http://www.thestar.com/Article/419826

GUANTANAMO DETAINEES RETURNED HOME

February 2004: Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed returned to Spain. He was sentenced Oct. 5, 2005, to six years for belonging to a terrorist group.

February 2004: Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane returned to Denmark. No charges.

March 2004: Three returned to France: Mustaq Ali Patel (freed on arrival), Ridouane Khalid (jailed) and Khaled Ben Mustafa (held under suspicion of terror activities).

March 2004: Rhuhel Ahmed, Asif Iqbal, Shafiq Rasul, Jamal al-Harith, Tarek Dergoul were returned to Britain. They were released to their communities.

March 2004: Seven Russians returned. They were briefly held in jail, then set free.

July 2004: Mourad Benchellali, Imad Kanouni, Nizar Sassi and Brahim Yadel were returned to France and are in jail.

July 2004: Mehdi Muhammad Ghezali released without charge to Sweden.

January 2005: Mamdouh Habib returned to Australia and released without charge.

February 2005: Feroz Abassi returned to Britain and released without charge.

March 2005: Martin Mubanga, Moazzam Begg, Richard Dean Belmar returned to Britain and released without charge.

April 2005: Mesut Sen and Moussa Zemmouri released into Belgian custody.

March 2007: David Hicks returned to Australia to serve a nine-month sentence. He was released Dec. 29, 2007.

Compiled by Star library staff
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Accused war criminal wouldn’t be a risk if returned, his U.S. military lawyer tells Commons committee
Apr 30, 2008 04:30 AM
Michelle Shephard
National Security Reporter

OTTAWA–Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr is being tried for the sins of his father and would not pose a risk if returned home to Canada, his U.S. military lawyer told a parliamentary committee yesterday.

“Omar’s story is one of victimization by everyone who has ever had authority over him and punishment for misdeeds of others,” U.S. navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler told members of the foreign affairs committee, urging them to intervene in the case as other Western governments have done for their citizens.

“It’s not a question of giving this young man a second chance. He has never had a first one. The only blessing he’s had is being born in Canada and this country now represents his only hope.”

Kuebler argued Khadr would be convicted if he goes to trial for war crimes – not because the evidence will prove his guilt, but because the special U.S. military commissions trying Guantanamo cases are designed to ensure convictions.

The commissions were created under the Military Commissions Act, signed into law in October 2006. So far only 14 detainees, including Khadr, have been charged under it.

The hour-long meeting yesterday before the subcommittee on international human rights marks the first time Canadian politicians have held a public hearing to discuss Khadr’s continued detention and upcoming trial.

Now 21, Toronto-born Khadr has been in U.S. custody since July 27, 2002, following a firefight in Afghanistan. The Pentagon alleges Khadr threw a grenade that fatally wounded U.S. Sgt. Christopher Speer, although recently disclosed documents question his culpability.

The committee intends to call at least a dozen witnesses, including Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, Liberal Senator Roméo Dallaire and Louise Arbour, the United Nations high commissioner of human rights and former Canadian Supreme Court justice.

The unconfirmed list of witnesses also includes Khadr’s relatives, who have been vilified in Canada since admitting ties to Al Qaeda’s elite and condemning Canada’s culture and foreign policy.

Kuebler spared no criticism of the family yesterday and said they were largely to blame for Canada’s reluctance to call for Khadr’s repatriation. An Angus Reid Strategies poll released last week showed that only 33 per cent of Canadians believed Khadr would receive a fair trial if tried at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, but less than half of those polled wanted him brought home to face justice.

Kuebler said Canadians are also likely worried Khadr would pose a danger to Canada if returned.

“Such concerns are understandable – understandable in light of the deplorable and offensive behaviour of certain members of the Khadr family, understandable in light of the lies that have been told about Omar and his actions in the July 2002 firefight in Afghanistan, and understandable in light of Canadians’ justifiable anger with the actions of Omar’s father.”

Khadr’s father, Ahmed Said, was accused of being an Al Qaeda financier and raising his children to fight for the terrorist organization. He was killed by Pakistani forces in October 2003.

But Kuebler said Khadr now views himself as a “victim of the decisions made for him by his family,” and does not have the “dreams of a dangerous jihadist” but wants to get a job and “begin living, as best he can, the ordinary and normal life of a Canadian citizen.”

Khadr was 15 when he was shot and captured. His lawyers have argued international law protects child soldiers, which is why no one under the age of 18 has ever been tried for war crimes. Prosecutors counter that the Military Commissions Act does not prescribe a minimum age for prosecution. U.S. army Col. Peter Brownback, the judge presiding, has yet to rule on the defence’s motion that the case should be dismissed due to Khadr’s age.

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Tories have no confidence in Elections Canada

BILL CURRY AND GLORIA GALLOWAY

From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail

April 29, 2008 at 7:51 PM EDT

OTTAWA — The Conservative government voted no-confidence in Elections Canada Tuesday, raising the stakes in the government’s battle with the federal body tasked with ensuring free and fair elections.

All Conservative MPs in the Commons voted Tuesday against a Bloc Québécois motion calling on the House “to express its full and complete confidence in Elections Canada and the Commissioner of Elections Canada.” The motion passed 152-117 with the combined support of all three opposition parties.

Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff said it was shameful the government could not support the motion.

“I find it unbelievable that a governing party in Canada would refuse to support a motion expressing confidence in the institution that keeps our country’s elections fair… And I think Canadian citizens will find it unbelievable,” Mr. Ignatieff told reporters Tuesday.

The motion is the latest attempt by the opposition to capitalize on this month’s raid on Conservative Party headquarters by Elections Canada officials, who executed a court-approved search warrant with the assistance of the RCMP.

The warrant and a sworn affidavit allege that the Conservatives exceeded the national spending limit by $1.1-million during the 2005-2006 campaign through transactions between local ridings and the national headquarters to cover advertising costs and produce rebates for local candidates who were not entitled to receive them.

In explaining their opposition to the Bloc motion, Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers pointed Tuesday to examples that they say illustrate that Elections Canada is targeting the Tories while turning a blind eye to similar practices from other parties.

“The Conservative Party has followed all the laws,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons. “In fact, the Conservative Party has used practices, as has been demonstrated in this House, that have been used for years, allowed by Elections Canada, and used by every single party.”

Tuesday’s vote occurred after Elections Canada closed for the day, and no one was available to comment. The agency has so far declined comment on matters relating to its search of Conservative Party headquarters.

The vote of no-confidence in Canada’s elections watchdog had at least one provincial elections official scratching her head as to how the government’s battle with Elections Canada will end.

“I’m not a political historian, but I’m not aware of this having occurred in the past,” said Linda Johnson, the deputy chief electoral officer of British Columbia. “I’m not aware of that ever happening in British Columbia, so what it means to the agency? I really couldn’t say. I’m having trouble wrapping my head around how we would respond to something like that. Certainly any agency wants to know that it is respected by the House that it serves.”

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Harper’s biofuels policy sputters out on the Hill
Use of food crops for fuel has some MPs urging caution and others expressing concern about a ‘global food catastrophe’

BILL CURRY AND KEVIN CARMICHAEL

From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail

April 30, 2008 at 5:06 AM EDT

OTTAWA — When the Harper government made support for biofuels its biggest environmental policy, the aggressive push to produce gasoline from farmers’ crops received broad support from opposition parties. A year later, that political consensus in favour of biofuels is suddenly breaking down on Parliament Hill.

At $2.2-billion, federal support for Canadian biofuels is the government’s most expensive environmental program. It had also been the least controversial. But a series of high-profile international attacks on the use of food crops for fuel has some MPs questioning the impact of biofuels on rising food prices and social havoc among the world’s poor.

“Canada should put a moratorium on subsidizing biofuels and should advocate that other Western countries follow suit,” said Liberal MP Keith Martin, his party’s critic for international development.

“The realistic thing to do is put a moratorium on it now so people can actually wrap their heads around the facts. The current biofuel strategy is deeply misguided,” said Dr. Martin, expressing a view that is starkly out of sync with his own party.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion made headlines in Regina last year with his call for a doubling of federal ethanol targets to 10 per cent by 2010, twice the 5-per-cent target in a government bill currently before the House of Commons.

The government legislation was debated yesterday and is expected to pass with the support of most Liberal and Bloc Québécois MPs. While Dr. Martin’s hard line on biofuels is in the minority among Liberals, there are clear signs that political support for ethanol is shifting. All three opposition parties joined forces to amend the bill in committee, placing a short leash on Canada’s biofuels plan. Just one year after it becomes law, a parliamentary committee will be forced to review the environmental and economic impacts triggered by the 5-per-cent target.

Wavering political support could ultimately mean Canada will have to import ethanol to meet its targets. The biofuels industry has argued that legal targets are urgently needed to encourage Canadian farmers to get into the business and boost domestic supply.

When the legislation was briefly debated in the House on Monday, NDP MPs were overwhelmingly negative toward the government’s approach, expressing concern that biofuels could trigger “a global food catastrophe.”

The Bloc is supporting the government bill, but that party’s environment critic literally squirmed this week when asked whether he supports his party’s position.

“We have a party line. The vote will be in a few days. I don’t support corn-based ethanol,” said Bernard Bigras. Asked whether he was uncomfortable with his party’s position, he offered a polite “no comment” and left.

Rising food costs

As agricultural policy, creating gasoline out of crops such as corn is widely praised as a source of new revenue for farmers. Politicians also love biofuels from an energy-security standpoint in the hope of reducing dependence on foreign oil.

Most vehicles on the road can already run on gas that contains as much as 10-per-cent ethanol, a common type of biofuel, and many new cars and trucks can run on 85-per-cent ethanol.

Until now, the ethanol debate has largely focused on whether government support is good environmental policy. The fuel burns cleaner, meaning fewer greenhouse-gas emissions. But critics argue that once the emissions from farm tractors, transport trucks and fertilizers are taken into account, the benefits of devoting federal climate-change dollars are questionable.

What’s new are the alarm bells ringing from the developing world, where demand for food and biofuels has triggered large-scale agriculture expansion at a cost to the environment and food supply.

World Vision announced last week it is cutting 1.5 million people from its food-aid program because of rising costs. Advocates on the front lines say agricultural expansion triggered by North American and European demand for biofuels is at least part of the problem.

While some Liberal MPs are expressing doubts about biofuels, Liberal environment critic David McGuinty insists his party is committed to campaigning on Mr. Dion’s 10-per-cent ethanol target by 2010.

He said he is aware of the recent criticism of ethanol, but believes most of it is unfounded. Liberals are focused, he said, on ensuring federal ethanol policy moves as fast as possible away from using corn and other food to make gas and toward new sources of ethanol, such as straw.

He says biofuels are only one factor among many for rising food prices, citing climate change, desertification and mismanagement by governments in the developing world.

“Everybody’s screaming about ‘food for fuel,’ ” he lamented. “It’s too bad we can’t have a rational debate in this country.”

NDP Leader Jack Layton, who was ahead of Mr. Dion in calling for a 10-per-cent ethanol content in Canadian gas, now wants MPs to take a second look at the issue in light of new concern from the likes of the United Nations and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

“Rather than stampeding off in one direction with a quick fix, let’s make sure we are actually doing the fix here,” said Mr. Layton, expressing concern that setting a target without clear rules on how it will be met is risky.

Mr. McGuinty said he suspects the NDP is engaging in left-wing rabblerousing with an eye on politicizing the rising price of food. However, the sudden clamour around the role of ethanol subsidies comes from voices that are rarely dismissed.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank - the twin institutions that insist that developing countries adopt free-market policies to qualify for grants and loans - are leading the charge to reverse food inflation.

While acknowledging there are many factors contributing to the price surge, both institutions singled out government subsidies for biofuel as playing a significant role.

For Canada’s producers of ethanol and biodiesel, the shift in public sentiment risks years of lobbying for incentives similar to those offered by governments in the United States and Europe.

“The issues that come up have nothing to do with food supply,” said Gord Quaiattini, president of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, blaming the rise in oil prices as the main culprit.

Canada and the U.S. export more grain than they consume, undermining the argument that rich countries are stealing from the world food supply to fuel their cars and trucks, Mr. Quaiattini said.

“The notion that somehow we are not providing for the world because of what we are doing in biofuels is just not on, it’s just not factually correct,” he said.

Mr. Quaiattini’s association lobbied hard in the lead-up to the multibillion-dollar support for biofuels in the 2007 budget. Television and billboard advertising was everywhere. The association hired a long-time confidant of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Ken Boessenkool, to lobby the Prime Minister’s Office and other departments.

The lobbying against ethanol is ramping up this week as environmental and foreign-aid groups stage a cross-country tour featuring activists from some of the world’s poorest nations. Biofuel critics from as far away as Ethiopia, Mali, the Philippines and Paraguay will warn Canadian lawmakers that the Western thirst for “green fuels” is costing human lives.

Soledad Vogliano is among the dozen or so blitzing the country. Speaking by phone last week as she prepared to leave her Argentine home, Ms. Vogliano said rising demand for biofuels and food is proving a deadly combination in her country and many others.

“We have a humanitarian crisis,” she said, claiming that indigenous people in northern Argentina are dying of malnutrition as they lose their land to agricultural expansion. “[These are] the kind of cases we will see more and more with the expansion of the demand for agri-business with agri-fuels.”

Next generation of fuels

In Canada, Environment Minister John Baird is monitoring the food-versus-fuel debate and insists his government is taking the right approach. He points out that of the $2.2-billion his government has set aside to develop biofuels, $500-million is targeted toward speeding up the transition away from using food crops and into the “next generation” technology of fuel from straw and agricultural waste, such as cornstalks.

The biofuels industry and politicians have long defended corn-based ethanol as a first step toward this next generation of fuels - the most prominent is called cellulosic ethanol.

Continued on Page 3…

Conservatives are putting their money where their mouth is, he said, in order to speed that new technology and make Canada a world leader.

“People don’t eat cornstalk and agricultural waste, and that’s why we’re so excited about cellulosic ethanol and the new generation of biofuels,” he said. “Our dependence on foreign oil is considerable, and if we want to move away from that, there’s no easy answers.”

Roger Samson, the executive director of REAP-Canada, an agricultural research group focused on the environment and foreign aid, says the link between food shortages and biofuels is black and white.

He points to UN food crop data to argue global food production of coarse grains such as corn is increasing, yet the world’s end-of-season stocks were down 5.2 per cent.

“It’s completely unsustainable. … We cannot expand the consumption of food crops for fuel or we’re going to starve a lot of people,” he said. “It’s a nightmare scenario.”

Tories and ethanol

Part of the federal government’s $2.2-billion support for biofuels has gone to a fund called the ecoAgriculture Biofuels Capital Initiative, designed to encourage the growth of Canadian facilities that can take crops from farmers and make ethanol.

There are 14 facilities producing biofuels in Canada and six others are being built.

The first to receive funding under the program was an operation in Unity, Sask., that will produce ethanol out of wheat grown specifically for ethanol. It is in the riding of Conservative Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.

Mr. Ritz is not the first Harper minister whose riding has benefited from the government’s support for ethanol.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty inserted incentives for consumers to buy E85 cars built near his Ontario riding. That policy has since been revoked.

Conservative ministers continue to show symbolic support for E85 - a blend of gasoline that contains 85-per-cent ethanol that is hard to find in Canada and can only be used in certain new vehicles. Most cars on the road are not equipped to handle gas that contains more than 10 per cent ethanol.

Environment Minister John Baird is among the ministers who are driven around Ottawa in an E85 vehicle. Members of Parliament are debating a government bill that would require all gasoline sold in Canada to contain at least 5 per cent ethanol.

The trouble with ethanol

Ethanol eases dependence on petroleum, but it isn’t all that clean-burning. Now, rising concerns about the use of food crops for fuel has some MPs calling for a moratorium on biofuel subsidies.

Corn growers point to increased yield

The U.S. corn crop in 2007 was the highest in U.S. history, according to the National Corn Growers Association.

2007 U.S. CORN DEMAND

TOTAL SUPPLY 14.4 billion bushels

Feed: 42%

Ethanol: 22%

Export: 17%

Surplus: 10%

Other Domestic: 9%

SOURCES: NATIONAL CORN GROWERS ASSOCIATION, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS, USDA

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Ontario can’t afford equalization: McGuinty

Updated Wed. Apr. 30 2008 2:40 PM ET

The Canadian Press

TORONTO — Canada’s equalization program that helps poorer provinces is “perverse” and Ontario — struggling with the current economic slowdown — is providing far too much to the federal coffers that fund it, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday.

A TD Bank report released Tuesday that warned Ontario could slip into have-not status by 2010 and qualify for equalization payments shows the new formula adopted by the federal Conservative government last year isn’t working properly, McGuinty said.

“What the TD paper does is allow us to revisit the perverse dimensions of the existing fiscal network that ties us to the rest of the country,” McGuinty said before a Liberal cabinet meeting. “We have a system in place that to my way of thinking is clearly unfair to Ontario taxpayers.”

McGuinty said Ontario sends the federal government $20 to $21 billion a year more than it gets back in transfers and services, adding the province can’t afford to be so “generous” when it’s bearing the brunt of the slowdown caused by soaring energy prices, a high dollar and a slumping U.S. economy.

“It’s just perverse to say that somehow we are in need, while at the same time we’re sending $20 billion to the rest of the country. It just doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

“It will make (the downturn) more pronounced. The impact will be felt more deeply than it need be in our province.”

Ontario says its taxpayers contribute 41.5 per cent of total federal revenues but the province receives only 31 per cent of federal spending, so it sends more money to Ottawa than its per capita share and it gets less than its per capita share in spending from the federal government.

Equalization is a near $12-billion federal wealth-sharing program that provides funds to poorer provinces to ensure they can provide basic government services at a level comparable to wealthier provinces, but McGuinty complains some receiving provinces are doing better than Ontario.

When the TD report came out Tuesday, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who had been warning for weeks that Ontario was on the verge of becoming a have-not province, once again called on the province to cut corporate taxes.

McGuinty said Wednesday that unlike other provinces who are receiving equalization payments, Ontario can’t afford to cut taxes because it’s sending Ottawa too much money.

“Well, some of my colleagues are in a position to reduce their corporate income taxes because we sent them 20 billion Ontario dollars,” he said. “If we could keep a few more of our dollars, we might be able to entertain that kind of a conversation.”

However, Ontario’s opposition parties accused McGuinty of using his complaints about the equalization formula to deflect attention from the fact the province’s economy is falling far behind the rest of Canada because of Liberal government policies.

“Mr. McGuinty finds a new diversion every week. I’m sure the weather is coming soon and probably the metric system is going to be blamed by him before too long,” said Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory.

“He’s got to step up and accept some responsibility on taxes, on regulations, on the message that his government is sending that this is not the place in Canada in which to invest and create jobs.”

The New Democrats noted there had been thousands more layoffs announced in Ontario already this week, and said McGuinty must do more to protect jobs and the economy instead of looking to blame someone else.

“Rather than continuing to whine at the federal government or whine at other provinces, I think the McGuinty government should get down to business and start making better policy decisions for Ontario,” said NDP Leader Howard Hampton

“Is the McGuinty government really saying that the federal government should change the tax system so that they take less money from Ontario? How fair would that be for the rest of Canada?”

Ontario finance ministry officials noted that even if the province qualified for equalization payments — TD said Ontario could get $400 million in 2010 and up to $1.3 billion in 2011 — the federal government would simply claw back any money by reducing health transfer payments to Ontario.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/419837

Agencies scramble, but province says funds will be available
Apr 30, 2008 04:30 AM
Laurie Monsebraaten
Social Justice Reporter

Emergency housing agencies across Ontario are scrambling to help families facing eviction in the wake of news this week that funding for the province’s rent bank program has officially run out.

“We are really in shock,” said Gladys Wong of the Neighbourhood Information Post who co-ordinates eight rent bank programs in Toronto. “For low-income families dealing with a sudden illness, death or job loss, this program has been a life line. Without the rent bank, who will these families turn to?”

The program, which allows low-income households facing short-term cash problems to borrow money interest-free for rent, helps people who are not on welfare and not living in subsidized housing. It was lauded last year by Premier Dalton McGuinty for “helping families stay in their homes during tough times.” Since it began in 2004, the program has provided $18.8 million to help 13,200 households avoid eviction.

The City of Toronto received notice from the housing ministry yesterday that the rent bank is not being funded for 2008-09, said Councillor Joe Mihevc, chair of the community development and recreation committee.

“This is one of the most cost-effective programs in terms of keeping low-income working families housed,” said Mihevc. “Not to renew the rent bank with stable funding makes absolutely no sense.”

There was no money allocated to the program in last month’s provincial budget.

However, in an email yesterday, a spokesperson for Housing Minister Jim Watson said the program is not ending and that funding would be made available.

To questions in the Legislature, Watson said the government is “very proud of the program.”

“It gives people the dignity of a roof over their heads,” he said, adding that it has helped the province save $7.7 million in emergency shelter costs. “We will be there to help those individuals and to help those service managers by providing funding, as we have since 2004.”

Neither Watson nor his office would explain why the government is not prepared to allocate a specific amount to the program this year.

Last year, the province allocated $4.8 million to rent bank programs, including $1.2 million in Toronto.

One of those helped was James Thiruna, 48, a computer programmer who is delivering sandwiches part-time for $8 an hour because he can’t find work in his field.

Thiruna, who pays $700 a month for an apartment above a store, said that when his car broke down in 2006 and needed $550 in repairs, he was facing eviction until he was able to secure a $700 no-interest loan from the rent bank.

Thiruna repaid the loan in $50 monthly instalments last year. But about three months ago he got behind again and took out another loan to avoid eviction.

“I have a very good record. I always pay them back,” he said.

Landlords like the program too, said Bob Deb, a property manager for GIC Investments. “When someone gets several months behind in their rent and I know they have an intention to pay, I refer them to the rent bank and we don’t evict them,” he said.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/419846

In wake of raid, Conservative MPs vote against Bloc motion to express confidence in agency
Apr 30, 2008 04:30 AM
Tonda MacCharles
Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA–Conservatives have launched an all-out assault on Elections Canada’s credibility, voting against a motion to express confidence in the independent agency.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper yesterday charged that the agency “broke its own rules” with a raid two weeks ago on his party’s headquarters, but was absent hours later when the entire Conservative caucus voted against a Bloc Québécois motion of confidence in Elections Canada – a move deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff denounced as “shameful.”

The motion passed, supported by Liberal, Bloc and New Democrat MPs, 152 to 117.

“We have confidence in the Elections Canada Act,” said Dimitri Soudas, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister, stressing “act.”

“We don’t have confidence in the interpretation Elections Canada has given” to rules governing election advertising spending by the Conservative party, Soudas said, referring to the “in and out” affair.

Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon, Harper’s political minister for Quebec, characterized the government’s decision to vote against the Bloc motion as refusing to play “political games” with a controversy and with “this institution.”

The motion is symbolic, meant to highlight the Tories’ difficulties.

“It means that they don’t have any respect for what they are, a government, and that Mr. Harper doesn’t feel at ease with civil servants, with independent organisms – organizations or office, with journalists, with oppositions – in a word with democracy,” said Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe of the Conservatives’ vote.

It was Harper’s first appearance in the House of Commons since publication of allegations that his party deliberately schemed to surpass legal limits on elections advertising by about $1.1 million.

The party is alleged to have shuffled money to pay for national ads through the accounts of local candidates, and then claimed tax-funded rebates for expenses that were never really incurred by local candidates.

The allegations were detailed in a sworn affidavit filed by the office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections – the enforcement arm of Elections Canada – in support of a search warrant to raid Conservative party headquarters in Ottawa.

Harper, in his most direct challenge to date of Elections Canada’s actions, said it is “strange that Elections Canada had one practice for the Conservative party and one for other parties.”

“In fact, the Conservative Party of Canada has never refused any documentation to Elections Canada,” the Prime Minister said.

Elections Canada says it sought the search warrant because it was facing reluctant and hostile witnesses in its investigation. It says up to 18 candidates and agents refused to be interviewed or to produce documents at the urging of Conservative party officials.

Harper told the Commons his party’s own lawsuit challenging Elections Canada’s denial of rebates to local candidates would have required it to provide the very documentation sought by Elections Canada in the raid.

“And we believe as a consequence that raid broke Elections Canada’s own rules,” Harper said.

Harper left other questions to backbencher Pierre Poilievre, who tabled a 318-page Elections Canada “investigators’ manual,” citing its “procedures for access to documentation.”

That document says: “It is the suspect’s prerogative to refuse to produce or remit documents. In such cases, investigators must advise the suspect that they accept the decision and record the matter accordingly in the statement report. They should also advise the suspect that the matter will be reported to the Commissioner who may consider requesting a court order to obtain access to these documents.”

Conservative party lawyers say the party was not “advised” of the referral to the commissioner or the intention to seek a search warrant before Elections Canada “stormed into the party’s office,” said Poilievre.

He called it “a very critical, very serious breach of its own laws.”

NDP Leader Jack Layton said the Conservatives’ approach “betrays a certain arrogance that I guess Canadians are getting used to with Stephen Harper.”

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/419730

Apr 29, 2008 08:09 PM
Joan Bryden
THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA–Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have refused to join in a parliamentary show of confidence in Elections Canada, the independent watchdog charged with ensuring electoral fairness and honesty.

Embroiled in a protracted dispute with the agency over alleged election financing fraud, they voted against a Bloc Quebecois motion proclaiming “full and complete confidence” in Elections Canada.

The motion also called for a vote of confidence in William Corbett, the elections commissioner who authorized the RCMP raid on Tory headquarters amid an investigation into the so-called in-and-out scheme.

The prime minister continued Tuesday to insist his party has done nothing wrong and has been unfairly targeted by Elections Canada.

In a vote of 152-117, Elections Canada received the support of all three opposition parties.

They accused the government of tarnishing Elections Canada’s internationally acclaimed reputation and undermining public trust in the democratic process.

The organization also trains election officials around the world and has monitored contentious votes in places like Haiti, Iraq and Ukraine.

“I find it unbelievable that a governing party in Canada would refuse to support a motion expressing confidence in the institution that keeps our country’s elections fair,” said deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

Ignatieff noted other parties have had their share of disputes with Elections Canada over the years and acknowledged that the agency is “not infallible.” Nevertheless, he said it deserves to be respected and supported and he called the Conservatives’ refusal to do so “shameful” and “dangerous.”

“They are the anchor of our democracy,” Ignatieff said.

But Harper continued to insist his party has “followed all the laws.”

“In fact, the Conservative party has used practices . . . that have been used for years, allowed by Elections Canada, and used by every single party,” he told the Commons.

Moreover, Harper said his party has never refused to provide any documentation requested by the agency. Consequently, he said the raid on Tory headquarters was unnecessary and “broke Elections Canada’s own rules.”

Elections Canada alleges that the Conservative party funnelled money through 67 local candidates to pay for national advertising during the 2006 election campaign. The watchdog alleges that the scheme allowed the party to exceed its national spending limit by $1.3 million and allowed individual candidates to claim rebates on expenses they hadn’t actually incurred.

Under the scheme, the party would transfer money to a candidate’s campaign and the candidate would send the money right back to party headquarters, ostensibly to pay for a share of national advertisements.

The Conservative party has gone to court to contest Elections Canada’s refusal to give rebates to Tory candidates for those ad expenses.

During debate Tuesday, Pierre Poilievre, the Tories’ designated point man on the issue, waved around a binder full of examples of other parties transferring money to candidates and of candidates claiming national advertisements as local campaign expenses.

Opposition MPs acknowledged that neither practice is illegal or uncommon.

But they said no other party has ever employed them on such a scale or with the deliberate intent to circumvent the national spending limits on parties. Moreover, they said no other party has compelled candidates to take part in ads which had so little or no value to their local campaigns.

Ignatieff said the proof that no other party has engaged in the same activity lies in the fact that no other party has been raided by the RCMP on behalf of Elections Canada.

Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe said the Tories’ refusal to express confidence in Elections Canada is typical of Harper, who has fired the heads of a number of independent agencies – including the head of Canada’s nuclear safety watchdog, the ethics commissioner and the environment commissioner – when they’ve dared to disagree with him.

“Mr. Harper doesn’t feel at ease with civil servants, with independent organizations or offices, with journalists, with the opposition – in a word, with democracy,” Duceppe said.

NDP Leader Jack Layton echoed that view, saying the Conservatives are displaying “a once again typical arrogant attitude towards the institutions that we’ve created here in Canada to look after our affairs.”

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Locals under pressure to send cash and staples to family members back home; food bank braces for drop in donations

KATE HAMMER AND ANTHONY REINHART

From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail

April 29, 2008 at 4:37 AM EDT

The ripples of the global rice shortage have reached Toronto, as many of the city’s immigrants are under pressure to dig deeper into shallow pockets to send more money and bags of rice home to relatives in the hardest-hit countries.

A few days ago at iRemit, a Filipino remittance agency with offices in Cabbagetown, immigrants lined up to send precious rations of their paycheques to family members in Manila and Quezon City.

The towering rows of rice that normally fill the aisles at Hua Sheng Supermarket on Spadina Avenue have shrunk, and the orange and yellow signs that advertise 16-kilogram bags of jasmine rice were a patchwork of numbers cut and repasted as prices have climbed.

Food banks across the city have seen a drop in donations from the food industry and braced for increased demand.

And at the Philippine Market, a narrow variety store on Wellesley Street East, owner Emma Roller had only three remaining eight-kilogram bags of rice after customers began buying up to six at a time to ship to relatives in the Philippines.

“It almost feels like we are having the shortage here because they keep buying them up,” she said.

Filipino immigrants have a tradition of filling boxes, called balikbayan boxes, with gifts and treats including corned beef, coffee and sugar, and sending them to friends and family at home. But as rice prices in the Philippines have soared, and rationing and violent protests have ensued, more and more of the boxes are being filled with rice.

Ms. Roller said she intends to ship a bag of rice in addition to the $300 she sends every month. “They’re asking me for more, but it’s all I can afford,” she said, staring mournfully at the three remaining woven sacks.

Some immigrants, like Christopher Sorio, who has been sending money to his mother in the Philippines for 18 years, are considering sending rice in lieu of cash because the cost of rice there has become so inflated.

“Every time I call them, they tell me how the prices are changing from one day to another, about the lineup they have to stand in and the rationing that they encounter,” he said. “In poorer countries, it’s not like here; we eat rice three times a day, even at breakfast, because it’s not so expensive. We need it to live.”

The irony of Torontonians having to ship Asian-grown rice back to the Philippines is not lost on Crisanto Benedicto, a Filipino-born Mississauga man who studied agriculture at university in his birth country in the 1970s.

Mr. Benedicto said he and his fellow researchers took note, even then, of shifting global food patterns that saw the Philippines losing rice-producing land to more lucrative crops and development, while losing rural residents to urbanization. By the mid-1980s, the country had become a net importer of rice, despite its ideal growing conditions.

“We found out then that if we don’t pay attention to this matter … the shortages would be very grave,” Mr. Benedicto said this week.

The financial and emotional burden on Toronto’s immigrant population has become a shared concern among a diverse group of community leaders.

“It’s really, really dragging down the consciousness and the life of the people here,” said Busha Taa, president of the Ethiopian Community Association of Toronto. The pressure to send more and more money can corrode family relations, he said, and “whenever you eat, you think about them.”

In Ethiopia, an East African country that has faced previous food crises, the cost of staple food items has skyrocketed, the price of wheat nearly doubling. Teff, a grain used to make a popular sourdough bread called injera, has also seen wild volatility in prices. The government, like those of other affected countries, recently banned the export of cereals in a bid to put a lid on rising food costs.

Many of the 45,000 Ethiopian immigrants who live in Toronto have been the only financial lifeline to family back home coping with the rising costs.

Dr. Taa, who works as a researcher at the University of Toronto and lectures on sociology at the University of Guelph, said his 16-year-old daughter called him this week to send money home to Ethiopia, where Easter celebrations were under way and putting added strain on the food supply.

The reverberations of a globally strained food supply have begun to affect native-born Torontonians, too. The Daily Bread Food Bank, which serves 75,000 people in the Greater Toronto Area every month, has seen a significant drop in bread and pasta donations and a strain on its $1-million annual budget, which relies heavily on the affordability of rice.

“There is concern for the clients, that we’ll receive more clients and won’t be able to give them enough food,” said Gail Nyberg, the food bank’s executive director. “We’re bracing for it.”

Meanwhile, as economists predicted this week that food inflation will soon hit Canada, bags of rice continued to fly off the shelves of local grocers, to be stored in the cupboards of wary Torontonians or embark on transcontinental journeys to reach the kitchens of faraway kin.

At all five T&T Supermarket locations throughout Toronto, rice sales were up 20 per cent, and at the Hua Sheng Supermarket, sales were up 15 per cent and climbing.

“People are talking about it a lot, they are worried,” said Shiyong Chen, manager of the Hua Sheng.

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SCOTT SUTHERLAND

THE CANADIAN PRESS

April 28, 2008 at 8:53 PM EDT

VICTORIA — The B.C. government introduced legislation Monday for its carbon tax that will see a cut in greenhouse gas output and an increase for those heating their homes or driving their vehicles.

The phased-in tax that was promised in the February budget will start Canada Day.

“Bill 37 introduces a ground-breaking, revenue-neutral carbon tax that will encourage all British Columbian families and businesses to lower their carbon footprint,” said Finance Minister Carole Taylor as she introduced the Carbon Tax Act 2008.

Ms. Taylor told MLAs and the public galleries filled with green activists, climate change advocates and public service tax experts that the carbon tax will help meet the goal of reducing emissions by 33 per cent by 2020.

The new tax will impose a surcharge of $10 a metric tonne of carbon dioxide emissions in the first year, climbing to $30 a tonne by 2012.

At service station pumps across the province that will translate to a price increase of about 2.5 cents a litre of gasoline and about 2.75 cents a litre of diesel fuel starting July 1.

By 2012 the increase to a litre of gasoline will be about 7.25 cents a litre.

On the home heating front, it will mean an immediate 50-cent-a-gigajoule jump in the price of natural gas and an increase of more than 2.75 cents a litre of furnace oil.

Ms. Taylor said the tax will be as broad-based as possible, taking into account existing limitations to measurement and will apply to virtually all emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

Those emissions account for about 70 per cent of B.C.’s current greenhouse gas output.

Key to the tax legislation is a requirement that it be “revenue neutral.”

“It will require the minister of finance … to ensure that all of the dollars that come in from a carbon tax are returned to the people and the businesses of B.C. through tax cuts,” Ms. Taylor said. “It will be the law.”

The government estimates that in the first three years alone the carbon tax will generate $1.849-billion in revenue.

The new tax has won over a coalition of 16 environmental groups, many of which sent representatives to the B.C. capital for the introduction of the legislation.

“When it comes to action on climate change, B.C.’s decision to put a price on carbon emissions makes it a leader,” said Ian Bruce, a spokesman for the David Suzuki Foundation.

Also present were members of the B.C. branch of the Sierra Club, the Pembina Institute, the Western Canada Wilderness Committee and the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association in Victoria.

“British Columbia is leading not just Canada, but the world, in this issue,” Ms. Taylor said. “We have looked everywhere to find another carbon tax that is as broad-based … we can’t find any other model in the world that is so comprehensive.”

She also noted that the legislation will protect low-income British Columbians, who will receive a quarterly tax credit.

While a carbon tax is supported in a general way by the B.C. Opposition, the New Democrat environment critic had reservations about whether Bill 37 will be effective .

“Will it be fair to all British Columbians, and is it a tax that will actually lead to a reduction in emissions?” Shane Simpson asked. “What we’ve seen so far, with the government’s cap and trade bill, was a piece of vacuous legislation.”

Mr. Simpson said outlying rural and northern areas in B.C. have very real concerns about being unduly penalized by the new carbon tax.

“It’s very disconcerting that the government is ramming this stuff through when it probably isn’t going to be effective.”

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IAN BAILEY

Globe and Mail Update

April 29, 2008 at 2:43 PM EDT

VANCOUVER — The Liberal government introduced legislation Tuesday to create 11 new parks and 70 new conservancies in a move provincial Environment Minister Barry Penner called the largest single creation of protected areas in B.C. history.

The land protected under Bill 38, the Protected Areas of British Columbia (Conservancies and Parks) Amendment Act 2008, would cover an area about twice the size of Prince Edward Island.

The Liberals announced their plans on Earth Day, but the legislation provides details, including specifics on the locations of the protected land.

The bill doubles the number of conservancies to 135 and also brings to 604 the number of so-called Class-A parks in the province. Six new parks are located in the Morice region of northern B.C.; one on the Central Coast and four in the Okanagan-Shuswap region.

Asked whether the NDP would back the bill, Opposition Environment Critic Shane Simpson said he was poring over the text of the legislation this morning.

“We’re looking in principle to support the creation of the parks and conservancies,” Mr. Simpson said from Victoria. “We’re looking at the details to ensure these areas are protected in the substance of the legislation.”

Though there are protections for both parks and conservancies, some minor commercial activities are allowed in conservancies, but excluded from parks.

About 14 per cent of B.C. – or 13.5-million hectares – of the province are now protected.