The Occupiers have even lost Naheed Nenshi

Even Naheed Nenshi, possibly the nicest mayor big-city Canada ever had, is fed up with the Occupiers. If you've lost Calgary Mayor Nenshi, you've lost the country.

So here is the choice the Occupiers face: go, with their tents and their portable toilets, and keep their dignity and message reasonably intact; or resist, and act as a law unto themselves, and be forever remembered dragging their own names through the mud of their unwanted encampments.

There is a third choice, peaceful civil disobedience: refuse to leave, insist on being carried away by police, and face the judicial consequences. Alas, if Mr. Nenshi is fed up, civil disobedience at this late stage is probably going to be met with a yawn, at best, by the public. “The protesters need to understand that they've lost the thread, they've completely lost the plot,” Mr. Nenshi says. “Making this about the tents instead of about the issues they're talking about, they've completely lost any ability to influence people.”

The remarkable tolerance of the civic authorities may have created a mistaken impression among the Occupiers that they have a right to occupy. Maybe that explains why the movement has tried everyone's patience, including Mr. Nenshi's. Its members seem to believe that civil disobedience is a form of protest protected from consequences. In Vancouver, after being served with a court order, the protesters packed up their tents and, like children proud of their cunning, moved them to another public area. Occupy seems just another group claiming an entitlement, free of responsibilities toward others.

The Occupy movement began as an understandable response to the excesses that contributed to the world financial crisis. It turned into an excess of its own. And now the courts have taken a strong stand against that excess. The time for negotiations is gone. Even Mr. Nenshi says so.

What will anyone remember of all this in a few years, or even in a few weeks? It depends on whether the Occupiers make a last, self-defeating stand, or go, as Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay says, with their heads held high.

Origin
Source: Globe&Mail 

Is Harper trying to increase Canada's military might?

The federal government paid tribute to its role in the Libya campaign Thursday with a flashy display of military might on Parliament Hill, a ceremony that some observers viewed as a way of declaring Canada's more muscular role on the global stage.

The celebratory event, which was attended by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Defence Minister Peter MacKay as well as a host of military officials, included a flypast by CF-18 fighter jets, a 21-gun salute and the awarding of a Meritorious Service Cross (Military Division) to Lt.-Gen. Charles Bouchard, the Canadian air force general who commanded the NATO mission in Libya.

Some saw it as a conventional victory parade. "It is a celebration of sorts, there's no question, but it's within military tradition," said Michel Drapeau, a professor of military law at the University of Ottawa, who pointed to similar victory parades held in Canada for V-Day and the Korean War.

Dexia, Franco-Belgian Bank, Using Emergency Liquidity Facilities To Tackle 'Very Dramatic' Problem

BRUSSELS (Ben Deighton) - Franco-Belgian bank Dexia (DEXI.BR) is accessing emergency liquidity facilities in Belgium, France, Spain and Italy, a banking source said on Thursday, as analysts described its liquidity situation as "very dramatic."

The source said the bank was making use of the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) facility of the Belgian central bank as well as "national central banks in France, in Spain, in Italy," where Dexia has units.

One analyst said the fact Dexia was tapping national central banks' liquidity via the European Central Bank network showed how bad the situation had become for the lender.

"The emergency window of the ECB ... is very expensive, so it shows that the liquidity situation is very dramatic," the analyst said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"At some point you run out of unencumbered assets to post at the ECB, and then the only way to fund yourself is via the ELA, which is clearly not a good sign," the analyst said.

Dexia and the central banks of France and Belgium both declined to comment.

The source added that Dexia would try to raise money on markets again after the finalization of a 90 billion euro ($120 billion) guarantee scheme agreed in October by France, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders said Wednesday that he hoped to reach an agreement with the European Commission about the restructuring plan for Dexia (DEXI.BR) in the coming days.

($1 = 0.7490 euros)

(Additional reporting by Dan Flynn in Paris; Editing by Luke Baker and Will Waterman)

Origin
Source: Huff 

10 reasons to oppose Bill C-10

Bill C-10 is titled The Safe Streets and Communities Act — an ironic name, considering that Canada already has some of the safest streets and communities in the world and a declining crime rate. This bill will do nothing to improve that state of affairs but, through its overreach and overreaction to imaginary problems, Bill C-10 could easily make it worse. It could eventually create the very problems it’s supposed to solve.

Bill C-10 will require new prisons; mandate incarceration for minor, non-violent offences; justify poor treatment of inmates and make their reintegration into society more difficult. Texas and California, among other jurisdictions, have already started down this road before changing course, realizing it cost too much and made their justice system worse. Canada is poised to repeat their mistake.

Hundreds of Occupy protesters, union members march in Toronto

The Ontario Federation of Labour will continue supporting the Occupy movement, park or no park.

More than 1,000 union members marched through downtown Toronto Thursday afternoon alongside about 100 Occupy protesters from Toronto, London, Kingston, Hamilton and Ottawa.

“We decided at the (federation) convention to fortify our relationship with Occupy,” said CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn.

On Thursday morning, a fleet of buses funded by the federation took protesters from cities across the province to Toronto for the rally.

Occupy signs and union flags in hand, union members and protesters gathered outside City Hall and marched through the financial district to the Toronto Stock Exchange, chanting “We are the 99 per cent!”

The Commons: Grumpy old men

The Scene. Whatever Joe Oliver and Peter Kent are actually accomplishing in their capacity as ministers of the crown, these two children of the 1940s have at least the basis of a promising buddy comedy.

If memory serves, Mr. Oliver’s first forays were mostly unmemorable. Then, at some point, the Natural Resources Minister started shouting.

Recent weeks have been spent metaphorically shaking his fist at the official opposition and imploring them to get off his metaphorical lawn. He has linked them to Hugo Chavez and “European socialists” and “jet-setting Hollywood stars” and, worst of all, “European bureaucrats.” He has said that their only priority is to protect the interests of “their foreign socialist comrades and billionaire U.S. limousine liberals.” He has accused them of standing in the way of social services for children and health care for the elderly. He has ventured, in the course of a single sentence, that “NDP members have never met a job creating private sector policy or project that they do not want to kill, a tax they do not want to raise, a regulation they do not want to impose, a freedom they do not want to curtail, an issue they do not try to use to divide Canadians, and a fictitious problem they do not want the government to solve at great cost.” One day he concluded his remarks with a cry of “send in the clowns!”

All of this, apparently, because the New Democrats have some reservations about the Keystone pipeline project. And all of it committed to the record in the sort of tone—grumbly and impatient—that is generally employed to advise hippies that they might cut their hair and get a job.

Gun Registry: Montreal Massacre Survivor Slams Federal Plan To Scrap Records

OTTAWA - The Conservative government is ignoring evidence and common sense in dismantling the long-gun registry, says a survivor of the 1989 Montreal massacre.

Nathalie Provost, an engineer who was shot at the Ecole Polytechnique, told the Commons public safety committee Thursday she's watching with a "heavy heart" as the Tories move to scrap the registry.

"Long guns are dangerous. And this I know," Provost told MPs studying a government bill.

The legislation introduced last month would end registration of common rifles and shotguns and permanently delete more than seven million files on gun ownership.

The Tories argue the registration of long guns is wasteful and unnecessary. However, they support the licensing of gun owners and registration of prohibited and restricted weapons such as handguns.

Provost said all guns can be used to do harm.

Government spending review could mean cancellation of entire programs: Clement

OTTAWA - Treasury Board President Tony Clement says the drive to cut back government spending could mean axing entire programs.

But at the same time, some will be spared outright, Clement told a Commons committee on Thursday.

"In some cases, the budget may have zero reductions in certain programs because it is deemed that that is the appropriate thing to do and in other cases the reduction could be anywhere form zero per cent to 10 per cent," he said.

"And in some cases, if the program is deemed to be not useful to Canadians the reduction could be 100 per cent."

Clement was asked the question in the context of whether the budget for Veterans Affairs could be spared entirely from the spending review.

That would follow the example set by governments in the U.S., U.K. and Australia which has committed to protecting veterans' departments from budget cuts.

In Canada, Veterans Affairs is already shaving $226 million from its spending, citing a declining number of clients for it to serve.

But Clement wouldn't commit to stopping any further cuts there.

Thanks for What?

I love Thanksgiving for its illusion of abundance. It brings back early childhood memories of the one day each year during the Depression when the food on my family’s table was not the leftover produce that my Uncle Leon could no longer sell at his stall, or the nearly spoiled organ meats that our local butcher offered at a steep discount.

But Thanksgiving day was quite the opposite, and while I obviously can’t recall what was served in 1936, the year I was born, the holiday was soon seared into my childhood memory as the day when the good times looked upon us in the form of charity gift baskets from philanthropists of various religious and political orders, much like the needy will be served today in volunteer kitchens across America and just as soon will be forgotten.

It did not take long before I was old enough to realize that the largesse of Thanksgiving was the rare exception, and that “just getting by,” as my mother’s brave optimism would have it, was the norm. Getting by, thanks to Mom’s piecework in the downtown sweatshops and my mechanic father’s signing on to one of the New Deal’s public jobs programs.

Then came the economic miracle of World War II, dismissed in its day by some Republicans as Franklin Roosevelt’s treachery, and my parents and other relatives got their jobs back. The relevance of the wartime jobs to Thanksgiving in our family was that my Uncle Edward, the welder, was rewarded every year at his plant with one enormous turkey or two smaller ones.

Canadian wage gains continue to fall, workers falling behind inflation

OTTAWA — Canadian workers are failing to keep up with the rising cost of living as real wages continue to fall dramatically, new data from Statistics Canada shows.

The agency reported Thursday that average weekly earnings for non-farm payrolls fell 0.3 per cent in nominal terms in September to $872.75 — when the 3.2 per cent inflation rate for the month is taken into consideration, the drop in real wages was more dramatic.

On a year-over-year basis, the increase in earnings was a mere 1.1 per cent, the lowest level of growth since November 2009.

Average weekly earning gains have been dropping steadily since the spring, when they were as high as 4.1 per cent in April, well above the inflation rate.

With income from investments also soft because of the volatility in equity markets, analysts said it is fair to assume Canadians’ average standard of living is also dropping.