Saskatchewan Joins Alberta in Backing Government Law-Breaking

I’ve been away, and I’m a little jet-lagged, but it seems to me that we’ve just seen the first use of the Alberta Sovereignty Act. 

By the government of Saskatchewan.

On Monday, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced provincial gas utility SaskEnergy won’t collect or submit the federal carbon tax on natural gas used to heat homes starting on Jan. 1.

Israel Is Arming Fascist Militias to Suppress Dissent, Suspended Knesset Member Warns

On October 19, an Israeli Parliament ethics committee suspended Knesset member Ofer Cassif for 45 days after he warned that an “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces is underway. Cassif is an ex-professor in political science and philosophy with a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. He has represented the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash-Ta’al) coalition in the Knesset since 2019.

Feds ‘blackmailing’ First Nations into signing away their power over water, resource development for continued funding

The federal government is “blackmailing” First Nations into supporting its policies through revised funding contribution agreements and telling them to “take it or leave it,” say First Nations chiefs.

“The government through its contribution agreements is trying to get First Nations to sign onto [their policies] or else be cut from their funding,” said Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta.

The Government Secretly Spied On You? Prove It!

On Monday, as Hurricane Sandy shut down most of the rest of the federal government, the black-robed justices of the Supreme Court gathered to hear a case that embodies the post-9/11 paradox: Can the government violate your rights as long as it does so in secret?

In 2008, Congress, with the support of then-Sen. Barack Obama, passed a bill called the FISA Amendments Act that retroactively legalized the Bush administration's warrantless spying program. Ever since, a coalition of civil libertarians and human rights activists—including Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, attorneys for Guantanamo Bay detainees, and journalists—have been seeking to challenge the program as unconstitutional.

The federal government has dropped its case against United States Steel Corp. (X-N25.85-1.63-5.93%) over the company’s broken promises to Ottawa to maintain jobs after its 2007 takeover of Hamilton-based Stelco.

Industry Minister Christian Paradis announced the move in the House of Commons Monday, saying that the company had agreed to “significant new and enhanced undertakings” in return for the government’s move, after what the minister described as “extensive negotiations.”

Under the deal, Mr. Paradis said, U.S. Steel pledges to keep producing steel in Canada, operate its Lake Erie and Hamilton plants until 2015 and invest at least $50-million in its Canadian facilities by December, 2015, over and above its original pledge of $200-million by October, 2012.

The company also pledged to give $3-million to “community and educational programs” in Hamilton and Nanticoke, with $1-million due by February, 2012.

“U.S. Steel’s new commitments, many of which run to 2015, will provide benefits that in all likelihood would not have been obtained through the court process,” Mr. Paradis said.

A lawyer for U.S. Steel declined to comment.

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Schafer: Government on the take

Governments regulate the use of property. Sometimes that regulation has a minor effect on the uses to which a property owner can put that property. Sometimes the regulation has a more severe effect. And, sometimes the regulation is so severe as to effectively strip all uses. In that last instance, it is said to effect a “regulatory taking” — also known as a “constructive” taking, or a “de facto expropriation” — meaning that it effectively achieves a taking-by-regulation.

A regulatory taking, therefore, occurs where government, rather than expropriating and paying compensation, instead by way of regulation strips away all uses to which the property can be put.

Canada is rare in the Western world for its lack of constitutionally entrenched property rights. The individual protections under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms do not include a right to property or any significant protections for property holders. While statutory protections exist in respect of expropriation (which entails the actual taking of title), and while common law protections have been recognized and affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada which provide that compensation is payable absent express legislative language directing otherwise, Canada’s legal regime for the protection of property rights remains deficient. This is because there is no liability in Canadian law for governments to compensate for regulated property use, even where the regulation is so extensive as to amount to a regulatory taking.

Cheney Book: Photoshopping Plamegate

Here we go again, more Plamegate revisionism. But the latest practitioner is no surprise: Dick Cheney.

In his new memoir, In My Time, the former vice president (with an assist from coauthor/daughter Liz Cheney) serves up a self-serving and selective account of the episode that rocked the White House (his office, in particular) and that nearly sent one of his closest aides to the hoosegow.

The controversy centered on 16 words President George W. Bush spoke during his January 28, 2003, State of the Union speech: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This was one of the key arguments the White House was then presenting in public to bolster its case that Saddam Hussein was neck-deep in weapons of mass destruction and an invasion of Iraq was damn-well necessary. But for months, the CIA and State Department analysts had investigated reports of Saddam's supposed uranium-shopping in Niger—which were based in part on suspect documents—and had found no compelling evidence to back up the allegation. Some intelligence analysts had concluded that such a deal not only had not happened but also could not have occurred. The CIA had made certain to remove references to the Niger charge from earlier Bush speeches, but the White House kept trying to squeeze this claim in—and eventually succeeded.

Jailing Undocumented Immigrants Is Big Business

LOS ANGELES -- At dawn on July 19, nearly 40 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Immigration (HSI) agents burst into the home home of Carmen Bonilla, 44. The agents were searching for "Robert" an alleged drug dealer, but ended up terrifying Bonilla and her son Michael, 16, daughter Josefina, 23, daughter-in-law Leticia, 28, and two of her granddaughters.

According to Jessica Dominguez, the family's lawyer, and Jorge Mario Cabrera, spokesperson of the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), the family was subjected to "different levels of physical and verbal abuse," including screaming, "kicking, beating and aggression." Their treatment was documented last week by HuffPost LatinoVoices' Jorge Luis Macías.

What happened to the Bonillas has happened to thousands of immigrant families. Immigration authorities -- both local police and federal ICE agents -- have embarked on a program to seek out "criminal illegal aliens" and, whether they find them or not, have often rounded up entire families for deportation.