Flaherty launches pre-budget talks; opposition cries ‘faux consultation’

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is bending an ear to business, labour and average Canadians as he crafts a federal spending plan designed to create jobs, buoy the economy and make strides in slaying the deficit.

On Friday, Flaherty held the first in a series of cross-country consultations, a pre-budget roundtable discussion in Charlottetown. He also launched an online consultation process where Canadians can submit ideas on how the federal government should spend their tax dollars and manage the volatile economy.

“Budget 2012 will maintain our focus on jobs and economic growth while reducing the deficit and returning to balance in the medium term,” Flaherty said in a statement. “Today, and in coming weeks, I want to hear from Canadians on how we can advance the next phase of our Economic Action Plan to continue to deliver results on these priorities.”

Flaherty will hold four more roundtables with a wide variety of businesspeople, academics, think-tank and industry representatives, non-government representatives and labour groups. They’re part of a broader consultation process that includes meeting with provincial and territorial finance ministers in December. He also plans meetings with opposition finance critics and welcomes input from all MPs.

But opposition critics say Flaherty’s consultations are a charade because he rarely incorporates what Canadians want into the budget.

Saying one thing but doing another

AN embarrassing series of emails continues to put the lie to Conservative claims to be pure as the driven snow. That’s how they first came to office, promising their administration would be open, honest, transparent and free from the fiascoes that dogged the Liberals when they got too comfy. What a difference five years makes.

The latest dust-up involves Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s increasingly desperate efforts to justify using a search and rescue helicopter to get from a Newfoundland fishing trip to a meeting in London, Ont.

When questions arose, MacKay said the whole thing had been planned as a way for him to participate in a practice exercise. Ironically, the big chopper’s pilot could not find a place to land at the remote fishing camp and the crew had to hoist MacKay aboard in a basket.

Emails released through access to information show MacKay’s office requested a helicopter on the grounds he had a last-minute need to “unexpectedly” head to London. So much for the ruse about a pre-planned demonstration for the minister, who uses government aircraft more than any other cabinet minister.

Other emails from senior defence officials warn that the optics of the ministerial flight from a fishing holiday were bad. And yet, MacKay sticks to his story.

Canada accused of bullying countries

Conference host says nation pushing others to support its anti-Kyoto stance

Signs of progress emerged Saturday during international climate change negotiations as thousands took to the streets urging global leaders to step up their efforts.

The demonstration came one day after China indicated it was considering joining a "legally binding" deal to reduce emissions. At the same time, the conference also received a draft text that offered different options for negotiators for achieving a $100-billion annual green fund by 2020 to help developing countries tackle the causes and impacts of global warming.

Developed countries have pledged to offer "fast-start" financing over the first few years, but the text suggested new taxes in shipping and aviation as other options to consider.

Canada already pledged about $1.2 billion over three years to help kick-start the fund, Environment Minister Peter Kent had said before the conference got underway.

But the host country of the conference also urged Canada to reconsider turning its back on the Kyoto Protocol, suggesting Kent was "bullying" poorer countries to support the Canadian government's anti-Kyoto Protocol stance.

Van Loan’s defence of dirty tricks debases Tories and degrades democracy

At least once a year for the last 20 or more, as a pollster, I’ve been asked “Why are young people so detached from our political parties?” or “What can we do to reverse the decline in voting turnout, especially among young people?”

Last May's election reminded us this problem is not going away on its own. Some days it seems like a pretty complex challenge. And then there are moments of great clarity, as there was in Ottawa this past week.

For a while now, there’s been a dirty-trick rumour in circulation: that organized callers have been phoning Liberal MP Irwin Cotler’s constituents, leaving the false impression he is leaving politics and they would need a new MP soon.

Eventually, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan admitted that this was being done on an organized basis by the Conservatives. A sad, cynical enough moment in Canadian politics. Then he took cynicism to a new, jaw dropping level.

Perimeter deal may help Canada crackdown on EI and migration cheats: ex-diplomat

OTTAWA—Canada will gain some enhanced powers under the new perimeter security deal with the United States.

Canada will get more power to track unemployment insurance recipients who skip the country.

They’ll also have greater power to monitor landed immigrants who don’t spend enough time here to meet residency requirements.

A former Canadian diplomat who has spoken with those who negotiated the deal says the increased muscle will come with a $1-billion price tag.

Colin Robertson, an ex-diplomat who has served in Washington, says a new entry-exit system for people crossing the border will be a key feature of the deal.

A closer look at Mitt Romney's job creation record

Shortly after Mitt Romney resigned from Bain Capital in 1999 to run the Olympics in Salt Lake City, potential investors received a prospectus touting the extraordinary profits earned by the private equity firm that Romney controlled for 15 years.

During that time, Boston-based Bain acquired more than 115 companies, according to the prospectus. Bain's estimated annual returns were more than five times that of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the same period.

Now a front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, Romney says his Bain experience shows he knows how to create jobs. He often cites Bain's investment in a little-known office supply store called Staples, which now employs more than 90,000 worldwide.

Burning Love

Americans have never met a hydrocarbon they didn’t like. Oil, natural gas, liquefied natural gas, tar-sands oil, coal-bed methane, and coal, which is, mostly, carbon—the country loves them all, not wisely, but too well. To the extent that the United States has an energy policy, it is perhaps best summed up as: if you’ve got it, burn it.

America’s latest hydrocarbon crush is shale gas. Shale gas has been around for a long time—the Marcellus Shale, which underlies much of Pennsylvania and western New York, dates back to the mid-Devonian period, almost four hundred million years ago—and geologists have been aware of its potential as a fuel source for many decades. But it wasn’t until recently that, owing to advances in drilling technology, extracting the gas became a lucrative proposition. The result has been what National Geographic has called “the great shale gas rush.” In the past ten months alone, some sixteen hundred new wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania; it is projected that the total number in the state could eventually grow to more than a hundred thousand. Nationally, shale-gas production has increased by a factor of twelve in the past ten years.

The Sad Truth About the Fight Against Blood Diamonds

It is a tragic paradox of our time that poor nations with abundant resources should suffer unimaginably while their political leaders appropriate riches that might otherwise mitigate poverty and foster economic growth. This brutal phenomenon is known as the "resource curse." With a global economy increasingly defined by access to natural resources, and emerging nations with growing populations industrializing and creating new scarcities, this pattern of corruption and abuse grows more appalling each day.

Five years ago I made the film Blood Diamond -- a story of the illicit diamond trade and its funding of the bloody civil war in Sierra Leone. While doing my research, I discovered that the NGO Global Witness had been the first to expose the blood diamond trade and call for action. The pressure brought to bear by this small but remarkably effective group helped create what many hoped would be a lasting solution -- the Kimberley Process -- a certification scheme that brought together governments, industry and civil society in an effort to guarantee that diamonds would no longer be sourced from conflict zones in order to finance war.

Unfortunately, the Kimberley Process's refusal to address the clear links between diamonds, violence and tyranny has rendered it hopelessly ineffectual. In effect, it has become an accomplice to diamond laundering -- as well as the corruption and depredations that inevitably follow -- by offering the illusion of institutional cover to endemic and escalating corruption. Despite intensive efforts over nine years by a determined coalition of NGOs, the sad truth is that most consumers still cannot be sure where their diamonds come from. And so, Monday, Global Witness is announcing its withdrawal as an official Observer to the process.

The reasons for this are many and sadly irrefutable. Last month the Kimberley Process allowed the government of Zimbabwe to cash in diamonds mined in the infamous Marange fields -- site of a state-sponsored massacre of hundreds of civilian miners. Currently under the control of the Zanu PF military-political elite, this ill-gotten windfall will serve to finance President Robert Mugabe's re-election campaign, assuring his stranglehold on that benighted country for years to come. That the diamond industry and the Kimberly Process' member states chose to disregard this blatant corruption is unconscionable. Rather than share in its complicity, the group had no choice but to withdraw its support. Nor is this the first instance of such abuse. The Kimberly Process has also failed to deal with the trade in conflict diamonds from Côte d'Ivoire, and was unwilling to take action in the face of equally flagrant disregard by Venezuela.

Although Global Witness will continue to work with other NGOs in the Civil Society Coalition, it befalls the rest of us to do our part. In addition to supporting legislation that will oblige the diamond industry to comply with independent audits and public disclosure, we must finally become responsible consumers. It is time we awaken to the reality that what we buy and where it comes from is inherently political. We must call on companies to become transparent and call out those who don't. We need to make sure that the diamond we buy to express our love is not destroying the life of someone we will never know.

Origin
Source: Huff 

CSIS Letter: Torture Crucial To Maintaining Canada's Security Certificate Letters

Canada's spy agency relied so heavily on information gleaned from torture that is ability to protect Canadians would be harmed if it weren't allowed to do so, a letter from a CSIS head indicated.

The letter, obtained by the Montreal Gazette, was sent from then- CSIS Director Jim Judd to then-Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, in January of 2008, as the government was preparing new legislation on national security certificates (NSLs).

Judd warned that an amendment to the new law, which would prevent the use of torture to issue NSLs, could "render unsustainable the current security certificate proceedings."

NSLs allow Canadian authorities to detain non-citizens indefinitely without trial, where evidence exists that they are a national security risk. A cabinet minister must sign off on any use of an NSL.

If the NSL amendment were interpreted to mean that Canada could not rely on evidence initially obtained from governments that may have tortured, and then independently corroborated, "the Government's ability to act in the interest of public safety on threat-related information or advice provided by CSIS could be significantly and negatively affected," the letter stated,

Yvo de Boer, Ex-U.N. Climate Chief, Says Talks Are Rudderless

DURBAN, South Africa -- Yvo de Boer said he left his job as the U.N.'s top climate official in frustration 18 months ago, believing the process of negotiating a meaningful climate agreement was failing. His opinion hasn't changed.

"I still have the same view of the process that led me to leave the process," he told The Associated Press Sunday. "I'm still deeply concerned about where it's going, or rather where it's not going, about the lack of progress."

For three years until 2010, the Dutch civil servant was the leading voice on global warming on the world stage. He appeared constantly in public to advocate green policies, traveled endlessly for private meetings with top leaders and labored with negotiators seeking ways to finesse snags in drafting agreements.

In the end he felt he "wasn't really able to contribute as I should be to the process," he said.

Today he can take a long view on his years as a Dutch negotiator in the 1990s and later as a senior U.N. official with access to the highest levels of government, business and civil society. He is able to voice criticisms he was reluctant to air when he was actively shepherding climate diplomacy.