information about a live trial that is not public domain thereby triggering the possibility of a mistrial?

We are sending a copy of this posting to a Law Courts Official. Any reply received will be published. They can choose to remain anonymous or otherwise - their call.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

You should be afraid very afraid?

2012-01-18T05:14:00.001-08:00

2012-01-17T20:44:00.001-08:00

2012-01-17T20:40:00.001-08:00

Hey, who turned off the lights?

2012-01-17T19:38:00.001-08:00

Why is Wikipedia staging a blackout and what is SOPA?
By Daniel Kasor
Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Wikipedia is set to go dark at 12:00 a.m. ET Wednesday and will remain down until 12:00 a.m. ET the following day. (Wikimedia)

Lost without Wikipedia? The National Post’s got you covered. Steve Murray answers your fact-finding inquiries, starting 10:00 am ET at natpo.st/postipedia

Need to know about the Wikipedia blackout? In this occasional feature, the National Post tells you everything you need to know about the a complicated issue. Beginning midnight Wednesday, crowd-sourced knowledge database Wikipedia will go dark and will be offline for 24 hours as a protest against proposed anti-piracy legislation in the United States. We give you the inside scoop on why the sixth most popular website on the planet has decided to turn itself off for a day and how you can access its pages even though it is offline.

How long will the site be blacked out? The blackout starts at 12:00 a.m. eastern time (5:00 a.m. GMT) on Wednesday morning and will last until 12:00 a.m. eastern time on Thursday (also 5:00 a.m. GMT).

What exactly is blacked out? The English-language version of Wikipedia will be offline and replaced with a message related to the anti-piracy legislation going through Congress, SOPA, in the United States. Other language editions of Wikipedia will be unaffected.

Additionally, popular community website Reddit will also be offline, as well as Boing-Boing and several smaller websites
.
WordPress is suggesting users black out their own websites, but is not forcing any blackouts.

Whoa, SOPA? What the heck is that? SOPA, which stands for the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a piece of legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives. The act is designed to target copyright infringers online through a series of harsh penalties.In the U.S. Senate, a separate companion bill is called the Protect Intellectual Property Act or PIPA.

What are the battle lines in the debate? The fight over SOPA is generally seen as a major clash between Hollywood and old media, and Silicon Valley. The backers of the legislation include the Motion Picture Association of America (the MPAA), the major movie studios and television networks, most major book publishers and several ISPs. They say that without the legislation at least 2.2 million industry jobs would be at risk.

A large number of Internet content companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo! and several others have publicly come out against the legislation. Certain companies, such as Google, have spent a great deal on lobbying against they bill. They say the legislation would turn the Internet into a police state.

Read more on efforts to change the proposed legislation:

‘Three key section of the existing legislation seem likely to remain, a person familiar with the matter says. They comprise provisions aimed at getting search engines to disable links to foreign infringing sites; provisions that cut off advertising services to those sites; and provisions that cut off payment processing.‘But critical provisions that would require Internet service providers such as Verizon Communications and Comcast Corp. to cut off infringing sites through a technology known as DNS blocking are now likely to be eliminated’

2.2 million jobs sound like a lot. Why do the SOPA opponents say it would turn the Internet into a police state? Several of the provisions in SOPA force American Internet service providers or ISPs hosting websites to remove a site from the Internet if there’s a claim it’s infringing against copyright, even if it has not been fully proved in court. The argument is that this would make it easy for someone to make false or weak claims to take a website offline while the case makes its way through the courts.

Additionally, it would force ISPs to block non-U.S. websites accused of having infringing material, meaning sites from other countries might not be available in the United States. Opponents say this might destabilize the Internet and allow loopholes for hackers to exploit.

Which sites that I use would this affect? Most obviously, Wikipedia. There are millions of users who constantly update the site, and sometimes things are posted that might have questionable copyright provenance. If Wikipedia were shut down or blocked every time it was challenged over copyright, the site would likely cease to function.

YouTube would be another site that would be harshly affected by the measures. Since millions of people upload videos to YouTube, sometimes copyrighted material slips through. Currently, this is dealt with by individual videos being taken down after a complaint. Google has stated YouTube probably wouldn’t exist if a SOPA-like law had been in effect in 2004 when the site launched.

Some interpretations of the bill say that sites that even link to other sites accused of infringing might be at risk.

Basically, any site that has a large user-generated component is worried about SOPA. This is the document Wikipedia references when explaining why they are against the bill.

How can I get around the blackout? If you do a Google search for a Wikipedia page, you should be offered the option to use a “Google Cache” version of the page. This is a past version of the page Google has stored on its own servers.

Doesn’t the blackout hurt Wikipedia’s reputation as a neutral source of information? Possibly. On its page explaining the blackout, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner had these words: “In making this decision, Wikipedians will be criticized for seeming to abandon neutrality to take a political position. That’s a real, legitimate issue. We want people to trust Wikipedia, not worry that it is trying to propagandize them. But although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not.” Read more about Sue Gardner in a profile on the Canadian-born Wikipedia executive from FP magazine.

Why aren’t Google and Facebook blacking out like Wikipedia? Unlike Wikipedia, which is a not-for-profit, Google and Facebook have a huge number of shareholders to appease. Google will, however, be altering its home and search pages to alert people to the blackout day.

This all sounds pretty bad, why are so many people for it? The argument is best summed up by News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch as posted on Twitter: “Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying.”

@Rupert Murdoch
Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying.

Additionally, Robert Bennett, a senior research fellow at a technology think tank and whose work both SOPA and PIPA are based on, told the San Francisco Chronicle that “The critics either don’t understand what the bills do or are misrepresenting what the bills do.” Bennett further stated that the bills wouldn’t be as far-reaching or sweeping as critics state.

What does the White House have to say about this? The White House released a statement on the legislation coming out against it, a key point of which was the quote: “We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet.”

However, President Barack Obama has not specifically come out and said that he would veto the bill if it came across his desk.

It sounds like people could use this legislation to simply black out speech they don’t like. It isn’t that extreme. A complainant would still need to get a court order to shut the site down.

Still … wouldn’t that be unconstitutional? This is an argument that isn’t a new one. In fact, the Stanford Law Review posted an article in late December basically saying that the entire thing was unconstitutional. Regardless of if the legislation would be struck down in the Supreme Court (and that isn’t certain), it would likely take years to push it through the system.

Hasn’t the legislation been blocked already? Support for the bill has fallen through in the House and Senate, and Eric Cantor has stopped work on the bill in the House. While this effectively kills the current iteration of SOPA and PIPA, the bill is still being worked on by its proponents, who wrote a letter to the Senate majority leader asking to keep the bill going. You can read about how the bill is being reformed on the FP Tech Desk.

Daniel Kazor
dkazor@nationalpost.com

Welcome to the magical Kingdom of Soviet Canuckistan!

2012-01-16T22:12:00.001-08:00

Where:

Feudalism - You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

Communism - You have two cows. Your neighbours help take care of them and you share the milk.

Totalitarianism - You have two cows. The government takes them both and denies they ever existed and drafts you into the army. The milk is banned

Capitalism - You have two cows. You sell one and buy a a bull. Your herd multiplies and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

Venture Capitalism in Soviet Canuckistan - You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated limited partnership offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.

La blonde, le car, la weekend .....

2012-01-16T21:56:00.001-08:00

Our favourite? Le flic for police.

Canada's new Green Party?

2012-01-16T21:50:00.001-08:00

Meet the latest 'Helicopter Pete/Chopper Boy!'

2012-01-16T21:35:00.000-08:00

DND spends $374,000 to renovate offices of two top officials
By David Publiese
Sunday, January 15, 2012

Robert Fonberg, Deputy Minister of Defence approved a $374,000 renovation to his executive suite just three weeks after the Department circulated a business plan highlighting the need to save money and eliminate the jobs of at least 2,100 civilian public servants, according to documents obtained by the Citizen.

OTTAWA — The deputy minister of Defence approved a $374,000 renovation to his executive suite just three weeks after the department circulated a business plan highlighting the need to save money and eliminate the jobs of at least 2,100 civilian public servants, according to documents obtained by the Citizen.

Robert Fonberg approved in May 2011 a plan to accelerate the renovation of the executive suite at DND’s downtown headquarters and have the construction finished by the summer.

The renovations were to “ensure that my staff and I continue to provide the best possible service to your office,” Fonberg told Defence Minister Peter Mackay.

The briefing note detailing the renovations was obtained by the Citizen through the Access to Information law.

DND confirmed in an email that the renovations, which cost $374,496, are now finished. The offices are for Fonberg and Matthew King, the associate deputy minister, as well as their seven support staff. Also included is a boardroom with video-conferencing facilities.

“The area in question had not been renovated since 1992; since then, new requirements emerged that are appropriate for the offices of the senior civilian leadership at National Defence,” the Defence Department stated in an email.

It did not outline what those new requirements were. Aside from noting the boardroom and video conferencing facilities, DND did not provide specific details about what was done in the renovations. But it did point out that since high-level meetings take place in the boardroom, security measures were taken in the construction of that part of the renovations.

MacKay’s director of communications, Jay Paxton, said in an email: “The approval of these renovations rests with the Department of National Defence.” MacKay’s office had nothing further to add.

But Gregory Thomas of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said there is no justification for such an expense and he questioned why MacKay supported the renovations.

“There is no public support for this kind of lavish spending,” he said. “The fish rots from the head down. You can see ‘chopper boy’s’ fingerprints all over this.”

The ‘chopper boy’ reference is linked to the federation’s opposition to MacKay’s use of a search-and-rescue helicopter to transport him from a private fishing lodge. MacKay has defended that controversial flight, stating he was observing a search-and-rescue exercise. But military documents have raised questions about that claim.

MacKay had known about the renovation plan since November 2010, when work started on the project, according to the briefing note. It was put on hold during the federal election in the spring of 2011 and then reactivated in May of that year. Fonberg’s approval saw the work fast-tracked, with a start date for construction in June.

The briefing note to MacKay outlining approval for the renovations was sent three weeks after the DND/Canadian Forces 201 012 business plan was circulated to senior managers. That plan outlined the need to cut costs and reduce staff. It noted that 2,100 civilian positions would be cut over the next several years with more to follow.

The details of those cuts are expected to be announced in the upcoming federal budget.

“Accountability, transparency and sound governance are central to our strategic resource management approach,” stated the business plan.

But Thomas said the renovations are one more example of a culture of entitlement that is out of control at DND. “I can hardly wait for MacKay to stand up in the House (of Commons) and somehow wrap Afghanistan and the troops into his response to this,” he added. “I’m getting sick of his attitude and the way it’s cropping up in lavish spending like this.”

It has become common for government officials to respond to those criticizing defence spending by invoking support for the troops, and suggesting those who raise such questions are unpatriotic.

Thomas also questioned why DND had proceeded with the renovations when, in the next several years, the department will move to the former Nortel Campus at 3500 Carling Avenue.

But in its email, DND stated that, even after the move to Nortel, the department will still use space at its 101 Colonel By Drive headquarters and “as such, the renovations will serve taxpayers beyond the move to the Carling Campus.”

The email also noted DND worked to reduce the cost of the renovations. The original budget was $379,000, but DND was able to reduce that to $374,496 for a savings of $4,504.

Thomas said such savings do little to convince him of the value of the renovations, considering the future move to Nortel.

The federal government bought the Nortel campus for $208 million. But then the Defence Department quietly made plans to spend another $630 million on renovations for that site. DND tried to keep those renovation costs secret but the Citizen revealed them late last year.

DND is looking at moving into the site, starting some time in the next five years. It will transfer about 10,000 civilian and military personnel from other offices in Ottawa and Gatineau to the new site.

“They create the misleading impression that $208 million is the final price-tag and then we find out they’re going to blow another $630 million fixing it up,” said Thomas. “And then they spend $374,000 on offices for nine people. What’s going on at DND?

Digital coup or passing fad?

2012-01-16T20:15:00.001-08:00

First thing we do? Shoot all the arms length agencies!

2012-01-16T02:52:00.001-08:00

2012-01-16T02:38:00.001-08:00

Who you going to "whack" Monday night Mr. Television Tough Guy?

2012-01-15T19:35:00.000-08:00

Good Day Readers:

Our prediction? The 8th person from the left a former gang member who did four and a half years for possession of a restricted weapon. Why? In the first episode a week ago he contributed nothing other than to argue with Aaron (1st from left - former cocaine trafficker with an attitude who wants to start a truffle farm). We don't expect him to do anything to distinguish himself in the second go round this evening.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

Michelle, have you even bothered to read the book yet?

2012-01-15T09:58:00.000-08:00

Good Day Readers:

Author Jodi Kantor was a guest on CBC's Q the other day. She seemed a bit taken aback by Michelle Obama's reaction to her book in a recent interview with CBS (below) in which she suggested she had been portrayed as "an angry black woman" - again. Ms Kantor wondered aloud whether she had, in fact, read her work. Could Ms Obama possibly suffer from an advanced case of Angry Black Woman Syndrome or ABWS?

Sincerely
Clare L. Pieuk
__________________________________________________

By Connie Schultz

Sunday, January 8, 2012

On the evening of Jan. 12 last year, Michelle Obama sat in the front row of a packed memorial service and fixed her eyes on her husband as he took the stage.

THE OBAMAS

By Jodi Kantor

Illustrated. 359 pages. Little, Brown & Company. $29.99.

Michelle Obama and the Evolution of a First Lady (January 7, 2012)

The Obamas were at the University of Arizona in Tucson to honor the six people who were killed in shootings that had left Representative Gabrielle Giffords fighting for her life. Jodi Kantor describes Mrs. Obama’s reaction as the president spoke:

“She was following every word, nodding a little, her eyes flickering with his words.” When President Obama described Ms. Giffords opening her eyes for the first time, “Michelle closed her own eyes briefly, pantomiming her husband’s speech a little, showing the relief her husband was expressing. She did that sometimes, acting out the words he was saying during his speeches, as if she could give them some of her animation and help propel his message across.”

By the end of the speech, Ms. Kantor writes: “The expression on Michelle’s face was one of deep satisfaction. He had given the kind of speech she knew he could give. The look on her face said: this is the president I wanted you to be.”

Cue the groans. What kind of journalist presumes to know Michelle Obama’s mind?

In lesser hands “The Obamas” would be an act of astonishing overreach, but Ms. Kantor, who covered the Obamas for The New York Times during the 2008 presidential campaign, and is currently a Washington correspondent for the paper, has earned the voice of authority. A meticulous reporter, Ms. Kantor is attuned to the nuance of small gestures, the import of unspoken truths. She knows that every strong marriage, including the one now in the White House, has its complexities and its disappointments. Ms. Kantor also — and this is a key — has a high regard for women, which is why hers is the first book about the Obama presidency to give Michelle Obama her due. In the process we learn a great deal about the talented and introverted loner who married her, and how his wife has influenced him as a president.

“The Obamas” is full of gossipy tidbits that fuel a narrative about their marriage and how it has shaped the presidency. Public glimpses of their intimacy portray a genuine bond forged by an ambitious man and his equally driven wife. He can be arrogant and self-absorbed, but he strives for her approval. She is his champion and critic, and a fierce guardian of their mutual mission.

Ms. Kantor retires wooden stereotypes of the political wife as a prop or a problem and instead explores what it means to be a modern first lady, one with her own opinions and an expectation that she will be heard. The book offers concrete examples of how Mrs. Obama, even as she wrestled with self-doubt, bolstered her husband as only a wife can and kept him grounded in ways that had nothing to do with the tired story of her ordering him to pick up his dirty socks.

She helped him recalibrate when his public approval rating tanked, urging him to alter wonky speeches with personal stories that could close the distance between cool-headed him and a suffering public. She also was the driving force behind an eventual staff shake-up that led to the departure of senior advisers after Scott Brown won Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts. Mr. Brown’s victory cost the Democrats their supermajority, and Mrs. Obama was furious with the president, and his staff, whom she saw as insular and disorganized, and failing to prepare for the worst possible outcomes.

“She feels as if our rudder isn’t set right,” Mr. Obama told aides. Eventually he agreed.

“This was Michelle’s most profound influence on the Obama presidency,” Ms. Kantor writes, “the sense of purpose she shared with her husband, the force of her worldview, her passionate beliefs about access, opportunity, and fairness; her readiness to do what was unpopular and pay political costs. Every day, he met with advisers who emphasized the practical realities of Washington, who reminded him of poll numbers; he spent his nights with Michelle, who talked about moral imperatives, aides said, who reminded him again and again that they were there to do good, to avoid being distracted by political noise, to be bold.”

Sometimes they were too much alike. They shared a disdain for Congress, which crippled Mr. Obama’s ability to broker deals. They clung to old friendships, which further isolated them in a town they already distrusted. They also shared a relentless belief that the president was misunderstood and underappreciated by the people he serves. As the wife of a United States senator, I know this to be a common and all-too-toxic affliction in political families. No good comes of it.

In the immediate days after the 2008 election neither the press nor the president-elect’s staff knew that Mrs. Obama was so apprehensive about moving to Washington that she considered staying behind in Chicago until her daughters finished the school year. When Mr. Obama was elected to the Senate in 2004, Mrs. Obama refused to move her family to the capital to join him. She had little faith in politics as a way to improve lives, and she wanted to insulate her young children from the surreal world of Washington.
I first learned of this in 2006, when Senator Obama was in Ohio campaigning in the Senate race of my husband, Sherrod Brown. When Mr. Obama heard that I too had refused to move to Washington, he sought me out backstage. “You’ve got to meet my wife,” he said, smiling. “She feels about Washington the way you do.” In 2008 I met Mrs. Obama twice and interviewed her once by phone. I have not spoken to her since the 2008 election.

In 2007, after initial reluctance, she gave Mr. Obama her blessing to run for president. The ensuing campaign reinforced her misgivings about political life. She felt stung by negative coverage of her and ill-served at times by an unsupportive staff. She changed her mind about staying in Chicago after Mr. Obama made it clear he needed her, and the girls. Thus began the public transformation of Michelle Obama.

Mrs. Obama struggled with her changed role — in the world at large but also in her family. It was impossible to take her girls to school, or sometimes even attend their soccer matches, without embarrassing them with the accompanying ruckus. She also felt new limitations in her marriage — imposed, not by the president, but by his presidency. An accomplished professional, smart and wickedly funny, she was used to being Mr. Obama’s partner. Now his day was scheduled in five-minute increments, and she was abruptly recast as his helpmate.

She resisted the ceremonial duties expected of first ladies. She loathed the stuffy annual lunches with Congressional spouses, agreeing to attend one only if they joined her the day before to volunteer at a Washington-area food bank. Her good intentions were derailed by media coverage that focused on the $515 sneakers she wore to load groceries.

Clothing had become her “compensatory pleasure” for dutifully enduring the public demands of her husband’s political career, Ms. Kantor writes. “If I have to go, I’m getting a new dress out of it,” she told neighbours.

Now perhaps the most prominent black woman in America, she felt pressure to counter negative stereotypes by telegraphing images of elegance and self-confidence. Instead, she became America’s first fashionista during tough economic times for the country.

Her new image set off repeated bouts of apoplexy among some White House staff members, who weighed in on her choices, albeit indirectly, creating a climate of tension. Ms. Kantor describes a blowup in August 2010 between the White House press secretary at the time, Robert Gibbs, and the Obamas’ close friend and adviser, Valerie Jarrett, in which he screamed an expletive at her. In a condescending tone Ms. Jarrett said, “The first lady would not believe you’re speaking this way.” His response was to curse the first lady too.

Over time the Obamas grew into their new jobs. In the process, Ms. Kantor writes, they have traded roles: “She had entered with her expectations low and then exceeded them; he had entered on top of the world, and had been descending to earth ever since.”

Perhaps they have reached an agreement that, for now, Washington is their town too.

Connie Schultz, a syndicated columnist, is the author of “ ... and His Lovely Wife: A Memoir From the Woman Beside the Man”

Another shaken caged rats show?

2012-01-13T19:44:00.000-08:00

Good Day Readers:

Caught the debut Monday evening of Redemption Inc. CBC's new reality series starring Kevin "Television Tough Man" O'Leary and 10 former convicts. Patterned somewhat after Donald Trump's The Apprentice we were expecting another "shaken caged rats show" where diverse individuals are forced to worked together and viewers wait for the sparks to fly. While it had many of these qualities we were pleasantly surprised.

Loved the scene where Brian (armed robbery - 9th from left) scrapped a sleek, black $100,000 Mercedes 55SL backing it out of the garage of the high-end suto spa/detailing business the group had taken over to run for the day. Then there was Alia (former crack dealer - 5th from left) who at one point leaned into the camera to say, "Kevin is a lot like me a bit of a dick but a softie. He can't bulls..t us."

Here's were the show had a really nice touch. Nicole (third from left) was deemed the weakest link. However, she was offered a package she should accept or turn down to stay in the competition but if she did and was eventually eliminated it would not be re-offered. It included:

An electric bicycle for transportation = $1,000

A course in entrepreneurship (Centennial Collage) = $2,500

Money for a new business wardrobe = $1,500

One year mentorship program (Carla Wood - executive/entrepreneurial strategist coach) = value unknown

Total estimated value = approximately $10,000

The next episode is Monday, January 16, 2012 at 9:00 p.m.

Our rating: 4 1/2 stars out of a possible 5. The 1/2 was lost for trying to create the impression he has a corporate jet after frequently telling Amanda Lang on The Lang & O'Leary Exchange he flies commercial. Just like he attempted to con her on a recent show that there's an "Earthquake Foundation" while debating fracking. She responded she didn't fracking believe him.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

You can watch the entire first episode at www.cbc.ca/redemption.

"But my little Italian darling are you still a 100% virgin?"

2012-01-13T14:36:00.001-08:00

Good Day Readers:

Interesting interview this morning on CBC Radio's Q. In many ways olive oil is like wine in that the more information displayed on the label the better the quality. In the case of the former, the date, varietal and location where the olives were harvested, processed and bottled is of particular importance. The moment olives are picked they begin to degrade albeit every so slowly.

Mr. Mueller also offered the interesting observation that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency does a somewhat better job watching for fraudulent product than its American counterpart the Food and Drug Administration.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
__________________________________________________

Olive Oil's Growers, Chemists, Cooks and Crooks
By Garner
Wednesday, December 7, 2011

A few pages into Tom Mueller’s new book, “Extra Virginity,” there’s a funny moment when an olive oil expert holds up a bottle that’s covered with dubious claims: “100 percent Italian,” “cold-pressed,” “extra virgin.” The man shakes his head and says, perhaps with a hint of Don Rickles in his voice, “Extra virgin? What’s this oil got to do with virginity? This is a whore.”

EXTRA VIRGINITY - The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil

By Tom Mueller

Illustrated. 238 pages. W. W. Norton & Company. $25.95.

These are sentences to savour. They underscore this book’s project, which is to demonstrate the brazen fraud in the olive oil industry and to teach readers how to sniff out the good stuff. These are also, sad to say, among this book’s few digestible lines. Earnest and sentimental from start to last, “Extra Virginity” doesn’t have a shrewd or slutty bone in its body. It’s an unintentional master class in how to say waxy and embalming things about fresh food.

Mr. Mueller is an American writer who lives in Italy. And not just anywhere in Italy but, his dust flap reveals, in a description that’s the prose equivalent of Corinthian leather upholstery, “in a medieval stone farmhouse surrounded by olive groves in the Ligurian countryside outside of Genoa.”

“Extra Virginity” grew out of a cogent article titled “Slippery Business” that Mr. Mueller wrote about olive oil in 2007 for The New Yorker, and his book is filled with information mindful eaters will wish to have. In this regard “Extra Virginity” is another reminder of why subpar nonfiction is so much better than subpar fiction.

With nonfiction at least you can learn something.

The news Mr. Mueller brings about extra virgin olive oil — E.V.O.O., as Rachael Ray likes to put it — is alarming. The liquid that gets passed off as such in supermarkets and restaurants is often anything but. Shady dealers along the supply chain frequently adulterate olive oil with low-grade vegetable oils and add artificial colouring.

Mr. Mueller cites an Italian producer who suggests that 50 percent of the olive oil sold in America is, to some degree, fraudulent. The Food and Drug Administration considers this adulteration a low priority. Grody olive oil is not killing anyone. We’re talking about a first-world problem here. Caveat emptor.

“Extra Virginity” suggests consumers put a priority on purchasing fresh olive oil, and taste before they buy. The good stuff is peppery and alive and, sipped neat, can make you cough. In the same way that many Americans have never tasted real maple syrup, not believing Aunt Jemima would do them wrong, many have no idea olive oil can be anything but a urine-coloured and musty butter substitute.

Mr. Mueller spends time with olive growers, with chemists, with cooks and with crooks. His history lessons are never less than interesting. He explains how olive oil was a driving force of life in the Mediterranean, a source of wealth and power. “A jug of olive oil on the dinner table,” he writes, “marked the triumph of Roman cuisine over barbarian beer and lard.”

The Greeks anointed their athletes with olive oil, which could be rather sexy. Mr. Mueller quotes Tom Scanlon, a classics professor at the University of California, Riverside, who says: “The oil on a gleaming, tanned, healthy body was a literally ‘flashy’ adornment. Oil heightened the body’s erotic charge, and encouraged male same-sex desire and pederasty, first in Sparta, then throughout the Greek world.”

Thomas Jefferson was among the first Americans to champion olive oil. He saw to it, Mr. Mueller writes, “that an olive branch, heavy with fruit, was placed in the talons of the eagle on the Great Seal of the United States.” Mario Puzo, in “The Godfather,” modeled Vito Corleone after a criminal olive oil boss named Joseph Profaci. Puzo even gave Corleone his own olive oil business, Genco Pura, as a front company.

For all its provocative bits Mr. Mueller’s book feels unctuous — oil coated — right from the start. It is packed with so many heroic artisans and sentimental peasants that it feels like a dinner theater production of “Fiddler on the Roof” or a canvas by Thomas Kinkade, the “painter of light.”

One man here has a “hint of wonder in his voice.” Another “laughed, high-pitched and merrily.” A woman has “almond-shaped eyes that seem to look straight into your soul.” This same woman has “a twinkle in her eye.” Throughout, it is as if we are reading about elves.

Olive oil brings out Mr. Mueller’s inner Windham Hill pianist. Olive oil reveals, he suggests, people’s “secret passions and dreams.” He speaks of its “sacred and mythic dimensions.” He writes about one producer: “Alissa Mattei is another person olive oil has touched, bringing out her inner contradictions.”

Mr. Mueller uses the words “wondrous” and “wondrously” in back-to-back sentences. A misdemeanor, but a telling one. When he inhales the scent of fresh oil, he reports that he has “aromas and aromatics dancing like angels in my nose.”

There’s a second funny moment in “Extra Virginity” when a Swiss agronomist explains, succinctly, what great olive oil will make a person do. It will make you, he says, “get down on your knees” like a Baptist preacher and shout out a word that’s not printable in a family newspaper.

That hollered obscenity reminds you that where there’s a flask of olive oil, you also pray to find some vinegar.

Piano jokes!

2012-01-13T10:41:00.001-08:00

Good Day Readers:

While listening to a CBC Radio program (Living out loud - The Piano Show) hosted by Chris Howden (www.cbc.ca/livingoutloud) this afternoon found these jokes in a segment about the life of a piano tuner.

What do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft? A flat miner.
What do you get when you drop a piano on a military base? A flat major.

Then there was this - seriously!

Laia Martin is a pianist studying at the Consevatoire in Barcelona. She is 26 and by all accounts gifted but her ex-neighhbours are taking her to court for 'psychological damage' caused by her playing. Their lawyer is asking for a seven and a half year jail sentence. According to plaintiffs, she practiced incessantly 8 hours a day five days a week from 9-6 with an hour break. They called the parents accomplices and compared her music to the noise from a disco or an airport.

Had enough yet?

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

Postscript
Seriously, some excellent radio programming. Currently the site has a couple iPods posted both very good especially, The voices of Vern Nash. A young Toronto filmaker discovers his neighbour was once a jazz pianist in Montreal, a talented but troubled man with music in his soul but demons in his head. The transformation in the man when he sat down to play the piano was unreal.

The marimba ring tone heard around the world!

2012-01-13T09:58:00.001-08:00

Ringing Finally Ended, but There's No Button to Stop Shame
Daniel Wakin
Thursday, January 12, 2011

Alan Gilbert accepted an audience member's apology on Thursday

The unmistakably jarring sound of an iPhone marimba ring interrupted the soft and spiritual final measures of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 at the New York Philharmonic on Tuesday night. The conductor, Alan Gilbert, did something almost unheard-of in a concert hall: He stopped the performance. But the ringing kept on going, prompting increasingly angry shouts in the audience directed at the malefactor.

After words from Mr. Gilbert, and what seemed like weeks, the cellphone owner finally silenced his device. After the audience cheered, the concert resumed. Internet vitriol ensued.

But no one, it seems, felt worse than the culprit, who agreed to an interview on Thursday on condition that he not be identified — for obvious reasons.

“You can imagine how devastating it is to know you had a hand in that,” said the man, who described himself as a business executive between 60 and 70 who runs two companies. “It’s horrible, horrible.” The man said he had not slept in two days.

The man, called Patron X by the Philharmonic, said he was a lifelong classical music lover and 20-year subscriber to the orchestra who was friendly with several of its members. He said he himself was often irked by coughs, badly timed applause — and cellphone rings. “Then God, there was I. Holy smokes,” he said.
“It was just awful to have any role in something like that, that is so disturbing and disrespectful not only to the conductor but to all the musicians and not least to the audience, which was so into this concert,” he said by telephone.

“I hope the people at that performance and members of the orchestra can certainly forgive me for this whole event. I apologize to the whole audience.”

Patron X said he received a call from an orchestra official the day after the concert. He had been identified by his front-row seat. The official politely asked him not to do it again, he said, and the man took the opportunity to ask to speak to Mr. Gilbert, to apologize in person.

The men talked by telephone (it was a land line) on Thursday afternoon. Mr. Gilbert said he told Patron X, “I’m really sorry you had to go through this,” and accepted his apology.

Before that, the disruption became the marimba ring tone heard round the world, prompting feverish commentary on blogs and comment forums about performance interruptions.

In a Twitter message, the composer Daniel Dorff said, “Changed my ringtone to play #Mahler 9 just in case.” A YouTube poster superimposed a marimba sound over a performance of the piece by Leonard Bernstein.

The episode seemed to serve as an extreme example of how one of the staples of modern life can disrupt a live performance, because of both Mr. Gilbert’s reaction and the guilty party’s long delay in shutting off the cellphone.

Actually, Patron X said he had no idea he was the culprit. He said his company replaced his BlackBerry with an iPhone the day before the concert. He said he made sure to turn it off before the concert, not realizing that the alarm clock had accidentally been set and would sound even if the phone was in silent mode.
“I didn’t even know phones came with alarms,” the man said.

But as Mr. Gilbert was glaring in his direction, he fiddled with the phone as others around him did, just to be sure, pressing buttons. That was when the sound stopped. It was only in the car going home that his wife checked the settings on his phone and found that the alarm had been set.

Cellphones often go off during all sorts of performances, but the Mahler incident was a rarity: It happened during one of music’s most sublime moments, it did not stop after a few seconds, and it emanated from the front row, where it was impossible for Mr. Gilbert to ignore.

The Philharmonic said the ushers at Avery Fisher Hall — who work for Lincoln Center, not the orchestra — should have intervened. Lincoln Center said it was investigating.

Both Mr. Gilbert and Patron X found something positive in the episode.

“It shows how important people still feel live performance is,” Mr. Gilbert said. “This is something people either consciously or implicitly recognize as sacred.”

The patron agreed. The incident underscored “the very enduring and important bond between the audience and the performers,” he said, adding, “If it’s disturbed in any significant way, it just shows how precious this whole union is.
”

James Barron contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: January 12, 2012

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of the composer who sent a Twitter message about the cellphone interruption. He is Daniel Dorff, not Dorf.

Mr. Cherry, you're another one who needs to shut his face - stick to hockey fighting! "Cough, cough, sneeze, sneeze, wheeze, wheeze ....."

2012-01-13T08:38:00.001-08:00

Cold-FX?
Lots of people swear by it, as evidenced by its status as Canada's top-selling cold remedy. But does COLD-FX really do what the company claims?Marketplace puts it to the test, and discovers that there may be more clever marketing than proven science at the heart of their success. Host Erica Johnson also reveals where the processing of this "Proudly Canadian" product takes place, and speaks with company insiders who reveal a dirty secret. Also, what does Don Cherry have to say?

Friday, January 13, (Yikes!) 2012 at 8:00 p.m.

Burgernomics 101!

2012-01-13T07:37:00.000-08:00

Good Day Readers:

Perhaps if Finance Minister Jim Flaherty explained the Canadian economy to us using burgernomics we'd better understand what he's talking about. Maybe he should also use it when appearing before the G20.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
________________________________________________________

Daily chart

The Big Mac index - Burgeronomics shows Switzerland has the most overvalued currency

Thursday, Jan 12, 2012 From The Economist online

THE ECONOMIST's Big Mac index is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity: in the long run, exchange rates should adjust to equal the price of a basket of goods and services in different countries. This particular basket holds a McDonald's Big Mac, whose price around the world we compared with its American average of $4.20. According to burgernomics the Swiss franc is a meaty 62% overvalued. The exchange rate that would equalise the price of a Swiss Big Mac with an American one is SFr1.55 to the dollar; the actual exchange rate is only 0.96. The cheapest burger is found in India, costing just $1.62. Though because Big Macs are not sold in India, we take the price of a Maharaja Mac, which is made with chicken instead of beef. Nonetheless, our index suggests the rupee is 60% undercooked. The euro, which recently fell to a 16-month low against the dollar, is now trading at less than €1.30 to the greenback. The last time we served up our index in July 2011, the euro was 21% overvalued against the dollar, but it is now just 6% overvalued. Other European currencies have also weakened against the dollar since our previous index, notably the Hungarian forint and Czech koruna, which have fallen by 23% and 16% respectively. Six months ago both currencies were close to fair value, but they are now undervalued by 37% and 18%.

2012-01-13T07:14:00.000-08:00

"When Stephen came to town or when Michael Igantieff came to town or ....."

2012-01-12T19:54:00.001-08:00

Good Day Readers:

Ever noticed American presidential election campaigns are a lot more interesting then ours which by comparison are b-o-r-i-n-g. Recall anything like this last May?

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

On "When Mitt Romney Came To Town"
By Kelefa Sanneh
Thursday, January 12, 2012

A year ago, few pundits would have predicted that the race for the Republican nomination would be so predictable. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the longtime favorite, is still the favorite, having handily won the New Hampshire primary, just as he was supposed to. The professional expecters who expected the unexpected have seen their expectations dashed.

But while the results, so far, seem pretty normal, the process has been more than a little weird. For instance, no one can be surprised that there exists a polemical half-hour documentary, “When Mitt Romney Came to Town,” that chronicles the allegedly predatory practices of Bain Capital, the private-equity firm Romney co-founded. In the video, a solemn narrator makes accusations of corporate iniquity: “Romney and Bain’s cash rampage would ultimately slash jobs in nearly every state in the country.” There are also some rather moving (though, it must be said, not quite dispositive) interviews with people who say they lost jobs after their employers came under the control of Bain Capital. As a whole, the documentary isn’t much different, in tone or content, from an earlier anti-Romney video—that one a relic from the 1994 Senate race when Ted Kennedy, the incumbent, defeated Romney.

And yet “WMRCTT” (as future film historians will surely call it) doesn’t seem to be the product of an over-eager Democratic National Committee—at least, not unless its chair, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is playing an exceptionally devious prank. Neither the film nor the Web site credits a director, but the documentary’s shy auteur seems to be Jason Killian Meath, who has previously worked with the Stevens & Schriefer Group, a consulting firm that worked on Romney’s 2008 Presidential campaign. Its slightly less shy producer is Barry Bennett, a supporter of Texas Governor Rick Perry, who says he is only trying to help: “I wanted people to see what the Democrats are going to do [to] this guy.”

And, like so many acclaimed documentaries, this one has secured distribution from Winning Our Future, an “independent expenditure-only committee” that is backing the Presidential campaign of Newt Gingrich.

Among many other things, “WMRCTT” is a sophisticated treatise on the permeable nature of film—that is, the complicated relationship between what’s onscreen and what’s offscreen. And so, while the narrator explains how “Romney’s Bain Capital” transformed “the misfortunes of others into their own enormous financial gains,” viewers can consider how they might interpret this message if it came, instead, from an ally of Occupy Wall Street, rather than an ally of a candidate who calls himself “an ardent supporter of capitalism and the free market.”

For his part, Romney seems surprised that one of his rivals has chosen this line of attack—and, symmetrically, he has adopted an equally surprising defense. During an interview on “CBS This Morning,” Charlie Rose asked Romney about the idea that he was “a destructive force, in terms of companies” during his tenure at Bain Capital. Romney answered by comparing himself to President Obama. “The President took the reins of General Motors and Chrysler—closed factories, closed dealerships, laid off thousands and thousands of workers,” Romney said. “He did it to try and save the business.”

Not everyone found this convincing. Rush Limbaugh said, “You just don’t, if you are the leader in the race for the Republican nomination, you don’t come out and give tacit approval to the government takeover of General Motors and Chrysler, and then compound that by saying, ‘Hey, what I did’s no different!’ ” But surely Romney was merely preparing himself for the next round of attack ads and counter-ads. If he wins the nomination, and the Obama campaign defends its intervention in the automobile industry by citing Romney, then Romney can cite “W.M.R.C.T.T.” to remind the nation how painful layoffs can be, cleverly forcing President Obama to mount a full-throated defense of capitalism and the creative destruction it wreaks. It’s all so predictable!

Screen shot from “When Mitt Romney Came to Town.”

Junk law?

2012-01-12T19:30:00.001-08:00

The storm trooper versus the modernizer!

2012-01-12T10:41:00.001-08:00

Good Day Readers:

We prefer to think of Sheila "Just quiet down baby!" Copps as yesterday's woman. Remind us again, did Bob Rae say at the start he'd only serve as Liberal leader in the interim?

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
__________________________________________________

Crawley could fundamentally modernize' Liberal Party. Copps seen as 'storm trooper'

Liberals are at a crossroads. This weekend's bicennial convention is seen as an important first step to rebuilding the party.

In the race Cabinet Minister Sheila Copps, left, and Mike Crawley are running for Liberal Party president at the weekend's biennial convention.

By Bea Vongdouangchanh
Monday, January 9, 2012

More Related To This Story
Who supports whom for Liberal Party President

They’ve been taken to the woodshed, but federal Liberals say their party is not dead and the upcoming biennial convention in Ottawa is an opportunity to rebuild Canada’s once so-called “natural governing party,” however, some are also “skeptical” about the meeting’s significance in turning the battered Grits’ fortunes around and say it could reopen old wounds.

“I think some people think that Liberals are kind of in sackcloths and ashes and mourning these days, whereas at events that I’ve been going to in recent weeks, there isn’t any of that. There was some of that over really good people who lost their seats and all that but … I think the mood in Ottawa will be pretty positive about rebuilding, not taking anything for granted,” said Ontario Liberal Senator David Smith, who also serves as the party’s campaign co-chair. “We’re around for the long haul, there’s no doubt about that. I’m cautiously optimistic.”

Other Liberals contacted last week agreed. Earnscliffe Strategy Group principal Marlene Floyd said the convention, taking place from January13 to 15 at the Ottawa Convention Centre, is “one of the most important” the party’s had in recent history.

“The excitement, you can really feel it out there about the party, that we’re still here and I think that’s the real message that people want to take away from this. It’s that the Liberal Party, we’ve licked our wounds, we’re coming back, we’re organizing, and we’re putting forth amendments to the Constitution and policy that is different, that isn’t the same as it was before, that we’re trying to move forward but realizing that change is needed,” she told The Hill Times. “So next weekend is going to be a big weekend.”

Warren Kinsella, a Liberal pundit, was less optimistic about the outcome of the convention, however. “I think a lot of people hope it’ll help renew the party, but I’m skeptical as to whether that’ll happen. I’ve been hearing about renewal in the LPC since I was in diapers, but I wish them luck,” he told The Hill Times in an email last week.

Dan Donovan, publisher of Ottawa Life Magazine who ran former Liberal MP Dennis Mills’ election campaigns, was also cautious about Liberals’ mood. “What’s the mood? I think it’s uneasy. I think there’s a wait-and-see attitude,” he said, noting that the Liberal Party’s biggest problem is voters’ lack of trust in them. “I think people want renewal but they want real renewal. I think they want someone to advance the debate of the centre that does not exist right now.”

One of the convention’s major events will be the election of party officers, including the party president. There are five candidates in the running to replace current president Alfred Apps, including Sheila Copps, a former Cabinet minister and deputy prime minister; Mike Crawley, a former president of the Ontario wing of the party and businessman; Alexandra Mendes, a former Liberal MP who lost her seat in the last election campaign; Ron Hartling, the Kingston and the Islands, Ontario riding president; and Charles Ward, a retired VP of Air France Cargo and former Lac Saint Louis, Quebec riding association president. All are running on a campaign platform of renewal and rebuilding.

With the Liberals going from three straight majority governments in the 1990s to the third party in the House of Commons after the May 2 election, members said the president’s election will be crucial in how the party moves forward which is why the race is garnering significant media attention.

“People feel very strongly that it is important and at some point, the fact that they’re willing to put skin in the game is impressive. It’s very impressive,” said a Liberal lobbyist who did not want to be identified. “At this particular juncture, there’s going to be a leadership process that’s ill-defined, I think fundraising is a huge challenge, … growing the party, there’s all kinds of challenges and the president’s got to put in a team that can do it. The buck stops at the president.”

Mr. Donovan agreed, saying establishing the rules around the leadership selection process is one of the most important jobs for the new president.

Page 2 of 3

“Having the right person in that operations role that’s going to be the referee in many ways for that leadership is critical,” he said, adding that leadership contests are a key to renewing the party. “The leadership contests bring in new young ideas and people into the party and that’s what the Liberal Party is lacking, a new generation of young people getting involved. If you do not have a very robust leadership that has at least six or eight candidates that allows them to sign up new members and bring in young people from universities and colleges around the country to get involved to renew that, if it’s one of these preset prearranged conventions, the Liberal Party will die on the vine.”

Ms. Copps, who many say represents the “old guard” because of her more than almost 20 years in politics, and Mr. Crawley, who many say represents the fresh face needed in the party, are the two frontrunners.

Former caucus and Cabinet colleague Don Boudria, now a lobbyist with Hill and Knowlton, said that it’s no surprise that he’s supporting Ms. Copps in the race, but told The Hill Times that her experience should be celebrated, not vilified.

Mr. Donovan agreed, saying that she was a “storm trooper” and has been down in the trenches for the Liberals, which is what the party needs. “The people saying she’s old school, that’s a narrative being put forward by the left, by the socialists in the party, the people who would be talking about mergers and stuff, that’s to discredit her. But she has to run on her record to a degree.”

Mr. Donovan said he’s not supporting anyone for the presidency, but predicted that Ms. Copps would most likely win.

But younger Liberals, such as Ms. Floyd, and former MP Navdeep Bains who lost his seat in the last election, are supporting Mr. Crawley. They said he has a “bold vision” for the party and he’s “very supportive of change” and most importantly, he’s new.

“I think Mike is the ideal candidate to fundamentally modernize the party and to engage the membership and because of his business and party experience, I think he’s the best one running so that’s why I’m supporting him,” Mr. Bains, who’s now teaching at the University of Waterloo, said last week. “But overall I think it’s a good signal for the party to see so many people involved, to see a contested race. I think it speaks to the point of politics, it’s open, anyone who has ideas, anyone who wants to be creative is welcome.”

Mr. Kinsella, who also said he’s not involved with the federal Liberal Party anymore and is not supporting anyone, said that the race for president “has become a proxy for old feuds” between Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin camps.

“Crawley is the unilingual Turner-Martin guy, and Copps is the multilingual Trudeau-Chrétien person. That’s why it’s attracting a lot of attention, at least among Liberals,” said Mr. Kinsella, a former adviser to Mr. Chrétien and a former Cabinet ministerial staffer. “If Crawley wins, it’ll signal a return of many of the folks who consigned us to opposition status in the first place. But don’t take that to mean I support Copps holus-bolus: her statements about Rae and the leadership have done her a lot of damage, and she was wrong to say what she said. If she loses, it’ll be because of that.”

Both Ms. Copps, who ran for leader in 2004 against Mr. Martin, and Mr. Crawley have said that the party membership should decide if Bob Rae (Toronto Centre, Ontario), who took on the interim leader’s job last May on the understanding that he would not run for the permanent job, is allowed to run for leader next year.

Mr. Kinsella said he doesn’t know who will win the presidency, but he said he hopes the person will imitate Conservative Party presidents. Whoever wins needs to “raise money and shut up. That’s your job. Leave the microphones to the elected people.”

Meanwhile, award-winning author Peter C. Newman, author of the recently-released When The Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada, told The Hill Times that the Liberals no longer have a “power base” and that the party has nothing to offer the electorate.

Page 3 of 3

But Liberals last week emphasized that their party still occupies the centre, a contrast from the “far right” of the Conservatives and the “far left” of the NDP. Nobody can tell me that he's [Prime Minister Harper] occupying the centre. He is not. He is further occupying the right. It was less evident when they were in a minority situation, but now that they're in a majority situation, I think their true colours are showing, and the centre is vacant, and it's ours. It's Liberal land. That is our home base, very much so," Mr. Boudria said.

Other Liberals also called the centre Liberal territory, and Sen. Smith said the Liberals are still popular in urban centres, as evidenced by where they maintained seats in the last election—Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and eastern Canada.
“Peter’s 82, I hope he lives long enough to find out that he was wrong,” Sen. Smith told The Hill Times. “It is fair to say that parts of Western Canada are challenging for us, but we certainly have a very strong urban base. … We’ve always sort of been in the middle. We are very much a small l liberal social progressive party.”
But the lobbyist who did not want to be identified said that no party has a lock on a “home base” anymore and that Canadians are less likely to “automatically” identify with a certain party because of their socioeconomic background, ethnicity, or parents’ affiliation.
“I think if you layer on top of the social impacts of technology, the empowering characteristics of some of these technologies, I think people are less like sheep than they used to be. This notion that you can count on a default constituency is a very lazy approach,” the lobbyist said. “I think this is something that every party has to get a handle on. You’ve got to make the sale every day. You can’t count on converting someone and keeping them. Every party has to smarten up that way.”
When it comes to having something to offer, Mr. Donovan said Liberals are still putting forward ideas, public policy, and talking about issues that other parties, especially the governing Conservatives, are not. For example, he said, moving forward on universal health care, aboriginal issues and the environment.
Mr. Bains agreed. “I think we’ll see at this convention that we still have a lot to offer,” he said. “We obviously have a proud past, but you can’t rely on that alone. You have to earn it and I think we’re willing to. There’s a cultural shift in the party. There’s an understanding now that we have to be innovative, we have to think outside the box, we have to be creative we have to engage people, we have to find unique solutions and I think that is very important because that will drive the ideas based on core Liberal values and core principles that will ultimately help us, not only help us fundamentally, but it’s good for Canadian politics as well.”
Although registration closes on Jan. 14, there are apparently more than 1,000 delegates attending the convention. The number of people showing interest in it shows the party is still relevant, Mr. Boudria said.
“It’s not dead, it’s not moribund, it’s not anything like that. It’s very much alive. It has a dynamic team,” he said. “We’re alive and kicking, and we’re not done kicking.”

bvongdou@hilltimes.com

Beware the taxman cometh ..... again and again and again ...

2012-01-12T10:38:00.000-08:00

New era taxman gets tougher
By Michael Benedict
January 13, 2012 issue

Hammered by the recent global recession and continuing economic struggles, governments around the world are seeking to boost income through more aggressive pursuit of tax revenues. And the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is taking as hard a line as any.

“Be prepared,” warns Calgary tax lawyer David Robertson, a partner at Couzin Taylor LLP. “The CRA has just launched a new information gathering campaign that will help them target who to audit. When they come with their questions about your corporate tax policy practices — and they will come — you had better be ready.”

Couzin Taylor is allied with global accounting giant Ernst and Young, which recently published its annual Tax Risk and Controversy Survey that found tax authorities worldwide are “demanding more disclosure from taxpayers, strengthening or creating economic substance doctrines and imposing criminal sanctions where they believe willful tax evasion has occurred.”

Concludes the survey of more than 500 executives and tax administrators in 18 geographic markets: “A new era has begun.”

About three-quarters of the 541 executives said tax audits have become more aggressive and essentially the same percentage (77 per cent) said that managing tax risk will become more vital in the immediate future. For companies with annual revenue of more than US$5-billion, the share of concerned executives jumps to 88 per cent.

Robertson says he’s not surprised by the findings since CRA and other tax authorities are stepping up efforts to “follow the money.” He adds: “Over the past decade, CRA has shifted resources from domestic operations to multinationals. That’s because the multinationals have more opportunity to allocate income among their various operations.”

One of the country’s leading tax authorities, Vern Krishna, also sees a new CRA emphasis on monitoring international “transfer pricing” for possible improper hiding of taxable profits. “CRA will likely step up its offshore monitoring further as globalization continues to accelerate,” says Krishna, who teaches tax law at the University of Ottawa law school and is tax counsel to Borden Ladner Gervais LLP.

To help CRA keep an eye on offshore activities, the Canadian government has in recent years negotiated about 15 new bilateral tax treaties or tax information exchange agreements. Explains Krishna: “Information is the key. Canada now can require nearly 100 countries to disclose financial information, even if the individual or company has not committed a crime.”

These treaties and agreements also help CRA monitor offshore accounts held by Canadian individuals or companies. “Every respectable, stable and secure tax haven is covered,” Krishna says. “And no one would want to put their money in those jurisdictions that are not covered.”

Krishna sees a stiffer CRA backbone in other areas, as well. “There’s been enhanced domestic enforcement and greater scrutiny of charities,” he says. “And once CRA takes a position these days, they have become more dogmatic and more prepared to go to court.”

CRA is also increasingly using the Income Tax Act’s General Anti-Avoidance Rule to reap more tax revenues.

“It’s a big stick,” says Krishna, “and CRA is wielding it more often.”

The problem with the tax avoidance rule is that “it’s vague,” he says. “Where a taxpayer engages in a transaction that is primarily tax-motivated, the benefits can be denied if the transaction is considered to be ‘abusive’ of the Tax Act or related treaty. That means that even if a tax structure is technically correct, CRA can strike it down.”

Krishna, along with other tax lawyers and the accounting community, are awaiting possible clarification from the Supreme Court of Canada on the degree of CRA powers in applying the tax avoidance rule. The case, Copthorne Holdings Ltd. versus Canada, argued before the high court in January, 2011, involves a number of Canadian transactions by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing in the late 1980s.

What’s a taxpayer, especially a corporate taxpayer, to do? “As I tell my students, ‘Every transaction that involves an exchange of goods, services or intellectual property, domestic or international, has potential tax consequences.’ Watch out for them,” Krishna says.

And lawyers? “All lawyers have to be sensitive to tax implications,” he says. “Whether they are family, real estate or commercial, they have to be sensitive to tax consequences.

They have to think about them by themselves or go to someone else to think about them. If no one is thinking about them, you have a time bomb.”

It’s that time bomb that worries Robertson when it comes to in-house counsel. “If these lawyers were in a firm and a client had a tax issue,” he says, “they would turn to the firm’s tax lawyers. But in-house counsel tend to refer such matters to the company’s tax director, and CRA is saying that’s no longer good enough.”

The CRA’s new tax governance and tax-risk management initiative is targeting senior executives to establish accountability. The questionnaires being sent to large companies ask whether they have tax governance programs, what are their policies and procedures, and who is responsible for oversight to ensure they are carried out.

“If they don’t like your answers,” Robertson says, “you are likely to become an audit target.”

He adds: “Corporate counsel cannot ignore this new initiative. They need to ensure that the company’s tax governance and tax-risk management policies are in place when the questionnaire arrives. And they have to ensure that the CFO, president and the audit committee are aware of what CRA is doing — CRA wants to meet with these people when they come in.”

For his part, Hamilton tax lawyer John Loukidelis sees different examples of CRA’s get-tough approach, reflecting his client base of mostly sole proprietors and small businesses. Loukidelis, a partner at SimpsonWigle Law LLP, is concerned about CRA’s recent high net-worth review that includes a questionnaire aimed in part at uncovering offshore holdings that may not be in tax compliance. “The questions are very detailed and highly intrusive,” he says.

CRA, Loukidelis adds, is also watching trusts more closely. Again, there is a lengthy questionnaire to fill out. “If you are going to have a trust, you better get it right.”

Clearly, Canada’s tax regime is not becoming simpler. For Krishna, that’s a welcome recognition of reality. He points out that the initial 1917 Income Tax Act had 10 pages. “Now, it’s 4,000 pages of fine print and the government adds some 150 pages every year — and that’s not counting the international treaties.”

Beware politicians’ pledges of tax reform, Krishna says. “If a government promises reform, you can be sure the system is going to become more complex. I’ve lived through three tax reforms and I don’t want to live through a fourth.”

Nice bed 'irrelevant' Charles!

2012-01-12T10:06:00.001-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Just ask Canadian Members of Parliament!

2012-01-12T09:14:00.000-08:00

2012-01-12T09:08:00.000-08:00

The little magic pill that cures all!

2012-01-11T23:49:00.001-08:00

Big Huevos?

2012-01-11T19:29:00.001-08:00

IRT Deadliest Roads: Andes /Wednesdays @ 9pm ET/PT
Three teams of North American truckers take on South America's Andes Mountains, where they're out to prove they have what it takes to haul any load over any road. Veterans and rookies alike will have to battle Amazon jungles, landslides, and cliffside routes where any mistake can be fatal.

"Grampa Book" a constitutional appendix or secret Harper weapon?

2012-01-11T19:17:00.001-08:00

Reign Maker

David Johnston, Canada's twenty-eighth Governor General, possesses impeccable credentials and old-fashioned charm. Plus he is the government's secret weapon in restoring the power of the monarchy.

By Charlotte Gray

Photograph by Nigel Dickson

Politics From the January/February 2012 magazine

LUE EYES TWINKLING in his ruddy face, His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston exudes grandfatherly benevolence as he submits to yet another interview about his role as Governor General. He is smaller in person than I expected from photos, and radiates a vigour impressive in a white-haired man of seventy. He also excels at viceregal non-answers.

Does the Canadian representative of the Crown feel locked in a gilded cage? Johnston parries the idea that his position is merely ornamental — a sort of constitutional appendix that only flares up occasionally: “The constraints here are appropriate. And the opportunities to speak to Canadians, to bring Canadians together, are somewhat unconstrained.”

Yawn.

I’ve been told I have exactly thirty minutes for this interview. Across the pale Persian rug of Rideau Hall’s small drawing room, Johnston’s communications adviser sits with her ankles neatly crossed, eyes flickering between watch and BlackBerry. I’m only a third of the way through my prepared questions, but Johnston’s ability to spin out platitudes is gobbling up the time, and he is too smart to step into any minefields. “I don’t have an opinion on that,” he replied to one close-to-the-line question, “because I don’t have an opinion on political matters.” I try marshmallow softball. How would he finish a sentence beginning with the words “A Canadian is…”? His answer is beyond bland: “A Canadian is one who believes in both equality of opportunity and excellence.”

I’m sure we can all subscribe to that.

I begin to wonder if the viceregal office reduces even the brainiest individual to a dull figurehead, sandwiched between the lofty prerogatives of the monarch on the other side of the Atlantic, and the ferociously guarded power of the prime minister on the other side of Ottawa’s Sussex Drive. Smothered in protocol and throttled by correctness, maybe all a Governor General can do is act as a kind of mute maître d’ to the nation — until, that is, a constitutional crisis arises. But we won’t likely see one in the remaining years of Johnston’s term, now that Prime Minister Stephen Harper heads a majority government.

Summer sunlight streams through the sash windows. Outside, a fat black squirrel scrambles through the branches of a maple tree amid Rideau Hall’s beautifully kept thirty-two hectares of lawns and woods. The half-empty bookshelves, tastefully upholstered chesterfield, and glossy coffee-table books remind me of a comfortable hotel somewhere in the English Home Counties. Johnston himself fits the decor: in his sober tie and square-cut navy suit, he could have walked out of a Brooks Brothers advertisement, circa 1970. He often mentions that he has been married forty-six years. Whenever he has an audience of schoolchildren in front of him, he chuckles as he refers to his grandchildren’s nickname for him: “Grampa Book.”

In our interview, Johnston has moved on to philanthropy. “I think the notion of caring for the community, of looking after a neighbour, is implicit in the Canadian experience,” he says, “and I think it’s something we want to magnify and reinforce as we see Canada evolving.” I wonder if I should write down these bromides.

A voice interrupts: “I’m afraid your next appointment is waiting, Your Excellency.” The trim figure bounces quickly to his feet. Thirty minutes after he entered the room, he is out the door. The kabuki theatre of this interview is over. He has smiled and said little of consequence. I have nodded and heard little of note.

Does it have to be this way? What do Canadians want from our Governor General? And, more immediately, what does the government that appointed Johnston want from him? While he carries out his duties with buttoned-down charm, the Harper government is quietly ensuring that every morsel of substance is sucked out of the viceregal role. In an extraordinary return to the Canada of yesteryear, the government is engineering a comeback for the monarchy. Johnston, consciously or not, has been recruited into the prime minister’s campaign to restore the symbols of an older, whiter Canada.

he only time most of us will see Johnston doing his job is at the televised opening of a parliamentary session, where the GG (as the office is known around Ottawa) reads a speech outlining the government’s program. He may turn up at a community celebration (provided the community has requested His Excellency’s presence several months in advance), or a natural disaster (the GG will likely hover in a helicopter over the flood, fire, or drought before offering solace to survivors.) He receives daffodils when he appears at the launch of the Canadian Cancer Society’s Daffodil Days campaign in Ottawa, and he shakes premiers’ hands when he makes official visits to provinces and territories. Otherwise, sightings are rare.

Yet the office deserves more attention; it is deeply rooted in our past and forms an integral part of our government. Since the pre-1759 French regime, someone has functioned in that capacity, which makes it older than our nation and the oldest continuous institution on Canadian soil. Only a country as neglectful of its own history as Canada is could be so ignorant of a national role that is (on paper, at least) crucial to our Constitution.

Page 2 of 5

Well before Confederation, the office had evolved from serving as chief executive of a colony to reflecting the constitutional monarch it represented. It was a glittering symbol of British authority, and the office holder acted simultaneously as an agent of the British government and a crucial go-between for Britain and Canada. When the Dominion of Canada was proclaimed in 1867, the duties became more circumscribed, while the prime minister’s expanded. Historian Margaret MacMillan has pointed out that after Confederation, “much about the position of the Governor General was unclear.” However, its chief responsibility — and sole area of discretion, then and now — has been to ensure Canada has a legitimately elected prime minister. Johnston sits at the apex of a power pyramid: in theory, the executive (run by the prime minister) and the judiciary (headed by the Supreme Court) defer to him.

Johnston is the twenty-eighth Governor General since Confederation, in a long line of distinguished individuals who by and large had to make it up as they went along. “Each incumbent has to decide how he or she will use this platform,” says Christopher McCreery, a historian who has written extensively on the Canadian honours system. “The job is about more than standing in for the Crown.” None of the first seventeen post-Confederation Governors General was born in Canada. Almost exclusively members of the House of Lords, they were chosen by Westminster with limited input from Canada.

The early viceroys wore their imperial authority effortlessly, and treated their postings to the distant, icy capital of Ottawa with varying degrees of enthusiasm. In idiosyncratic ways, they found their platforms. In the 1870s, the Earl of Dufferin and his wife staged amateur theatricals at Rideau Hall. His successor, the Marquess of Lorne, Queen Victoria’s son-in-law, supposedly swathed himself in buffalo robes and hosted elaborate tobogganing parties. In 1893, Lord Stanley donated a large silver cup to the winners of an amateur hockey competition. These regimes featured pomp and ceremony and dripped with noblesse oblige, but British grandees were startled by the absence of class deference within the Dominion. “Guests and waiters chatting to each other seemed a little odd at first,” recalled a steward to the Duke of Connaught, the tenth post-Confederation Governor General, “but we soon got used to this and thoroughly enjoyed waiting.”

During these years, Governors General, who had a permanent office on Parliament Hill, regularly discussed policy with prime ministers but were rarely drawn into partisan politics. The most famous occasion on which this did happen was the King-Byng Affair of 1926, when Lord Byng of Vimy refused Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s request to dissolve Parliament and call an election. The wily King immediately created a constitutional crisis, declaring that Byng’s legitimate action amounted to unwarranted political interference by Britain. When the dust settled, King was back in power as prime minister and the role of Governor General had been still further reduced. No future Governor General would represent both the sovereign and the British government. Instead, a Canadian High Commissioner in London and a British High Commissioner in Ottawa would act as intermediaries.

So what are the duties of a twenty-first-century Governor General? Most fall under the category of “formal ritual,” in the words of Ned Franks, a professor emeritus of political studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. The Governor General summons, prorogues, and dissolves parliamentary sessions; reads the Speech from the Throne; gives royal assent to bills and government appointments; receives ambassadors and visiting dignitaries; hosts state dinners; and presents awards and honours. However, an added dimension lends the office a whiff of magic: metaphorically, he or she embodies Canada. The appointment of the Governor General is the most important duty the monarch continues to exercise in Canada, although today it is always on the recommendation of the Canadian prime minister. According to MacMillan, the Governor General “symbolizes the nation in good times and bad and performs the duties and conducts the rituals that summon up what we share as citizens.”

But it’s challenging to help build a national community in a hugely diverse country. During his tenure, Johnston is pushing three themes: education, philanthropy, and support for families. Despite the 200 speeches he has delivered during his first year in the position, his themes have proved too nebulous to gain much traction. He has yet to make his mark.

hen asked which of his predecessors he particularly admires, Johnston names two who filled the job splendidly but were impossibly stuffy by today’s standards. The first is John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir (1935–1940), because of his “Scots rigour of hard work and accomplishment.” The second is Vincent Massey (1952–1959), because he was “a man for all seasons who helped to establish a Canadian presence in this office at a very important time.”

Johnston’s choices are interesting. Like him, Buchan and Massey were fit, self-assured men of Anglo stock who were educated at elite universities and had distinguished careers before moving to Rideau Hall. Buchan, a successful novelist, trained as a lawyer, worked in South Africa, wrote for the Times of London, and sat as an MP in the UK Parliament. Massey taught history at the University of Toronto and ran the family agriculture machinery company. Later, he chaired the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts and served as High Commissioner in London. These two viceroys had experience in public life, radiated dignity, and upheld traditional values while quietly modernizing the office and making it more responsive to ordinary citizens.

Buchan founded the Governor General’s Literary Awards to encourage Canadians to develop their own distinct identity, and was constantly on the road, he explained to his son, because “I am the only trait d’union between the Atlantic and the Pacific, the St. Lawrence and the North Pole.” Vincent Massey, the first Canadian-born viceroy, established the Governor General’s Awards for Architecture and the Massey Medal for achievement in Canadian geography, and laid the foundation for the Order of Canada, the country’s most important system of honours. (He was also grander than most British nobs. GG watchers still love the story of a British peer who once complained, “Damn it all, the fellow always makes one feel like a bloody savage.”)

But if Johnston resembles his favourite predecessors, he differs significantly in one respect. The early lives of Buchan and Massey took them all over the world, exposing them to diverse milieux and peoples. Johnston’s career has been varied, stimulating, and indisputably successful, but he has spent his entire professional life within the small world of central Canadian universities.

He was born in Sudbury, Ontario, then a rough mining town where his father ran a hardware store. A scholarship to Harvard University launched him into the academic elite: he graduated magna cum laude and was a two-time all-American hockey player. He also acquired a splinter of mystique that no amount of denial has removed: his jogging partner at Harvard, Erich Segal, reportedly used him as the model for a minor character (captain of the hockey team) in the bestseller Love Story. From Harvard, Johnston went on first to the University of Cambridge in England, then to Queen’s University, collecting law degrees at each.

Page 3 of 5

At Queen’s, he developed a particular interest in two hot topics: the rapidly expanding field of securities and administrative law, and the nascent development of the law as it relates to computers. He had planned to article with a Toronto firm, but Queen’s law school had nobody on faculty with expertise in these areas and was reluctant to let him go. So the young lawyer never practised. Instead, he taught at Queen’s for two years, then moved on to the University of Toronto law school for six years, becoming a full professor. In 1974, at just thirty-three years old, he was appointed dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Western Ontario.

Along the way, he married his high school sweetheart, Sharon, and the couple eventually had five daughters (all academic achievers, they include two lawyers, a doctor, an economist, and a Ph.D. in education). Meanwhile, his career continued on its meteoric arc. In 1979, still only thirty-eight, he moved to Montreal to become principal and vice-chancellor of McGill University. Through the 1980s, he thrived at McGill, bringing an esprit de corps to an institution rent by faculty rivalries and funding shortfalls. His forte was his ability to unruffle feathers, smother friction, and find compromise. McGill soon topped the Maclean’s magazine ranking of Canadian universities. He also managed to co-write a string of technical publications on corporate law and securities regulations. But his third term in the principal’s chair, when the university faced a financial crisis, was difficult. He dug into discretionary funding and left the tough belt-tightening decisions to his successor, Bernard Shapiro. In 1994, Johnston quietly retreated to McGill’s law school and returned to teaching.

His reputation had spread beyond the university world. CBC invited him to moderate the leaders’ debates during the 1979 and 1984 federal elections and the 1987 Ontario election. In 1988, the Mulroney government made him the first chair of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, and through the late 1990s federal and provincial governments put him on a plethora of boards and task forces. In the lead-up to the 1995 Quebec referendum, he co-wrote the book If Quebec Goes: The Real Cost of Separation, and co-chaired the “no” committee against Quebec sovereignty.

His most crucial invitation arose from conversations with Liberal industry minister John Manley, about how Ottawa should regulate access to the Internet. “There were all these different stakeholders we had to deal with,” recalls Manley. “Telecoms, education experts, industry, consumers; we needed somebody who could build consensus.” In 1994, he appointed Johnston to chair the Information Highway Advisory Council. Johnston plunged into the burgeoning but unfamiliar world of high tech and produced two reports that were, says Manley, “truly seminal and looked at around the world, and shaped our policies for several years.” In 1999, on the strength of his newly acquired digital know-how and contacts, Johnston became president of the University of Waterloo, an institution dominated by its engineering and computer science departments.

He proved to be a sharp-elbowed, tenacious fundraiser for a university already on a roll. His tenure at Waterloo was marked by $600 million worth of investment in research facilities and programs. Under his watch, Waterloo was consistently ranked first in the Maclean’s university survey, in the Most Innovative and Leaders of Tomorrow categories.

One big donation he missed was the $100 million Mike Lazaridis had flagged for an institution for theoretical physics. Despite Johnston’s efforts to woo Lazaridis, in 2000 the RIM president and co-CEO announced the establishment of an independent research facility called the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. According to physicist Howard Burton, the institute’s founding executive director, most Waterloo academics reacted with “frigid politeness” and “a good dollop of envy and jealousy” to the idea of a well-funded rival on their doorstep. “But David took a strikingly opposite approach,” Burton says, by working hard to smooth relations, recruit cross-appointed faculty, and help obtain government funding.

In 2008, Johnston received a call asking if he would come up with the terms of reference for a public inquiry. Prime Minister Harper had committed himself to an investigation into allegations that his Conservative predecessor, Brian Mulroney, had taken illegal payments from the German lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber, and the investigation threatened to turn into a media circus. Johnston, the careful lawyer and quiet compromiser, agreed to define the inquiry’s parameters: what questions should be asked, and which issues were out of bounds. A few weeks later, he counselled that the scope be as narrow as possible. Upon receiving the recommendation, Harper reportedly said, “Whatever we paid him for this, it wasn’t enough.” Conspicuously absent from the subsequent inquiry, chaired by Justice Oliphant, was any mention of the Airbus affair. As a result, it was too restricted to provoke another orgy of Mulroney bashing.

hile Johnston was ascending the hierarchies of four universities, the office of Governor General was quietly sliding. During the latter part of the twentieth century, Rideau Hall was dullsville. Dinners were like chamber of commerce events (with beaver tail soup and maple syrup mousse as menu staples), the gardens displayed municipal rows of Dutch tulips, and the public rooms deteriorated. The magic had gone.

That changed with a trumpet blast of majesty in 1999, when Prime Minister Jean Chrétien appointed Adrienne Clarkson, author, CBC broadcaster, former Ontario agent general to Paris, and cosmopolite extraordinaire, as Governor General. “Clarkson was the only Governor General in recent times who hit the ground running,” Christopher McCreery says. Fluently bilingual and steeped in Canadian history and culture, Clarkson and her husband, John Ralston Saul, knew from the moment she was appointed the direction in which they wanted to take the office. Clarkson was keen to reinvent an institution that, as she put it in her 2006 memoir, Heart Matters, was “at risk of being out-of-date and irrelevant.” This would be a personality-driven regime, and Clarkson would take both her duties and herself very seriously: “I felt we could infuse history into my representing the Crown in Canada and being the guarantor of responsible government.”

From the moment Clarkson, in an eye-catching outfit by Quebec designer Marie St. Pierre, arrived in the Senate Chamber for her installation, she caused a stir. Her installation address, and every speech she gave subsequently, was packed with ideas and studded with quotations from sources as varied as French explorer Samuel de Champlain, Maritime musician Stan Rogers, Grand Chief John Kelly, and Quebec poet Jean-Guy Pilon. She urged Canadians to recognize that we are citizens not of a middle-ranking, chronically insecure power, but of a “new land that stretches to infinity.” She strove to symbolize a muscular new Canada, far removed from its British roots, although still respectful of its links to the Crown.

Official dinners now featured dishes that sounded like parodies of fusion cuisine — barbecued caribou tenderloin in a juniper tea vinaigrette, for instance, or candied Niagara plum fried wonton on a caramel-toasted soybean stick — and Saul banished non-Canadian wines from the Rideau Hall cellars. The couple replaced tired historical artworks with paintings by Lawren Harris, David Milne, Jean-Paul Riopelle, and Paul-Émile Borduas. Clarkson paid unprecedented attention to her role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, spending Christmases with troops in Afghanistan and the Gulf. During her six years in office, she travelled 150,000 kilometres per year and took part in more than 6,000 events. By the time she left office in 2005, nearly 200,000 tourists were visiting Rideau Hall each year.

It was awe inspiring, colourful — and controversial. Previous Governors General had referred to themselves as “head of state,” but Clarkson exhibited a far more imperious manner, expecting even her friends to call her “Your Excellency.” Murmured protests grew about the state visits abroad, a feature of the job since the 1920s, and about the costs. (The budget for the Governor General’s office in 2004 was $19 million, compared with $10.7 million in the more austere 1990s, and $19.8 million in Johnston’s first year on the job.) Criticism arose from the typical Canadian watch-your-pennies distrust of “show,” and from discomfort with the image she projected. Was Canada really the mega-power she described? Was the office of the Governor General really the power centre she suggested?

Page 4 of 5

Tension between the viceroy and the prime minister erupted when Paul Martin was elected Liberal leader in 2003. His staff informed Clarkson that he wanted to take his oath of office on Parliament Hill, instead of at Rideau Hall as every previous prime minister had done. “I refused three entreaties,” recalls Clarkson in her memoir, including a personal appeal from Martin himself, because she detected an attempt to impose a “presidential-type” practice on Canada’s parliamentary system. Martin saw this as a challenge to his authority. The following year, a parliamentary committee cut the Governor General’s budget by $417,000, and the prime minister made no effort to defend the office. It was a deliberate slap on the wrist to the “head of state,” as Clarkson continued to call herself.

In 2005, another CBC broadcaster became Canada’s twenty-seventh Governor General. Haitian-born Michaëlle Jean was as eye-catchingly glamorous and exotic as Clarkson, and exuded a warmth that audiences loved, but she was woefully inexperienced in political dogfights. In 2008, for only the fourth time in our history since 1867, the Crown was dragged into a constitutional crisis when the three opposition parties announced their intention to defeat the newly elected Conservative minority government on a vote of confidence. Prime Minister Harper went to Rideau Hall to request that Jean prorogue Parliament for one month; she kept him waiting for two hours before agreeing to his request. One version of the meeting suggests constitutional advisers were chewing over precedent; another is that she was showing Harper who was boss. When he left, after finally getting his way, his expression was grim.

A few months later, Jean was in Paris to speak at a UNESCO forum. The international delegates were fascinated that this attractive, Haitian-born, French-speaking woman represented a former British colony. She played to their surprise, giving a mischievous smile as she said, “I, a francophone from the Americas, born in Haiti, who carries in her the history of the slave trade and the emancipation of the blacks, at once Québécoise and Canadian, and today before you, Canada’s head of state, proudly represent the promises and possibilities of that ideal of society.” It was, as Ned Franks says, a “seemingly innocuous statement.” But on the other side of the Atlantic, the Prime Minister’s Office pounced. Harper issued a statement that Queen Elizabeth II was Canada’s head of state and the Governor General was merely her representative. The government insisted all mentions of “head of state” be removed from the Governor General’s official website. Reflecting on the Paris slap-down, a senior government source says, “After three years in the job, they all have delusions of grandeur. They should read the Constitution.”

Around Ottawa, this particular tempest in a teapot was overshadowed by another issue: who would succeed Jean? Would Harper follow the set pattern of alternating French and English Canadians, or would he appoint the first Aboriginal Governor General? Was bilingualism essential? There had been a second, more minor prorogation crisis in 2009; this time, Harper did not risk being kept waiting for viceregal permission. He phoned over to Rideau Hall to inform Jean that he was going to prorogue Parliament. Would he now look for someone he could trust to support him in a constitutional crisis?

The prime minister made a smart move. For the first time in our history, an official blue-ribbon search committee was appointed to come up with a list of candidates. The committee had five criteria: the individuals should be approaching the end of their careers; have made a significant contribution to Canada; be bilingual; be committed to the institution of the Crown; and, as McCreery, who was a member of the committee, puts it, “have a level of gravitas that would give them credibility in another constitutional crisis.” After numerous consultations, the committee put forth several names, making it clear that there would be no more media stars or eye candy. The list, according to sources, included Johnston; John Fraser, master of Massey College; General John de Chastelain; General Rick Hillier, who had just retired as chief of the defence staff; and Mary Simon, a prominent Inuit leader and environmentalist. But those involved knew the PM’s choice all along: David Johnston.

When the appointment was announced, only a few discordant notes sounded, from Quebec separatists, who recalled Johnston’s ardent federalism in 1995; and from Waterloo faculty, who resented that, after their own salaries had been effectively frozen for several years, he had left the university with a payout of over $1 million. The group that was most outraged consisted of reporters who had followed the Mulroney Airbus scandal. Toronto columnist Rick Salutin suggested that Johnston’s new job rewarded his success in containing the Oliphant inquiry.

In his installation speech, Johnston demonstrated that he knew the limits of his position: he referred to himself as “the Queen’s representative in Canada.” Robert Finch, head of the Monarchist League of Canada, breathed a sigh of relief. “It really used to grate on me when previous GGs called themselves ‘head of state,’” he says. “The monarchy and the Governor General are part of the same institution. Who is on our coins? Our stamps? The Queen, not the Governor General, that’s who. She is our head of state.”

But head of state, as Franks points out, is “a job description, not a title.” The phrase does not appear in any of our statutes or constitutional legislation. The Queen’s own website never uses the phrase; it states that “the Queen acts as Queen of Canada, quite distinctive from her role in the United Kingdom.”

To all except fervent monarchists, this may seem like constitutional hairsplitting. Who cares? Ironically, the answer is, the Harper government. Despite the prime minister’s deep roots in Western alienation (a reaction against WASP Ontario) and his party’s eager embrace of new Canadians with no British connections, this government is monarchy mad. In the year since Johnston arrived in Rideau Hall, the federal government has ramped up Canadian identification with the royals. The latest citizenship guide is littered with references to the Queen (she scarcely featured in the previous edition). In the lobby of the building that houses the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, a portrait of the Queen has replaced two landscapes. Last August, the prefix “Royal” was restored to the Canadian navy and air force. A few weeks later, foreign minister John Baird instructed all Canadian missions abroad to hang photographs of Elizabeth II in their offices. Plans are already afoot for the Crown to be restored on the inside pages of our new passports, and for celebrations to commemorate Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee in June.

This quiet relaunch of the monarchy forms part of a larger campaign, led by a group of fierce monarchists, including Harper’s principal secretary, Ray Novak; John Baird; and Chris Champion, senior adviser to immigration minister Jason Kenney. These men make no secret of their eagerness to erase the Liberal-dominated narrative of recent Canadian history, with its emphasis on the Charter, multiculturalism, and the flag, and replace it with other, older traditions that embrace military victories and historical identification with Britain. Canadian achievements of the past half century are being expunged: the word “peacekeeping,” the concept for which Liberal prime minister Lester B. Pearson won the Nobel Prize, is rarely mentioned in Ottawa; and Baird has even redesigned his business card so it no longer features the flag or the name of his department’s headquarters, the Lester B. Pearson Building.

The Tories’ determination to remake Canada to suit their own tastes may come as no surprise, given their virulent aversion for all things Liberal. Nevertheless, it is an odd campaign to pursue in a country where most citizens are not of British origin, and where the idea of Canada as a “warrior nation” can rankle immigrants who have fled wars. The renewed spotlight on the Queen particularly irritates some Quebecers. “Has the Harper government decided to make francophone citizens feel like strangers in their own country?” asks Lysiane Gagnon, Quebec columnist for the Globe and Mail.

Page 5 of 5

But so far, there has been little pushback against this royalist revival. Explanations range from public apathy to the excitement generated by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s visit last summer; on Canada Day, a throng of 300,000 onlookers cheered them on Parliament Hill. John Fraser, who is just finishing a book about the monarchy and Canada, feels there is genuine affection for the Crown, which “has served our country well and is interlaced with our history.” The Queen, he says, stands not so much as a symbol of our colonial history, but rather as a marker of our cultural autonomy, differentiating us from Americans. He also suggests that Canada enjoys the best of the royals: “We get monarchy lite; we don’t have to deal with Fergie’s toe-sucking antics.”

Johnston shrugs off the idea that his job is being marginalized by the new emphasis on the monarch. He hosted the Will and Kate road show in Ottawa last July and says, “I think [the excitement] is about the new values this young couple brings to this institution, which is 1,000 years old.” There is no danger that he will rock the boat. Affable support for old values has been a hallmark of his career, and he remains content to let others manipulate our national symbols. Maybe he and the Harper monarchists are correct in thinking that the appearance of these Hello! Canada cover models will trigger a renewed wave of affection for the modern monarchy. William’s confident French and Kate’s leggy glamour certainly dwarfed the couple’s old-fashioned Canadian hosts. But it seems equally likely that the crowds who mobbed them on Canada Day would have done the same for Brad and Angelina. Skeptical observers such as Franks speculate that the government’s deliberate campaign to raise the distant monarch’s profile will lower still further the image of the Crown’s representative here — which would suit a prime minister who considers the office of Governor General an irritant.

ast September, in the vast ballroom of Rideau Hall, the assembled guests fidgeted nervously on the spindly gold and blue chairs. Johnston was about to officiate at an investiture ceremony for the Order of Canada. The forty-five recipients included lawyers, engineers, photographers, and doctors; they had come from Saturna Island, Saguenay, Toronto, Thunder Bay, Memramcook, and Edmonton. Two small children stared in wonder at the huge Norval Morrisseau painting in the far distance, at the front of the room. A small quartet played sombre background music under framed portraits of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh.

At a signal, the music stopped and everyone rose to their feet; the Governor General, who serves as the Chancellor and Principal Companion of the Order of Canada, had arrived with his wife. Smiling broadly, the two almost trotted down the centre aisle. Johnston moved to the podium and began to speak in an informal manner: “I am so pleased to be here to help celebrate and encourage your work.”

It wasn’t a bad speech. “Each of you is here today because you are driven to excel in something much larger than yourself,” he told the audience. It didn’t have the erudite sparkle of Clarkson’s oratory, or the breathy élan of Jean’s speeches, studded with words like “hope,” “dreams,” and “imagination.” Johnston speaks French too awkwardly to switch effortlessly between the official languages, as his predecessors Roméo LeBlanc or Jeanne Sauvé could. He didn’t exude the aristocratic grandeur of Lord Tweedsmuir or the hauteur of Vincent Massey.

Instead, he came across as a decent, self-deprecating man. Perhaps this makes him a good figurehead for a decent and self-deprecating nation. Perhaps this represents, as Chris Champion suggests, “a return to normal.” For most of the inductees, the magic lay in the occasion itself: the thrill came from having the importance of their work recognized. Few would recall a word of His Excellency David Johnston's speech
__________________________________________________.

Charlotte Gray is the author of eight non-fiction bestsellers, most recently Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike. She chairs the board of Canada’s History.

Nigel Dickson published Stand Still, a collection of his portraits, in 2007.

Chief McCaskill, time to trade it in on a fleet of these?

2012-01-11T15:58:00.001-08:00

How Raytheon Helped Create the Ultimate High-Tech Cop Car
By Jon Philips
Wednesday, January 11, 2012

LAS VEGAS — The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department wanted the best in-car technology available. They put out bids, and up popped Raytheon — which has a rich history working with the U.S. military and National Security Administration in areas ranging from defense technology to border security to cyber-security.

Raytheon did its homework, and integrated a suite of wireless information systems directly into a Panasonic Toughbook that the cops can deploy in the front cabins of their patrol cars. Besides providing an immediate portal to all the databases and legal resources cops need in the field, the rugged notebook provides real-time mapping of all patrol cars within a five mile radius, and links directly to a fingerprint scanner, which officers can use for warrant checks.

But perhaps the most innovative advancement is a geo-tagging feature. With a simple press of a console button, an officer can mark his or her location on the notebook’s mapping system in real-time. So, for example, when a fleeing suspect is tossing contraband out his car windows, the officer in pursuit can tap the button every time a bag of “dope” (that’s cop parlance) hits the ground. Now the sheriff knows exactly where to do a sweep for evidence.

Appointed for life or sloppy governance?

2012-01-11T15:05:00.000-08:00

Good Day Readers:

Could this seemingly innocuous oversight potentially have significant repercussions? Oh, for sure the provincial government is no doubt rushing to rectify the situation especially now that it's public, but what about retroactive decisions made by agencies, boards and commissions? Couldn't an enterprising lawyer, and God knows Winnipeg has it's share, effectively argue in court a decision that went counter to their client be they an individual or group is invalid because members of the governing body had Directors with expired terms?

Best let my MLA Greg Selinger along with Justice Minister Andrew Swan know post haste.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
premier@leg.gov.mb.ca
minjus@gov.mb.ca
__________________________________________________

Term limits ignored on paid government Boards
By Paul Turenne
Wednesday, January 11, 2012

About one-quarter of the 1,500 people who serve on provincial government Boards, Agencies and Commissions in Manitoba are doing so after their term has already expired, including every Board Member at Manitoba Public Insurance.

The information — current as of July 2011 — was contained in the Auditor General's Annual Report, which was released Wednesday.

The AG notes some Directors have served so long on their expired terms that the expired portion they served is longer than the originally appointed term. At least one director was still serving on a term that expired in 2002.

The Report states that when the AG examined the issue last summer, 90% of the members of bodies that answer to Manitoba Water Stewardship were on expired terms, while 75% of those related to Manitoba Justice were expired.

There are 200 agencies, boards and commissions (ABCs) in Manitoba, ranging from the boards of large Crown corporations to regional health authorities to quasi-judicial bodies like the Manitoba Human Rights Commission. The ABCs also include smaller, issue-specific bodies like the Manitoba Film Classification Board, the West Region Elk Management Board and the Manitoba Boxing Commission.

The ABCs' members — there are 1,558 total — are all appointed directly by the provincial government's cabinet and are paid for their time, usually a stipend for attending meetings.

Most of the positions have terms, usually two or three years, but as the AG points out, those appear to be ignored in many cases.

The AG's report notes that legislation allows members to serve expired terms until they're officially reappointed or someone else takes their place, but suggests that clause is there to allow the bodies to function without interruption in unusual circumstances, not to allow people indefinite terms.

The AG made nine recommendations, including that cabinet ensure ABC appointments are current, and that they consider capping maximum years of service.

The report notes that the government has agreed to comply with keeping appointments current, and began updating a significant number last August.

paul.turenne@sunmedia.ca

Yeah, smarten up TransCanada eh?

2012-01-11T10:59:00.001-08:00

Keystone Whistleblower alleges shoddy materials along original pipeline

In this September 21, 2010 photo an unidentified protestor who is opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline because of environmental reasons, carries signs in Omaha, Nebraska. A former inspector for a company that did work on TransCandaa's original Keystone pipeline is accusing the Calgary-based company of a cavalier disregard for the environment, alleging it cut corners as it laid down the pipe. (The Canadian Press/AP/Nati Harinik)

By Lee-Ann Goodman/The Canadian Press

WASHINGTON - A former inspector for a company that did work on TransCanada's original Keystone pipeline is accusing the Calgary-based company of a cavalier disregard for the environment.

Mike Klink was an engineer for construction company Bechtel Corp. a contractor that worked on the first portion of the Keystone pipeline that carries Alberta oilsands crude to refineries in the American Midwest. It was completed in 2010; the controversial Keystone XL would extend that pipeline to Gulf Coast refineries.

In an opinion piece published over the weekend in Nebraska's Lincoln Journal Star, the 59-year-old Klink says he raised a series of concerns about alleged sub-standard materials and poor craftsmanship along the Keystone pipeline.

The Indiana man says he was fired by Bechtel as a result, and filed a complaint about his dismissal with the U.S. Department of Labor in March 2010. In his formal complaint, also sent to the U.S. Office of Whistleblower Protection Program, Klink says the company began treating him as a "problem inspector" culminating in one supervisor angrily ordering him to quit before he got fired.

"Let's be clear — I am an engineer; I am not telling you we shouldn't build pipelines," he wrote in the Nebraska newspaper.

"We just should not build this one."

His job as an inspector, Klink said, involved monitoring the construction of pump stations along the first Keystone pipeline.

"I am coming forward because my kids encouraged me to tell the truth about what was done and covered up," he wrote. "When I last raised concerns about corners being cut, I lost my job — but people along the Keystone XL pathway have a lot more to lose if this project moves forward with the same shoddy work."

TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha disputed Klink's assertions, saying he "appears to have made a number of allegations against his previous employer and others, none of which have been proven."

Cunha added that whenever safety concerns are raised by inspectors, TransCanada takes them seriously.

"If a concern is raised, we investigate immediately. If corrective action is required, we act .... Safety is top priority for us. We monitor our Keystone pipeline system through a centralized high-tech centre 24 hours a day, 365 days a year."

Klink says, however, that he noticed substandard building materials, construction methods and safety standards as he inspected the pipeline.

"Cheap foreign steel that cracked when workers tried to weld it, foundations for pump stations that you would never consider using in your own home, fudged safety tests, Bechtel staffers explaining away leaks during pressure tests as 'not too bad,' shortcuts on the steel and rebar that are essential for safe pipeline operation and siting of facilities on completely inappropriate spots like wetlands," he wrote.

He said that he shared his concerns with his bosses, who passed them along to "the bigwigs at TransCanada, but nothing changed. TransCanada didn't appear to care."

Keystone remains in the spotlight in the U.S. capital after Republicans succeeded in having a provision inserted into legislation to extend payroll tax cuts and unemployment insurance benefits to Americans hard-hit by tough economic times.

The measure would force the Obama administration to make a decision on Keystone XL within 60 days. White House officials and Democrats say the provision has all but killed the pipeline since a thorough review of a new route for Keystone XL — around a crucial aquifer in Nebraska — cannot be conducted in such a short time period.

Mr. Lilley Pad eats junk food!

2012-01-11T09:58:00.001-08:00

"Oh s..t!

2012-01-11T08:27:00.001-08:00

Freedom 55 Ottawa-style!

2012-01-11T05:24:00.000-08:00

Good Day Readers:

Couple quick points:

(1) Our favourite story. Several years ago the then Liberal government introduced a Bill in the House of Comments allowing MPs to begin collecting their pensions at age 55 rather than 60. So when was it introduced in Parliament? That's right during a sparsely attended evening session - you know, when the Parties cluster their few Members together for the cameras so it looks like there's a lot of them. As fate would have it, there happened to be a Globe and Mail reporter present otherwise it would have gone completely unnoticed

(2) If the government is serious it will also place on the chopping block the amazing array of perquisites your Member of Parliament and Senators enjoy. Someone has to pay!

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
________________________________________________________

John Ivison: Lavish MP pensions on chopping block
John Ivison
Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Stephen Harper is prepared to include MP pensions in government's new austerity measures. (Blair Gable/Reuters/Files)

Members of Parliament are likely to see the generous terms of their gold-plated pensions significantly eroded as part of the Harper government’s deficit reduction budget this spring.

Stephen Harper had hinted in an interview last week that part of the strategy to reduce the deficit will include changes to programs that are likely to see ballooning costs as the number of retirees increases, such as public service pensions and Old Age Security. “We’ve got to make sure that we have, with an ageing population, a series of programs that are sustainable over the long-term,” he said.

As the National Post has written, the government is considering moves that could phase out lucrative defined benefit pension schemes for new hires in the public service and raise the age at which Canadians qualify for OAS from 65 to 67.
_____________________________________________________
Related
_____________________________________________________

John Ivison: Public pensions a fat target for Conservatives

However, the Prime Minister knows that he cannot ask public servants and Canadian seniors to suffer austerity measures while MPs benefit from one of the most lavish pension plans in the country. Possible reforms to the MPs’ scheme could include raising the minimum retirement age (currently 55) to lengthening the period of time it takes to qualify for a pension (currently just six years).

Senior sources said that a decision on public service pensions has not yet been made, largely because of legal and legislative barriers to unilateral changes. But the source confirmed the government could still move on MPs’ pensions, even if it holds off on reforms covering the bureaucracy. He said all three strands of pension policy are linked as part of the government’s plan to make sure there is sustainability and fairness in the system.

Ian Lee, a professor at Sprott Business School, said the government would be smart to address what he called “the profound unfairness of MPs’ pensions” before it moves on broader reforms.

“The government cannot ask ordinary Canadians to put their shoulder to the wheel and carry to the burden of austerity – if the elites are not sharing in the pain,” he said.

MPs’ pensions have long been a lightning rod for criticism. Preston Manning and his Reform Party MPs “opted out” of the government pension plan when they came to Ottawa in 1993, but opted back in when then-prime minister Jean Chrétien gave them the chance in 2000.

The formula that determines MPs’ pensions has been reduced since then but remains extremely prodigal.

The latest numbers show that taxpayers pay $5.50 for every $1 that MPs and senators contributed to their pension plan. Most private schemes call on the employer to contribute $1 for every $1 added by the member. The parliamentary pension scheme paid out $48.8-million in the 2009/2010 fiscal year to 503 former MPs and senators collecting pension benefits. The report said 117 of them received more than $70,000 a year, with the average for senators being $56,512 and for MPs $53,586.

Since then, 113 more MPs were defeated at the last election and will receive millions more in pensions and severance payments. There was an outcry last May when it emerged that defeated Bloc Québécois leader, Gilles Duceppe is in line to receive $140,000 a year from taxpayers, despite devoting his career to breaking up the country.

MPs are eligible for a pension after serving in the House for six years, and pensions are calculated on the best five earnings years. On a current salary of $157,000 a year, MPs qualify for an indexed lifetime pension of $27,000 when they reach 55. That means a six-year MP who reaches the age of 80 could receive a minimum of $675,000.

MP Pierre-Luc Dusseault can aim for Freedom 25. (Handout)

The absurd munificence of the scheme is apparent from just one example: Pierre-Luc Dusseault, who became Canada’s youngest ever MP when he was elected as a member of the NDP in Sherbrooke, will qualify for his pension before his 26th birthday, if he is re-elected.

As Sprott’s Mr. Lee put it: “Presently there are three classes of Canadians concerning pensions: First-class Canadians who receive MPs pensions; government-class Canadians, who get public service pensions, with retirement at 50 or 55; and cattle-class Canadians, who collect OAS at 65. Or, as Orwell said: ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’.”

• Email: jivison@nationalpost.com | Twitter:
_____________________________________________________

As Americans Get Poorer Members of Congress Get Richer
By Amy Bingham
@Amy_Bingham
Tuesday, December 27, 2011

While millions of Americans saw their incomes decrease, their job opportunities dissipate and their home values drop as the economy dipped, the 535 men and women they elected to represent them in the U.S. Congress were not
only shielded from the economic downturn but gained during it.

The average American’s net worth has dropped 8 percent during the past six years, while members of Congress got, on average, 15 percent richer, according to a New York Times analysis of financial disclosure. The median net worth of members of Congress is about $913,000, compared with about $100,000 for the country at large, the Times’ analysis found.

This wealth disparity between lawmakers and the people they represent seems to be continually growing. Nearly half of Congress — 249 members — are millionaires, while only 5 percent of American households can make the same claim.

Even among the super rich, members of Congress fare better than other wealthy Americans. While the net worth of the richest 10 percent of Americans has remained stagnant since 2004, lawmakers’ net worth has seen double-digit growth, the Times reports.

Members of the House have fared especially well. From 1984 to 2009, the average net worth of the 435 House reps more than doubled, from $280,000 to $725,000, not including home equity, according to a Washington Post analysis of financial disclosures.

And while lawmakers in the “people’s house” grew significantly richer, the people they represent became slightly poorer, with the average wealth of an American household dropping from $20,600 to $20,500 over the same time period, the Post reports.

This growing disparity may be due, in part, to the rising cost of campaigning, which may deter less-affluent citizens from seeking public office.

To win a House seat, candidates spent an average of $1.4 million in 2010, four times as much as was spent in 1976, according to the Federal Election Commission. Winning a Senate seat is nearly 10 times as expensive, with the average successful Senate campaign shelling out nearly $10 million in 2010.

"I like to fire people!"

2012-01-10T20:18:00.000-08:00

Mitt Romney at the door of the White House?

Send in our clowns?

2012-01-10T16:34:00.000-08:00

Good Day Readers:

On Monday, January 30 Canada's House of Commons reconvenes - the Senate gets their wake up call a day later. Ever notice our Parliamentarians like little children can say the damnest things! So we thought we'd begin by favouring you with the song, Send in the Clowns from the 1973 hit Broadway Musical, A little Night Music.

Who can forget Justin ("You piece of .... Mr. Kent!") Trudeau, Pat ("Eat my shorts!" Martin, Mike ("140 character meaningless drivel!) Duffy, Shelly ("Scott Brison called me stupid!") Glover ..... the list keeps getting longer. Does that mean if as a taxpayer you were to contact any of these individuals you could be called a piece of ...., invited to eat shorts, accused of meaningless drivel or calling them stupid? Well, now you risk another indignity - being labelled a jackass? This is starting to sound more and more like the mafia where everyone has a moniker.

And, yes, we now have another name to add to our Parliamentary Clown Hall of Fame - Tony "The Jackass" Clement. He should give twittering lessons to Mike "The Twit-terinator" Duffy!

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
__________________________________________________

Clement sorry for calling teen a 'jackass'
Monday, January 9, 2012
Susan Delacourt, Ottawa Bureau

Screengrab shows a Twitter exchange between Treasury Board President Tony Clement and 15-year-old Keith Pellinger, of Perry Sound. (Twitter)

OTTAWA—Treasury Board President Tony Clement has apologized for insulting a 15-year-old boy during a Twitter spat over spelling mistakes.

Keith Pettinger, a student at Parry Sound High School, was following Clement’s Twitter feed on Saturday evening and decided to call out the cabinet minister on his spelling.

Clement, watching Hockey Night in Canada, said on Twitter: “Coach’s Corner gave me a lot to think about tonite.”

Pettinger shot back: “If you can’t spell, how can you run Canada’s treasury?” Then, in a subsequent tweet, he asked whether Clement would like to come to school with him and learn to spell properly.

Clement didn’t respond until Sunday, and then through the direct-message feature on Twitter, which only the recipient can see.

“Ha ha ur fnny,” Clement’s first tweet said. Then the minister accused Pettinger of misspelling “don’t know.”
“It’s ‘don’t know’ not ‘dunno.’ Jack ass (sic),” Clement said in his Twitter message to Pettinger.

Pettinger replied to Clement that he wasn’t aware of using that spelling, but then said, in a couple of Twitter replies: “I must admit that my spelling and grammar is not great. I’m sorry for calling you out . . . . I just wanted someone so involved with my and Canada’s money to spell properly.”

Pettinger sent screen shots of the conversation to the Star and said in an email: “I believe that this is wrong, and uncalled for. One of our country’s leaders cannot be insulting fellow Canadians.”

On Monday, Clement acknowledged the outburst and apologized.

“The message was a private communication. That said, in hindsight, I could have been more polite. I apologize for offending him,” the minister told the Star.

Clement is a prolific presence on Twitter and was even featured in a local CBC Radio show on Monday as one of the politicians who has built a large, active following on social media. When CBC’s Ottawa Morning host Robyn Bresnahan asked him the secret to his Twitter success, Clement replied: “Authenticity. Dimensionality. Engagement.”

This was the second known time that Clement has called someone a jackass on Twitter. Keith Torrie, National Director of the Young Liberals of Canada, was similarly described that way by the minister over a year ago for noting that he saw fellow minister John Baird carrying a Harry Rosen bag aboard a flight to Toronto.

“Hey jackass, Baird’s attending a funeral tomorrow,” Clement wrote to Torrie.

As news of the Pettinger spat spread on Twitter on Monday, Clement tweeted that he did not know Pettinger was only 15, but said he stood by his apology.

The cost of not playing by the rules - a textbook case of "theft by conversion?"

2012-01-10T10:11:00.000-08:00

Good Day Readers:

A special thank you to the people who have been sending us updates on the current situation vis-a-vis the Canadian Wheat Board.

We'd be the first to admit we're not well-versed regarding the grain trade in Canada, however, two indisputable facts jump out at us and stick in our craw:

(1) Had The Harper Government respected the Rules of Parliament and Democratic Principles much, if not all, of this could have been avoided

(2) THG has failed miserably, by design or otherwise, to accurately convey to taxpayers the cost of its decision as evidenced by the fact only last summer did it publicly announce a major accounting house had finally been retained to do a cost- benefit analysis something that should have been done long, long before now. How will the incomes of western Canadian grain produces and those associated with the industry likely change? What will be the impact on consumer prices and ultimately the financial burden taxpayers will be forced to bear? None of this has been adequately addressed.

Read on.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
__________________________________________________
First this .....

Proposed farmers' suit seeks claim on CWB's assets

Class-action maven Merchant says $15.5B" must be paid
Monday, January 9, 2012
Staff

One of Canada's most prolific class-action lawyers says he plans to seek an 11-figure piece of the Canadian Wheat Board's assets for Prairie farmers.

Filing a statement of claim Monday in Saskatoon on behalf of representative plaintiff Duane Filson, Regina lawyer Tony Merchant said in a release that those assets, including the CWB's office building, rail cars and cash on hand, "cannot simply be subsumed by the federal government."

Filson, a farmer, cow-calf producer and municipal reeve at Woodrow, Saskatchewan about 150 km southwest of Moose Jaw, is the plaintiff representing a proposed "class" of all farmers who sold grain to the CWB in 2011 and will sell through the CWB before August 1, 2012.

Merchant's proposed suit describes the CWB as a trustee de son tort -- a body that takes on itself the possession of entrusted property -- for farmers, whose money went to set up the CWB's contingency fund, buy the CWB's tangible assets and develop its "intangible assets."

In its form following last month's passage of Bill C-18, which as of August 1 will end the Board's single marketing desk for Prairie wheat and barley, the "government CWB" has been "unjustly enriched" and farmers "deprived of the funds" from those assets, the suit alleges.

The suit's claims call for total damages of $15.42 billion, including estimated values of:

$7.7 billion in "logistics and transportation savings," considered an "intangible asset" for farmers

$2.14 billion, for the net present value of "premium sale prices" obtained each year for barley

$5.3 billion for similar annual premiums on wheat sales

$100 million in the CWB's contingency fund

$102.06 million, for the CWB's rail hopper cars

$65 million, prepaid for the purchase of grain laker vessels; and

$14 million, for the CWB's downtown Winnipeg office building

"A corporate dissolution requires surplus funds, proceeds and assets to be returned to appropriate creditors and stakeholders," Merchant's statement said.

The dissolution of the pre-Bill C-18 CWB "therefore requires the return of all funds, proceeds and assets... back to the Class, the rightful owners of the CWB value."

"This case does not challenge whether or not dismantling the CWB is a good idea," said Merchant, a former provincial Liberal MLA and federal Liberal candidate (1979, 1980, 1997). His representative client also ran for the Liberals in 2008 and 2011.

"The value realized from CWB assets has to be returned to farmers," Merchant said in a release. "To do otherwise, would resemble a classic case of theft by conversion."

The Reuters news service on Monday quoted federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz as saying it was "disappointing to see further misguided legal action against western Canadian farmers and their right to the same freedoms as farmers in Ontario already enjoy."

The "baseless action," Ritz said, would not affect the deregulation process laid out in Bill C-18, nor would it affect Prairie farmers' ability to forward-contract wheat or barley for delivery on an open market after August1.

Merchant's office is accepting contact information from farmers interested in the proposed suit. The statement of claim noted it's to be formally served on the federal government sometime within the next six months.

Related stories:
Conservatives' CWB bill clears Senate, royal assent, December 16, 2011
Suit over canola growers' lost laptop dropped, April 23, 2010
Farmers to sue CN, CPR over hopper car costs, November 6, 2009

Followed by .....

NDPleadership hopeful would undo wheat board change

A class action lawsuit was launched in Saskatoon Mondayseeking $15.4 billion in damages resulting from changes made by the Harpergovernment to the Canadian Wheat Board.

Plaintiff Duane Filson, a farmer, teacher and municipalpolitician from Woodrow, Saskatchewan represents a class that could include anyPrairie grain farmer who sold wheat or barley to the Canadian Wheat Board in2011 or 2012.

Merchant Law Group LLP launched the suit on farmers'behalf. Class action lawsuits must be certified by a judge before they canproceed, and the claims in the suit have not been proven in court.

Merchant expects the first court date to consider thecertification of the class in about two months.

"This lawsuit is not about the single desk [monopolymarketing system]," said Tony Merchant. "If you're going to makechanges, you have to compensate," Merchant said, noting that when thefederal government ended the Crow Rate subsidy for shipping grain by rail,farmers were compensated.

Documents filed in court say that farmers should becompensated for losing all of the Wheat Board's assets at the time thegovernment's changes took effect: $100 million in cash, over 3,000 rail cars,the prepaid purchase value of lake freighters for shipping grain by sea, anoffice building in Winnipeg and other intangible assets, as valued by expertsfor the purpose of the lawsuit. Part of the claim includes damages for lostprice premiums previously obtained with the selling power of the Board'smonopoly.

The Wheat Board had operated as a shared governanceorganization since 1998, with farmer-elected Directors constituting themajority of the representatives on its Board. Proceeds from the Board's saleswere returned to Prairie grain farmers.

Legislation that received royal assent December 15 endedthe wheat board's monopoly over marketing prairie wheat and barley. Theeight remaining farmer-elected Board members were dismissed, leaving five government-appointeddirectors in charge of the organization's future.

The Board continues to operate for the 2012 crop year andbeyond as a voluntary seller for Prairie grain farmers, who may now also sellto other private sector buyers in an open market.

After a five-year transition period, the governmentappointees who now manage operations will determine if the Wheat Board cancontinue to operate as a viable voluntary organization in an open market. If itcannot, it could be dissolved by the government altogether.

Changes ended farmers' control

The lawsuit argues that when the changes were made, solecontrol over the Wheat Board moved out of farmers' hands and into thegovernment's, despite the fact that it will continue to exist as a voluntaryseller. "A corporate dissolution requires surplus funds,proceeds and assets to be returned to appropriate creditors andstakeholders," the lawsuit argues. "The dissolution of the[farmer-controlled Wheat Board].… requires the return of all funds, proceedsand assets accumulated … back to the class, the rightful owners of the CWBvalue."

The lawsuit deems the legislation as having"unlawfully repurposed" tangible and intangible assets of farmers,causing $15.4 billion in estimated damages and removing all the value andbenefits derived from the previous marketing system.

Further, it argues that the government has"wrongfully and intentionally interfered with the business relations"between the plaintiff, the Wheat Board and the former farmer-elected Directors.The lawsuit claims a "breach of implied trust" to maintain the Wheat Board's assets to the benefit of the farmers it served, and claims that the newvoluntary Wheat Board controlled by the government has been "unjustlyenriched" by the changes.

"How can a voluntary Wheat Board function? What canthey offer?" Merchant said. "Economists say it isn't going to workand those assets will be dissipated."

"Farmers say give me my share right now. I don'twant to go into that new gamble," Merchant says.

"Our government has delivered marketing freedom for western Canadian farmers and we will continue to work with farmers to make surethe CWB remains a viable marketing option," said Agriculture MinisterGerry Ritz in a statement Monday.

"It's disappointing to see further misguided legalaction," the statement says, adding that this "baseless action"does not affect the arrival of an open market for prairie wheat and barley asof August 1, 2012.

And finally .....

ForImmediate Release

January 5, 2012

Former Directors for CWBDemocracy Instruct Legal Team

CWBRegion: “We feel thatasking a Federal Court Justice to quash the government’s appeal of the December7 decision is appropriate”, said Allen Oberg, former Chair of the CanadianWheat Board (CWB). “By ignoring the Federal Court of Canada decision theHarper government has again left us with no alternative.”

InDecember of 2011 Federal Court Justice Campbell ruled that the government isbound by the CWB's democratic process established by Parliament in 1998.Justice Campbell said that "(T)he minister must act democratically... Notadhering to these values is not only disrespectful, it is contrary tolaw." The intent of Parliament was "not to alter this structurewithout consultation and consent" according to Justice Campbell and the tensof thousands of western farmers that were familiar with Section 47.1 of the CWBAct.

Immediatelyafter the ruling however, the Harper government stated that it would not bebound by the law or the courts and the government moved ahead to implement BillC-18 which would destroy the single desk marketing advantages of the CWB. (There have apparently been three times in Canadian history when the Federalgovernment has ignored a ruling from the Federal Court, and all three haveoccurred since 2006 when the Harper government was installed.) At thesame time the government moved to appeal the Federal Court ruling.

“Webelieve that the Harper government should have to choose—either the governmentmoves ahead to dismantle the CWB without a vote of farmers, or they continuewith their efforts to reverse the decision at appeal—but they should not beable to do both at the same time,” continued Bill Toews, farmer inManitoba and former CWB Director.

“TheHarper government broke the law and insulted farmers when they took away thefarmers’ right to vote on changes to the CWB,” concluded Oberg. “Thegovernment’s action was not legal, fair or constructive, and the governmentcontinues to create a huge amount of uncertainty for the western graintrade. We are urging all farmers and Canadians in general to support ouractions by visiting www.friendsofcwb.ca and becoming personallyinvolved.”

Formore information:

AllenOberg, Forrestburg Alberta: 1-780-385-1124

Bill Woods, Eston, Saskatchewan: 1-306-962-4477

StewartWells, Swift Current, Saskatchewan: 1-306-773-6852

CamGoff, Hanley Saskatchewan: 1-306-544-2526

RodFlaman, Edenwold Saskatchewan: 1-306-771-2823

KyleKorneychuk, Pelly, Saskatchewan: 1-306-537-0950

JohnSandborn, Benito, Manitoba: 1-204- 539-2176

BillToews, Kane, Manitoba: 1-204-343-2002

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