Occupy Canada: Calgary Court Orders Protesters To Leave

A Calgary judge has ordered an end to the Occupy Calgary protest.

According to the City of Calgary, Chief Justice Neil Wittmann approved the city's request Tuesday to order the protesters to tear down their camp at a downtown park.

Occupy protesters will have to vacate Olympic Plaza by Friday at 2 p.m. After that, protesters will be violating a court order.

The protestors had set up camp at that location on Oct. 15.

The city has been criticized for not forcibly removing them, but the police chief has praised the city for not turning this into a confrontation.

Officials did start removing tents last month and have tried to negotiate deals with the remaining protestors, with no success.

Finally last Friday, the city went to court looking for an injunction to prevent camping on Olympic Plaza.

The city said the bylaw banning camping in public spaces is being violated and other citizens would like to utilize the space. It also says a fire that started in a tent Nov. 16, injuring two people, raised safety issues.

The protesters have said in the past that even with an eviction order, they're not going anywhere.

Ben Christensen, a litigation advisor who represented the protesters, said last Friday that he had wanted an adjournment so he could submit more affidavits and better prepare for the case. He feels the city did not give them enough time to gather evidence.

The city will be holding a news conference to provide more details on where things go from here.

Origin
Source: Huff 

Obama-Harper Border Deal Raises Privacy Concerns In Canada

WASHINGTON -- Considering the political obsession within the 2012 Republican presidential field over border security, the announcement of a new initiative to strengthen transnational cooperation ought to be big news. And it likely would be, if the border in question was with Mexico.

But when Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper meets with President Obama Wednesday to announce the details of a long-awaited but -- at least in Washington -- little-heralded plan dubbed "Beyond the Border," few outside the Great White North may care. For many Canadians, though, the North American perimeter security agreement to harmonize information sharing in order to ease trade, reduce border bottlenecks, and strengthen law enforcement cooperation is just the latest reason to resent their bigger, more powerful neighbor to the south.

"Canadians are inherently reticent since the Patriot Act about having their government share data on your average citizen with the U.S. government," said Christian Leuprecht, a political scientist at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. Noting that Canada has arrested more people crossing illegally into its territory than the other way around, he said, "There are very different perceptions and priorities on either side of the border."

Laura Dawson, a scholar at the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said Canadians still chafe at the stricter, post-9/11 security introduced along the 5,525-mile border that more than 70 million international travelers and 35 million vehicles cross each year.

The Commons: A fish story, in verse

The Scene. “Is that all you’ve got?” moaned James Moore, as he is wont to do.

“Is that all you’ve got?” he cried again a second later, in case Alexandre Boulerice hadn’t heard him the first time.

The Heritage Minister did not clarify what precisely he found lacking in news that, as The Globe and Mail put it this morning, “the RCMP is probing allegations that members of the Quebec construction industry tried to use Conservative contacts all the way up to the Prime Minister’s Office in a bid to influence the choice of a new president of the Montreal Port Authority.” But if Mr. Moore didn’t think that much was worth a query or several, he was no doubt mollified as the range of the opposition’s concerns this day became clear: everything from ethical lapses to alleged failures by this government in regards to conditions on native reserves, firearms licensing, international climate talks, asbestos exports, employment insurance, food safety and poverty.

Foremost among concerns this afternoon was Peter MacKay’s fish story.

RCMP confirms records of make, model and serial numbers of guns sold no longer required when long-gun registry is dismantled

PARLIAMENT HILL—Firearms dealers and stores will no longer be required by law to maintain logs of the make, model and serial numbers of the rifles and shotguns they sell once a Conservative government bill dismantling the federal long-run registry takes effect, the RCMP says.

Confirmation of the state of gun sale records once Bill C-19, the Eliminating the Long-Gun Registry Bill, becomes law, from the office of the RCMP Commissioner of Firearms, through RCMP media relations, contradicts what prominent anti-registry spokesmen and the government were saying as late as this week. This means no reliable or legally required records for tracing long gun sales in case of homicides and other firearm violence related to shotguns and rifles will be available to police once the legislation becomes law.

“The former system through which firearm dealers and retailers recorded sales of firearms became redundant with the coming into force of the Firearms Act on Dec. 1, 1998, because businesses were required to register their firearms with the RCMP's Registrar of Firearms,” RCMP Sgt. Julie Gagnon told The Hill Times in an email Tuesday. “Record-keeping requirements for licensed firearm businesses under the Firearms Licences Regulations were subsequently eliminated.”

The emailed statement to The Hill Times arrived after a turbulent day on Parliament Hill and in Montreal and Quebec City, where hundreds of gun-control advocates gathered to protest the Conservative plan to terminate the federal registry and destroy all its records, as they also held commemorative ceremonies for 14 female engineering students who were shot to death by a rampaging gunman at Montreal’s L’Ecole Polytechnique on Dec. 6, 1989.

Attawapiskat leader threatens civil disobedience

A regional chief who represents Attawapiskat says that a number of his counterparts in other First Nations are prepared to engage in civil disobedience over Ottawa's handling of a housing crisis in the northern Ontario community.

"There's people who are ready to stand up and be counted... to stand up and do civil disobedience so that we are heard," Stan Louttit told Evan Solomon on CBC-TV's Power & Politics.

"If the minister does not want to work with us, you may see that sooner than later," said Louttit, who presides over the Mushkegowuk Council, which represents Attawapiskat and six other First Nations.

Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan has ordered an independent audit of Attawapiskat's finances and has appointed a third-party manager to oversee spending, after local leaders declared an emergency over substandard housing conditions.

Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence declared an emergency in October as winter approached, while some members of the community of about 1,800 huddled in unheated tents, condemned housing and portable trailers.

Spence has criticized Ottawa's handling of the crisis, saying residents need emergency assistance first and foremost, and accusing the federal government of trying to silence her community. Spence has also said the local band council is developing its own plan to deal with the crisis, though she has not provided details.

Toronto agency backed by Mayor Ford spent $55,000 on single-source contracts

A city agency spent more than $50,000 on two single-sourced architectural contracts in its ill-fated push to overhaul plans for 1,000 acres of dormant lakeshore property – a scheme championed by Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, City Hall’s most prominent crusaders against non-competitive purchasing.

Both plans came to naught, collapsing in the face of a critical backlash. But a few ideas contained within them – including the controversial Ferris wheel, monorail and megamall – could be resurrected as Waterfront Toronto kick-starts new development plans for the area.

The Toronto Port Lands Co., a city-owned corporation, paid $25,000 to U.K.-based CityArts and $30,510 to Toronto-based Sweeny Sterling Finlayson & Co. for their work, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail through an access to information request.

Under the agency’s guidelines, purchases of $25,000 or under don’t require board or city approval. Even so, Councillor Ford has fixated on the issue and frequently condemned the city’s sole-sourcing habits – on everything from streetcars to soft drinks in community centres to food contracts in seniors homes. Rob Ford ran for mayor on a promise to mandate competitive bids for “all city purchases and contracts,” according to his campaign literature.

Canada's prisons becoming warehouses for the mentally ill

Canada’s prisons are facing a growing crisis as they become the “institutions of last resort” for people with mental illnesses, the Canadian Psychiatric Association says.

“Corrections [Canada] is not geared to deal with some of the needs of a vast population of people with major mental illnesses,” CPA board member Gary Chaimowitz told The Globe and Mail.

Dr. Chaimowitz will be on Parliament Hill Wednesday morning to ask the federal government to improve prison services for mentally ill offenders.

More than one in 10 men and nearly one in three women held in federal prisons have mental-health problems, according to 2009 figures from the Correctional Service of Canada. Those numbers represent a near-doubling in the total proportion of inmates with mental illnesses between 1997 and 2009.

“Psychiatric institutions have been closing over the years, and the mentally ill … have now found that the correctional system has become the institution of last resort,” Dr. Chaimowitz said.

He said those prisoners often end up in segregation units and without adequate treatment because the prisons don’t have the staff or resources to properly care for them.

Devil in budget details

Arts

The Toronto Arts Council, the arm’s-length group that administers 750 grants totalling $10 million to individuals and mid-size organizations every year, is among organizations being hit.

Executive director Claire Hopkinson says she has yet to receive confirmation from City Hall, but she believes the Arts Council is in for a 10 per cent reduction in both its grant reserve and administrative budget.

“If it comes to that, it’s going to be an awful decision to make,” she says. “Ten per cent to our programs is devastating.”

Hopkinson warns that cuts to the TAC would threaten Toronto’s “arts ecology,” the kind of interdependence that sees unheralded artists use grants to develop their skills and eventually lend their talents to major arts organizations like the Canadian Opera Company or the National Ballet.

Estimated savings: $1.9 million

City budget moves: Foes occupy Ford

In a topsy-turvy week that saw the Ford administration embarrassingly out of the loop during the Occupy Toronto eviction, and the sudden departure of the mayor’s press secretary, there was also a looming backlash over the budget for Ford & Co to manage.

The week’s thrills and spills are the clearest indication yet that, a year in, the power of the mayor – whose grip on reality has been tenuous at the best of times – is on the wane.

Indeed, some councillors are predicting a complete rejection of the budget. We’ll see about that. But the early political returns on the raft of cuts Ford proposed Monday, November 28, are decidedly unfavourable. Some councillors, even those not in the habit of voting against him, are calling town halls to hear what their constituents have to say, clearly manoeuvring to give themselves an out. Whether the mayor has given his allies on council enough to soften the blow for their constituents remains to be seen. Sacrificing pools for frills like leaf pickup in the burbs seems like a non-starter.

Among the cuts proposed in the 2012 budget: shared rec programming with the TDSB at 12 community centres, reduced Wheel-Trans service for dialysis patients, and the closure of daycare centres. On top of that is the 10¢ hike in TTC fares. (For more details, see Ben Spurr’s story on this page).

Two key questions we’re not hearing from City Hall

As the budget process at Toronto City Hall crawls forward, with another round of the budget committee’s meeting today and then the All-Singing All-Dancing* Extravaganza of public deputations on the proposed budget tomorrow and Thursday, here are a couple of quick notes—not about what we’re hearing, but about what we’re not.

1. WHAT DO WE WANT TO AFFORD?

When looking at any of the $88 million in proposed service and program cuts, or at suggestions for implementing new user fees (yesterday, fees for DVD borrowing at libraries and a $2-per-person admission price to public pools were tossed around), the debate is being framed by Mayor Rob Ford, Budget Chief Mike Del Grande and their allies as a matter of “what can we afford?” The premise here is that the city is broke, and while it would be “nice to have” public pools and libraries that were freely available to the general public, and “nice to have” shelters that ensure homeless senior-citizen mental-health patients do not freeze on the street, we simply have no money to do everything we’re doing now.