Democracy gone Astray: Sunday, January 08, 2012

Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.

This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Sunday, January 08, 2012

Yes, Americans Give Us Money to Protest the Pipeline. So What?

Over the last few months, some of the oil industry's biggest fans have made what they think are startling revelations about us.

They've discovered that Americans give us money. And they say this money forced us to talk about the pollution and destruction that come along with tar sands extraction.

They think we're ashamed of this. We're not. But we are ashamed of something. We're ashamed of what their friends in the oil industry are doing to our climate, to Canada's international reputation, to northern Alberta, and what they would like to do to northern British Columbia, too.

So let's burst their bubble.

Do we take money from Americans? Yup. It's roughly 10 per cent of our annual budget.

Did this money make us sound the alarm on what their friends are doing? Nope. Funnily enough, Canadian environmentalists objected to Canadian environmental destruction long before we saw one greenback.

Now that's out of the way, let's talk about the real issue.

Charities work to fix problems. Often, these problems -- starvation, human rights abuses, humanitarian disasters -- are abroad. So Canadians give to charities that work abroad: World Vision, Médécins Sans Frontières, Amnesty International, The Red Cross.

Northern Manitoba residents are desperately hoping for some cold weather, because milder than normal temperatures are leaving the opening of northern ice roads in doubt.

Many people in remote northern communities use ice roads every winter to get groceries and other essential supplies transported by truck from urban centres like Winnipeg.

Some also drive on the roads to buy their own groceries, which they say would cost twice as much at home.

"Winter roads are a necessity with the high costs of living up north, and we all depend on the winter roads," said Irma Harper of St. Theresa Point, Man., who was buying supplies in Winnipeg on Saturday.

The seasonal roads, which are built on frozen lakes as well as land, take some time to prepare, and in a typical year are open from mid-January until March.

But above-normal temperatures across much of Manitoba so far this winter have northern residents nervous that this year's ice road season could be cut short, or the roads may not be built at all.

MOSCOW - Russians frustrated with both Vladimir Putin and the nascent opposition's inability to institute change staged a small protest in Moscow on Sunday under the slogan: "we have had enough."

The unusual counter-demonstration reflected the deep fissures threatening to emerge between the various groups opposed to Putin's 12-year domination of Russia and expected return to the Kremlin in March presidential polls.

Organizers said just over a hundred people braved the winter cold on Bolotnaya Square - scene of a historic protest against the outcome of a disputed December 4 parliamentary vote - for the city-sanctioned event.

"These leaders care about politics more than they care about us. They all have their own links to the authorities anyway," said protest organiser Svetlana Peunova of the nationalist Volya (Will) group.
Moscow last month was rocked by the biggest rallies since the turbulent 1990s when tens of thousands turned out against elections in which Putin's ruling party retained a majority, though narrow, amid allegations of fraud.

Hard-hitting U.S. sanctions on Iran's central bank and new Iranian threats to attack U.S. vessels in a vital oil-shipping route underscore a little-noticed aspect of the growing tensions between Washington and Tehran: Armed conflict may not break out anytime soon, but Iran and the U.S. are already fighting a low-level economic war that seems likely to escalate in the months ahead.

Iran's apparent progress toward building both nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles capable of carrying them to targets in both Israel and Europe has prompted mounting speculation that Washington or Jerusalem will soon carry out full-scale military strikes against Iran, attacks likely to trigger a major regional conflict.

For now, that talk seems overblown. But the economic sparring between the U.S. and Iran is continuing to intensify, a sign that the two countries have ways of fighting each other that don't require the use of armed force. In the last month alone, Congress voted to directly target Iran's oil sector by isolating the country's central bank from the world financial system, and Iran threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz, the passageway for more than a fifth of the world's oil.

Super PACs can receive unlimited contributions and make unlimited campaign expenditures for or against a candidate, often with actual donors hidden from view. This election year will see an exponential growth in their number and in the funds available to them.

Partisans from left and right will use them. No reforms to limit them will occur. And there is a looming war of attrition as the negative, superficial cannonading of Super PACs in political ads threatens to obliterate any semblance of a policy debate.

Exhibit A (we will likely run the alphabet this year) is Restore Our Future, the Super PAC organized by the political director of Mitt Romney's 2008 campaign and supposedly "independent" of the Romney campaign itself. On November 30, 2011, Newt Gingrich led Mitt Romney in Iowa by a 14 percentage point margin (31 percent to 17 percent), per a New York Times/CBS poll. In the next 30 days, Restore Our Future spent more than $3 million on negative, anti-Gingrich ads -- twice the amount spent by the Romney campaign itself. The final result: Romney in first (barely) with 25 percent of the vote, Gingrich in fourth, with 13 percent of the vote.

Super PACs are, of course, the progeny of the Supreme Court's January, 2010 decision in Citizens United, which declared unconstitutional the legislative provisions that had prohibited corporations and unions from their organizational treasuries to pay for ads, even if those ads were made independently of a candidate's campaign.

Between now and November, middle class Americans are going to hear an enormous amount of bragging about job creation.

Mitt Romney will tout his role in the creation of Staples, The Sports Authority and Domino's, three firms that he says created 100,000 jobs. Barack Obama will say 2.9 million jobs have been created since March 2010, and highlight a surge of 140,000 new private sector jobs in November.

The central question for middle class Americans, however, is: What quality of job is being created? The November job surge, for example, occurred primarily in retail, leisure and hospitality, sectors known for low wages. The other high-growth areas were professional services and health care, where higher education is a central determinant of income. Manufacturing and construction, one of the few areas left in the American economy where members of the middle class without elite educational pedigrees can find strong wages, were moribund. The following chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics breaks down the numbers.

In an announcement long on ambition and short on specifics, President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta rolled out a new national security strategy Thursday that aims to drastically downsize the military. "[W]e have the opportunity and the responsibility to look ahead to the force we need for the future," the president said. His plan, "Sustaining US Global Leadership," aims to slash troops, fighter jets, and $450 million from the Pentagon bureaucracy. "Whenever possible, we will develop innovative, low-cost, and small-footprint approaches to achieve our security objectives," the 16-page plan states.

If the strategy takes hold—and that's hardly a given, considering how heavily the defense industry lobbies Congress—progressives may like a lot of what they see in the military's newer, leaner look. Still, the plan leaves open the possibility that drones, contractors, and reservists will take over any gaps left in the mammoth, post-9/11 national security complex.

Conservative MPs from the London region and Prime Minister Stephen Harper were pilloried Saturday for not supporting locked out workers as hundreds of people rallied at the gates of Electro-Motive Canada.

"Stephen Harper, get your head out of the tar sands," said Peggy Nash, MP for Parkdale-High Park and NDP leadership campaign.

Nash told the receptive crowd that people across the country are aware of the struggle of the Electro-Motive workers who were locked out Jan. 1 after rejecting a 50% pay cut and reduced benefits.

She said she has seen attacks on working people across the country with companies locking out workers, but this is the worst case she has seen in all her years in the labour movement.

"It is absolutely unacceptable in Canada today," she said.

She told the workers people from all regions are supporting them.

"Your struggle is a struggle for all of Canada. You are on the front lines," Nash said.

Nash said she is pushing a law that will require foreign companies buying Canadian firms to guarantee jobs, wages and investment.

OTTAWA - OTTAWA - Seven new senators are being dismissed as partisan "political hand puppets" by the official Opposition.

NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus sneered at Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new inductees on Saturday, saying Harper was using the Upper Chamber as a "patronage dumping ground for party buddies and hacks."

Appointees announced Friday include Ottawa Police chief Vern White, Canola Council of Canada president JoAnne Buth, former Conservative MP Norm Doyle, party strategist Ghislain Maltais, family doctor Asha Seth and nursing specialist Betty Unger.

Former Quebec cop and Tory candidate Jean-Guy Dagenais' appointment will be made official in the coming weeks.

"Canadians are getting ripped off having to pay for these unelected boobs, I mean really," Angus said.

OTTAWA - The provinces are grappling with the real possibility that they may soon be delivering health services without the guidance of a formal, national health care accord, The Canadian Press has learned.

They are scrambling to figure out how to move forward after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty took them by surprise last month when he handed them a 10-year funding package for health care with no policy strings attached.

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq is now touring the country to see how her provincial counterparts want to proceed, with the official aim of stitching together a new accord that would set national standards and hold provincial governments to account for their spending.

And provincial premiers are preparing to hash out a some sort of plan when they meet in Victoria on Jan. 15 to 17.

But a no-accord approach is a distinct possibility, say provincial and federal officials.

"It's a possibility that we have no codified accord," said one federal source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

That's because the new funding arrangements for 2014 to 2024 were presented without negotiation, pleasing some of the Western provinces but upsetting the rest of the country. Now the federal government has signalled that it will be taking a back seat in setting health care policy.

Fears of water contamination and environmental damage are fuelling backlash against a controversial gas-drilling method in the Maritimes.

Energy companies in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to access natural gas deposits deep underground. The process involves drilling wells through shale and then blasting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into the rock. The resulting pressure fractures the formations, releasing the trapped gas.

Critics say fracking damages the soil, potentially causing small earthquakes. Many also fear the chemicals used in the process will poison drinking water. That some New Brunswick residents living near fracking sites have been able to light their tap water on fire hasn't helped.

The industry insists the process is safe. At least 175,000 wells have been fracked in Canada, the majority of them in Alberta. Almost every other province is exploring fracking on some level.

So far, only two wells have been fracked in Nova Scotia. So activists there are trying to avoid what's happening in neighbouring New Brunswick, where nearly 50 wells have been fracked.

Canadians knew as they headed into 2012 that the job outlook was bleak, but the lockout of 465 workers at a diesel plant in London sets a grim new standard.

On New Year’s Eve, Electro-Motive, owned by the U.S. industrial giant Caterpillar, issued a final take-it-or-leave-it offer — a 50 per cent wage cut, no cost-of-living adjustment and a new co-payment for health insurance. The union said no. On New Year’s Day, it locked them out.

“I don’t recall it ever happening where a company in that situation came at workers to cut their wages in half,” said Mike Moffat, a professor of labour at the Ivey School of Business, part of the University of Western Ontario.

The company’s “bargaining” tactics weren’t the only thing that differentiated the first labour showdown of 2012 from past disputes.

The union representing the workers, the Canadian Auto Workers, was essentially powerless. “How do we find some space to negotiate?” asked president Ken Lewenza, predicting a long, drawn-out struggle.

The downside to the upside of the U.S. recovery

Canadians should see the benefits of a stronger U.S. economy in the latest monthly merchandise trade report on Friday.

But for Canadian workers, there’s a downside to the upside of the recovery in Canada’s giant trading partner, which could end up taking more of our jobs as well as more of our exports.

“The U.S. economy got a burst of energy in the final quarter of 2011,” says Emanuella Enenajor, economist at CIBC World Markets. “That revved up stateside demand could show up in Canada’s November trade report.” CIBC World Markets projects Canada’s trade balance shifted from a near billion-dollar deficit the previous month to a $500-million surplus.

As such, trade should be less of a drag on Canada’s economy in the final quarter of the year than feared and should help keep the economy out of recession.

Now the scary side of the upside.

“U.S. manufacturing has become increasingly competitive in the past five years as the U.S. dollar has fallen and productivity surged,” notes Sherry Cooper, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets. “With weak productivity growth in Canada and strength in the loonie, we risk losing key manufacturing jobs to the U.S.”

Feds hire consultant to inject war into Canada Day bash on the Hill

OTTAWA—The Harper government has hired a consultant to inject a little war into this year’s Canada Day bash on Parliament Hill.

A Toronto theatre expert has been asked to find ways to insert a War of 1812 commemoration into the July 1st festivities that typically include pop music, dance and pyrotechnics.

“I do big-ass special events all the time, so they asked me to do that,” artistic producer Paul Shaw said in an interview. “It’s sort of tricky to do a War of 1812 theme when you’ve got so many modern things in and around it.”

The Conservative government, which has been promoting Canada’s military culture and heritage, has earmarked money and resources throughout the year to commemorate the bicentennial of the outbreak of War of 1812 in North America.

The hostilities led to a stalemate almost three years later between the United States and Britain’s budding settlements in Canada, and some historians consider the war a pivotal moment in Canadian nationhood, though it is little known outside academia.

The Canadian Heritage Department normally injects patriotic themes into the Canada Day noontime show on Parliament Hill, giving the National Capital Commission a free hand to organize the evening show with singers and fireworks in a party atmosphere.

But a recently posted document indicates that the war theme will appear in both shows.

Last November the CRTC killed Usage Based Billing, the pricing scheme imposed by Canada’s telecom giants on small independent Internet providers that threatened the existence of unlimited (and high limit) download plans. When the news came, the 500,000+ Canadians who had protested against UBB celebrated their victory over big business. That lasted for about a minute.

Almost instantly, indie ISP’s pooped on their own party. Sure, UBB was dead, but what was it to be replaced with? A “capacity” based pricing scheme that seems fair in principle, but which breaks down when you get to the actual numbers–tariffs set by the same big ISPs without any transparency. These rates varied wildly between providers, suggesting that the big players would still find a way to gouge the little guys out of existence, while keeping unmetered internet out of reach for Canadians. Teksavvy, one of the biggest little guys, called the CRTC’s new plan an “unfortunate step back for Canadian consumers.”

In fact, when I interviewed George Burger, TekSavvy’s formidable representative, he all but suggested that the new pricing scheme would kill OTT (Over The Top Television) altogether. It was too soon to provide numbers, but the implication was that indie ISP customers were about to see their bills skyrocket.

OTTAWA – The number of staff hired to advise and consult with the prime minister has grown to unprecedented levels under Stephen Harper’s watch, despite his stated objectives to cut costs and balance the budget.

In the mid-1990s, under Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien, there was the equivalent of 662 people employed on a full-time basis in the Privy Council Office, the bureaucracy that supports and advises the prime minister and his cabinet.

By 2010-11, that number swelled to 1,066, according to the office's annual performance reports.

During the same time, costs of running the office increased to $160 million from $79.7 million.

The only years when the office came close to its current size were 2004-05, when Paul Martin had 1,026 employees during his first full year as prime minister, and in 2005-06, when Martin handed the keys of 24 Sussex to Harper. In that year, there were 1,032 employees in the Privy Council Office.

The increasing costs and manpower at PCO are a result of “time-limited initiatives in support of key government priorities,” said Raymond Rivet, a spokesman for the office. “The Afghanistan Task Force, G8, G20 and the Olympics, the Economic Action Plan and Commissions of Inquiry are good examples of this.”

On the surface it’s a silly affair, no more serious than a banana peel pratfall. It began in November, when Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands International—the banana company—wrote a letter committing to avoid “fuels from tar sands refineries” while vowing to work toward the “elimination of those fuels.” That pledge was in response to an anti-oil-sands campaign mounted by ForestEthics, an activist group based in San Francisco’s fabled Haight-Ashbury, the one-time hippie district, against Chiquita and Dole, another fruit giant. “Say no to rotten tar sands bananas,” reads the campaign’s website, rottenbananas.org, part of a broader campaign drawing attention to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would funnel Alberta crude to Texas, but which has now been put on hold over environmental concerns.

What ensued was a fight between environmentalists on the one hand and pro-oil-sands lobbyists on the other, over who can claim to be “ethical.” ForestEthics often wins these battles. Ten years ago, to cite one example, similar persuasion forced the U.S. office supply chain Staples Inc. to sell more recycled paper, a commitment that required it to introduce fundamental changes to its procurement practices. “When we find that wild places and forests are being destroyed, we determine which corporations are purchasing the products of that destruction,” ForestEthics says on its website. “If a corporation refuses to change its practices, we hold that company publicly accountable—with protests, websites, email campaigns, national advertisements, and more.” In other words, the group goes on to boast, “we turn our corporate adversaries into allies.”

Six years ago, there was a national crisis much like the one that raged in Attawapiskat late last year. In both cases, a Cree-Ojibway community with a population of about 1,800 approached the media, citing problems of overcrowding, toxic mould, substandard infrastructure and desperate poverty.

Seeing Kashechewan's crisis and how it was subsequently handled led me to move to that community on the James Bay shore, 100 kilometres southeast of Attawapiskat. I arrived in October, 2010, not realizing that the decision would change me, the place shaping my ideas and conscience in ways I had yet to imagine.

When Kashechewan officials first approached the media in October, 2005, their community's desperate living conditions caused an outpouring of sympathy. In subsequent government meetings, the band was promised more houses and better infrastructure – essentially a brand-new reserve. The estimated cost would be at least $300-million. Paul Martin, then prime minister, said Ottawa would “open wide its chequebook,” and do “whatever is necessary.”

Five years later, they were still waiting for the new infrastructure and most of that much-needed cash. The crisis and media attention had, however, brought some limited results: The reserve had received an extra $27.4-million – enough to renovate 78 homes and build 20 others.

Ottawa spent $16.1-million building a dike for the flood-prone community, and $9.6-million to clean up a school that burned and provide temporary school facilities. To prevent future E. coli outbreaks, the band had hired an outside consultant to manage the water plant.

Iran has begun uranium enrichment at a new underground site well protected from possible airstrikes, a leading hardline newspaper reported Sunday in another show of defiance against Western pressure to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program.

Another newspaper quoted a senior commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard force as saying Tehran’s leadership has decided to order the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic oil route, if the country’s petroleum exports are blocked. Revolutionary Guard ground forces also staged war games in eastern Iran in an apparent display of resolve against U.S. forces just over the border in Afghanistan.

“The supreme authorities ... have insisted that if enemies block the export of our oil, we won’t allow a drop of oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. This is the strategy of the Islamic Republic in countering such threats,” Revolutionary Guard deputy commander Ali Ashraf Nouri was quoted as saying by the Khorasan daily.

Iranian politicians have issued similar threats in the past, but this is the strongest statement yet by a top commander in the security establishment.

The latest statements are certain to fuel tensions with the U.S. and its allies, which are trying to turn up pressure on Iran with new sanctions to punish it over its disputed nuclear program. The West suspects Iran is trying to make nuclear weapons, but Iran denies this.

The Harper government has hired a Toronto theatre expert to inject a little war into this year's Canada Day bash on Parliament Hill.

Artistic producer Paul Shaw has been asked to find ways to insert a War of 1812 commemoration into the July 1 festivities that typically include pop music, dance and pyrotechnics.

"I do big-ass special events all the time, so they asked me to do that," Shaw said in an interview. "It's sort of tricky to do a War of 1812 theme when you've got so many modern things in and around it."

The Conservative government, which has been promoting Canada's military culture and heritage, has earmarked money and resources throughout the year to commemorate the bicentennial of the outbreak of War of 1812 in North America.

The hostilities led to a stalemate almost three years later between the United States and Britain's budding settlements in Canada, and some historians consider the war a pivotal moment in Canadian nationhood, though it is little known outside academia.

The Canadian Heritage Department normally injects patriotic themes into the Canada Day noontime show on Parliament Hill, giving the National Capital Commission a free hand to organize the evening show with singers and fireworks in a party atmosphere.

A large crowd packed the Halifax waterfront Sunday to wave goodbye to their loved ones as HMCS Charlottetown departed for a mission in the Mediterranean Sea.

The navy frigate has a crew of about 250 and will be gone for seven months.

Commander Wade Carter told reporters the Charlottetown would be joining the NATO mission Operation Active Endeavor, known as Operation Metric in Canada.

It's a counter-terrorism mission in the sea that borders Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

"We're going to be patrolling the Mediterranean looking for weapons of mass destruction or constituents that could be used to design such things," Carter said Sunday.

That could include boarding vessels, but Carter does not anticipate a high level of risk for his crew.

"Most of the seafarers in that area are law-abiding," he said.

Don't feel guilty if you don't understand Alberta's shocking electricity prices. You're not supposed to.

Sales of electricity in Alberta are now managed through what Dilbert calls a "confusopoly." It's a system of near-monopoly marketing designed to defy explanation. Its goal is to make it easy for you to sign a bad deal, or to manipulate you into feeling that there's no point creating a ruckus about the worse deal you're stuck with. Resistance is futile. Shut up and pay.

You think this is too cynical? Well then, you explain it in a way that makes sense!

All anyone really understands -- and I suspect this includes most of the so-called experts who are busy advising us how to lock ourselves into long and expensive contracts with the confusing welter of power resellers out there that phone us at suppertime and prowl our neighbourhoods two by two -- is that the price of power is going up, up, up.

How much, you wonder? Well, $25 a month last month for the "typical" monthly household power bill, and another average $11 this month. And remember, that average includes folks with no kids who sit in the dark calculating their savings on an abacus, so if you're a householder with children, laundry to do more than once a month and a crappy job to pay for it all, well, you're hooped!

Now, let me qualify that stuff about no one understanding. The friends of the Alberta government in the private-sector electricity generation and marketing industries, which was kindly "deregulated" ("turned loose," more like) by Ralph Klein back when he was our market fundamentalist premier, understand perfectly well what's going on. Someone's manipulating the market. Or, as one of our local newspapers put it relatively uselessly yesterday, the problem is caused by "unexpected plant shut-downs and strong demand."

David Cameron: give shareholders vote to rein in executive pay

In an interview, the Prime Minister said that “big rewards” for corporate failure “make people’s blood boil”.

The Government is now preparing to introduce new rules which will force companies to provide detailed information on their executive’s pay. Shareholders will then have the legal right to veto excessive pay packages.

Workers may also be given positions on company remuneration committees which agree executive pay packages.

Mr Cameron also said that the Government was considering capping executive pay at a certain multiple of a companies’ average salary – although he said there were problems with such a draconian approach.

In an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, the Prime Minister said: “What I think is wrong is pay going up and up and up when it is not commensurate with the success companies are having.

“I'm in favour of people setting up great businesses in Britain, expanding those businesses in Britain, making lots of money when those businesses succeed in Britain.

“Government should not tell people what they are to be paid but where you have got a market failure – and to me this is a market failure – we saw between 1998 and 2010 the average pay of FTSE executives go up four times.

“Some people are worth £2 million because they have added masses of jobs, masses of investment, masses of growth.

“To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”—Jon Huntsman, tweet, August 18, 2011

“Yeah well, I’ll be the first one to take him up on his offer.”—Rick Santorum, MSNBC, August 19, 2011

The Republican Party has often been the party of science and technology. Abraham Lincoln created the National Academy of Sciences and earned a patent on shipping technology. The creationist Democrat William Jennings Bryan twice lost to the Republican William McKinley. Dwight Eisenhower was perhaps the most forceful Oval Office advocate for science and technology of the last century. By the nineteen-seventies, Republicans—particularly Richard Nixon—had begun to view scientists as agitating liberals. But through the Cold War, Republicans often backed the greatest scientific and technical schemes: from missile defense to the ARPANet.

In 2009 53% of all calls made to the Employment Insurance call centre were answered within three minutes.

By 2011 it was 32%. And little wonder: the system is overwhelmed. The number of Canadians receiving EI remained static between 2006 and 2008 at an average of 748,000 people (most because of day-to-day job loss or because they were taking a parental leave). But in 2008-09, when the recession really got going, the number of Canadians collecting EI jumped by over 300,000. Things got better in 2010 — only relatively, however, 980,000 individuals still were collecting — but the program’s coffers and resources took another hit in November of last year when 19,000 Canadians joined the ranks of the unemployed.

There’s no doubt that there’s an unemployment crisis; but does that mean there’s an EI crisis as well? The program has not reached a breaking point – but it is, however, profoundly flawed and in desperate need of reform. A new report from the University of Toronto’s Mowat Centre contends that Ottawa must create a “nationally standardized EI system, supplemented by new benefits that would help those who are currently outside the EI umbrella.” Some proposed measures include eliminating the higher entrance requirement for new entrants and re-entrants to the workforce; creating a new system of temporary unemployment assistance outside the traditional EI program; and contentiously, to modify benefits in response to economic conditions through an expanded work-sharing system put in place during recessions.

Reut seeks meaning in her life

Reut is in the 12th grade at a school near Modi'in. I don't know her, but I may assume she's a good student and a devoted daughter. She certainly has a smartphone and a Facebook account. She may wear name brands and go clubbing, like most of her friends. But Reut is looking for more meaning in her life, and she has found it in the Border Police Youth. "It gives me values," she told Haaretz education correspondent Talila Nesher last week. "I like to catch illegal residents."

We shouldn't complain about Reut, who may be a charming and well-meaning girl, or about dozens of her brainwashed friends in the new youth movement. That's how it is when officers are brought into the schools. That's how it is when society becomes polluted. A Border Police officer comes to the school, talks about the force, proudly describes its "sacred work" and lures the students to volunteer for service "with values."

Her parents are certainly proud of Reut and her comrades in arms - they're already walking around with M16s - and the teachers too are certainly pleased with this lesson on the homeland, as are local government officials. While most of the kids' friends are goofing off at parties, the members of this pioneer youth movement are going out on night missions. Hooray for them.

The person who sent them to the Border Police Youth is contemptible. The person who lured them into it, brainwashed them and sent them on these despicable night missions may have corrupted them irreparably. If I were their father, I'd tell them - go stare at the television, chat yourselves to death on Facebook or dance yourselves silly at clubs - anything but the Border Police Youth. This morally degenerate movement must be disbanded, right now.

Va. prisons’ use of solitary confinement is scrutinized

RICHMOND — At Red Onion State Prison, built on a mountaintop in a remote pocket of southwest Virginia, more than two-thirds of the inmates live in solitary confinement.

In a state where about 1 in 20 prisoners are held in solitary, Red Onion, a so-called supermax prison, isolates more inmates than any other facility, keeping more than 500 of its nearly 750 charges alone for 23 hours a day in cells the size of a doctor’s exam room.

Virginia, one of 44 states that use solitary confinement, has 1,800 people in isolation, a sizable share of the estimated 25,000 people in solitary in the nation’s state and federal prisons.

As more becomes known about the effects of isolation — on inmate health, public safety and prison budgets — some states have begun to reconsider the practice, among them Texas, which, like Virginia, is known as a law-and-order state.

Mississippi, New York and Texas have begun to scale back the use of solitary confinement under pressure from prison watchdogs.

Now critics have set their sights on Virginia, where lawyers and inmates say some of the state’s 40,000 prisoners, including some with mental-health issues, have been kept in isolation for years, in one case for 14 years.

Pipeline hearings to begin in B.C. on nation-builder … nation-divider

VICTORIA – It’s being called a nation-builder, nation-divider and non-starter.

Depending on who’s talking, the proposed Northern Gateway oil pipeline project has the potential to make Canada rich, while risking an environmental disaster on the scale of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Federal regulatory hearings for Enbridge Inc.’s (TSX:ENB) controversial and anticipated $5.5 billion twin pipeline proposal to carry Alberta crude oil to the West Coast for export to Asia start Tuesday in northwest B.C. in Kitimat, the proposed oil tanker port.

More than 4,300 individuals and groups have registered to speak at the hearings conducted by two federal environmental bodies over the next 18 months or more across British Columbia and Alberta.

Northern Gateway is being billed as the largest private infrastructure project in B.C. history.

But it’s also a major target of Canadian and international environmental groups that are gearing up for a public relations battle that pits environmental protection against economic development.

The recent U.S. government decision to delay by at least one year the $7-billion proposed Keystone XL pipeline expansion project, connecting Alberta oil to Texas, has put the Enbridge proposal in the sights of international environmental groups.

First Nations are also joining the process, with at least 60 B.C. aboriginal groups vowing to fight the project at every step, but others signing deals with Enbridge, or seriously considering company offers of a 10 per cent stake in the enterprise.

Sheer budget pressure, not a safer world, is driving the new defence policy U.S. President Barack Obama rolled out this past week. The Pentagon’s bloated $700 billion budget could face a $100 billion hit, depending on Congress’s zeal for cuts. So the White House is suddenly playing up the virtues of a smaller military and of thinking twice before getting involved in wars.

To Canadians this may look like housekeeping as heavy U.S. action in Iraq and Afghanistan winds down. To a degree it is. Even a truncated U.S. military will vastly outgun any adversary. But the new posture promises to put Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government on the spot, not so much because of its hard military implications as its softer diplomatic ones.

Looking forward, the U.S. hopes to rally more “allies and partners” to help police the world, Obama said. That involves thwarting terror, containing aggressors without all-out war, and keeping the peace.

While the idea of burden-sharing is hardly new, Obama seems to be setting the table to rely more heavily on diplomacy at the United Nations and elsewhere to contain threats such as Iran and North Korea. At the same time he plans to affirm U.S. interests across Asia in part by working with Australia, an old ally, and with India, a new one. Finally, he sees the volatile Middle East as a priority and is wooing Gulf Arab allies there.

As it happens, these are three key areas in which the Harper government’s diplomacy has been deficient, blundering or distorted. If Ottawa aspires to be more than a passive onlooker as the U.S. redefines its relations with much of the world, Harper will have to step up his game and shore up Canada’s credibility.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan investigators accused the American military Saturday of abusing detainees at its main prison in the country, bolstering calls by President Hamid Karzai for the U.S. to turn over control of the facility and complicating talks about America's future role in Afghanistan.

The investigators also called for any detainee held without evidence to be freed, putting the U.S. and Afghan governments on a collision course in an issue that will decide the fate of hundreds of suspected Taliban and al-Qaida operatives captured by American forces and held indefinitely.

Karzai took Washington by surprise Thursday when he ordered that the U.S. military turn over full control of the prison outside Bagram Air Base within one month, a seemingly impossible deadline given U.S. security concerns about the prisoners and the Afghan government's weak administrative capacity. The countries had been working on phasing a transfer of responsibility of the prison, which hold 3,000 detainees, over two years.

The demand was the latest episode of political brinkmanship as negotiations continued for a Strategic Partnership Document with America that will determine the U.S. role in Afghanistan after 2014, when most foreign troops are due to withdraw. Karzai has demanded an end to unpopular night raids by U.S. troops and control over detainees as a condition of the pact and could be seeking leverage by pushing the detainee issue now.

The federal government needs to pay attention to locked out workers, NDP MP and leadership candidate Peggy Nash says.

"Stephen Harper, get your head out of the tarsands," Nash told a crowd outside the gates of Electro-Motive Canada, a London-based company where workers have been locked out since Jan. 1 after rejecting a 50% pay cut and reduced benefits.

She said she has seen attacks on working people across the country with companies locking out workers, but this is the worst case she has seen in all her years in the labour movement."

"It is absolutely unacceptable in Canada today," she said.

She told the workers people from all regions are supporting them.

"Your struggle is a struggle for all of Canada. You are on the front lines," Nash said.

Nash said she is pushing a law that will require foreign companies buying Canadian firms to guarantee jobs, wages and investment.

The failure of the Canadian government to do that at Electro-Motive is absolutely incredible, she said.

Tim Carrie, president of CAW Local 27, said it is important for local politicians and members of government to support the workers who have helped build the community.

Original Article
Source: lfPress

'Paranoid secrecy' behind Defence Department’s battle against release of Taliban photos, critics say

OTTAWA — The Defence Department is prepared to go to Federal Court and spend whatever it takes to prevent the public from seeing government photos of Taliban hairdos because it believes the captured insurgents have a right to their privacy.

The department’s decision, outlined in newly released documents obtained by the Citizen, is the result of a test of the Access to Information law by two Ottawa lawyers, Paul Champ and Amir Attaran.

To see how far DND would go to prevent the release of information about captured Afghan insurgents, Attaran requested copies of photographs the military took of such individuals but asked that the faces of the prisoners be completely blacked out and that only the hairdos of the detainees shown.

Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault, the government watchdog for the Access law, also recommended DND release the heavily censored photos.

But the DND documents obtained by the Citizen through the Access law outline the department’s view: releasing the photographs of the hairdos of captured insurgents would violate their privacy rights and could hurt national security.

One of the most spectacular flameouts in corporate history will be on the docket this week when pre-trial motions begin into criminal charges against former executives at Nortel Networks Corp.

Justice Frank Marrocco is scheduled to preside Thursday over motions, including those by the defence, in an open-court hearing at the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario. A trial before the justice is to begin in Toronto on Jan.16.

The RCMP charges allege that the defendants, including ex-Nortel chief executive Frank Dunn, engineered an elaborate accounting fraud to mask falling Nortel sales after the technology stock bubble popped in the spring of 2000.

Prosecutors say the scheme cost the Toronto company’s shareholders billions and contributed to the demise of the once-high flying Bell Canada equipment arm, with Nortel now being wound up under creditor protection.

“It’s the biggest (financial scandal) in Canada, one of the biggest in the world,” Rotman School of Management financial analysis professor Ramy Elitzur told the Star in 2008.

Democracy gone Astray