While attending the summit of the Three Amigo's, Prime Minister Harper's position on the Mexican visa issue blew up in his face. It was his own fault. To paraphrase the explanation as to why visas are now necessary, he stated it was due to a loophole in Canadian refugee law that allowed people to make bogus refugee claims either inside or outside of Canada. He then went on to say that it is not the fault of the Mexican government or its people for this situation and then pledged his great friendship with the people of Mexico.
Now, if we translate his statement from Conservative political language into English or French, it would sound like this ... We screwed up because we didn't fix a loophole we didn't like so we have to impose the visas. It's not your fault, it's our fault, but you have to live with the visas. We have no idea how to fix the immigration claims system and don't know when we will have a solution available or if it will get past parliament. The non-political problem the Conservative government will have is making changes to the immigration claims criteria. Presently, that criteria is based on the 1985 Supreme Court ruling which grants the right to anyone who is in this country without citizenship the right to ask to be recognized as a refugee. As Supreme Court rulings are extremely difficult to overturn, Mr. Harper has taken the easy way out of his "imagined" problem of fraudulent refugee claims from Mexico and the Czech Republic by imposing visas to slow the claims process down. If he ever does manage to change the immigration claims process the way he wants, he is going to have one hell of a problem (the 1985 Supreme Court ruling) which is why he can give no timetable as to when the changes will take place or what those changes will be.
Moving on to Jason Kenny, the other side of this dog and pony show, paraphrasing from Mr. Kenny ... Mr. Kenny believed it was right of Mr. Harper to point out the problems with the current refugee system. He also believes that Mr. Harper should not be criticized by the media for bringing the problem to light. He also went on to say that it was basically the Supreme Court of Canada's fault for too many refugee claims. As he was saying this, he appeared to laugh. I don't know if this was because he realized how absurd his statement was as he said it or whether he gets nervous in from of the camera crew from the CBC. Either way, because of the laugh, it could be implied he was making fun of the Supreme Court of Canada or the fair immigration policy the court set up. Either way, he looks like a complete idiot. now I understand why the press secretary left a couple weeks ago and last week the head of strategic communications for the PMO, whose job it is to be the chief spin doctor, resigned. They got tired of dealing with the clowns.
Note to politicians: See what happens when you have no communications staff left?!.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
The last time I checked, I wasn't in Victorian England but...
RE- post..
The last time I checked, I wasn't in Victorian England but you'd think Canada was in Victorian times where Mr. Harper is concerned. The Prime Minister of Canada and several agencies of the crown were ordered by the Federal Court of Appeals on Friday, August 14, 2009 to ask for the eventual release of Omar Khadr from U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Our government had argued unsuccessfully that there was an ongoing U.S. legal process and did not want to interfere. They could have asked the American for his return but chose not to. All we are talking about here is asking - doesn't mean we are going to get him. This is now the second time the government of Canada has lost it's argument of non-interference in the legal process of another country. The court found that there were clear Charter of Rights and Freedoms violations and on that basis is forcing the government to act in defence of Khadr to protect his rights. The response so far from the Prime Ministers office has been that they will study the decision. If they choose to appeal the case will be going to the Supreme Court of Canada. If the Supreme Court chooses to accept the case, it be more legal limbo for Omar Khadr while waiting for the ruling.
One of the things Harper is complaining about is that the Federal Court of Appeal ruling encroaches on the powers of the Prime Minister. If Harper had not changed the long-standing policy of Foreign Affairs from automatically seeking the repatriation of Canadian citizens held abroad to hearings on a case by case basis, the Federal Court of Appeals would not have had to direct him on two separate occasions (for Mr. Khadr) to properly represent Canadian citizens in foreign countries. Thus, he would not be stuck with the possible legal precedent of having to do something that he is dead set against, interfering in the legal process of a sovereign state. At this point, he should be realizing he is not a King. Just because you don't like to do something doesn't mean you don't have to do it. Just like your mother told you! He is not qualified to make the statement that such a ruling encroaches on any Prime Ministerial powers as he did not train to be a lawyer. He trained to be an economist. His Justice Minister is a lawyer and perhaps he should have consulted with him before making that statement.
Full disclosure, I am not a lawyer either. I look at these legal issues as a hobby. As always, I may be wrong in my legal assessments but I stick to general principles. Some lawyers have claimed that this is the first time in history that the Federal Court of Appeals, or any court for that matter, has directed foreign policy in a ruling. Technically, this is incorrect as the Federal Court of Canada made a ruling on Khadr's behalf last year, the government appealed and this is the result of the appeal, making it the second time. Now we will have to wait and see if Ottawa wants to fight this case in the Supreme Court of Canada. For Omar's sake, I hope this does not happen.
msdoogfood@hotmail.com
The last time I checked, I wasn't in Victorian England but you'd think Canada was in Victorian times where Mr. Harper is concerned. The Prime Minister of Canada and several agencies of the crown were ordered by the Federal Court of Appeals on Friday, August 14, 2009 to ask for the eventual release of Omar Khadr from U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Our government had argued unsuccessfully that there was an ongoing U.S. legal process and did not want to interfere. They could have asked the American for his return but chose not to. All we are talking about here is asking - doesn't mean we are going to get him. This is now the second time the government of Canada has lost it's argument of non-interference in the legal process of another country. The court found that there were clear Charter of Rights and Freedoms violations and on that basis is forcing the government to act in defence of Khadr to protect his rights. The response so far from the Prime Ministers office has been that they will study the decision. If they choose to appeal the case will be going to the Supreme Court of Canada. If the Supreme Court chooses to accept the case, it be more legal limbo for Omar Khadr while waiting for the ruling.
One of the things Harper is complaining about is that the Federal Court of Appeal ruling encroaches on the powers of the Prime Minister. If Harper had not changed the long-standing policy of Foreign Affairs from automatically seeking the repatriation of Canadian citizens held abroad to hearings on a case by case basis, the Federal Court of Appeals would not have had to direct him on two separate occasions (for Mr. Khadr) to properly represent Canadian citizens in foreign countries. Thus, he would not be stuck with the possible legal precedent of having to do something that he is dead set against, interfering in the legal process of a sovereign state. At this point, he should be realizing he is not a King. Just because you don't like to do something doesn't mean you don't have to do it. Just like your mother told you! He is not qualified to make the statement that such a ruling encroaches on any Prime Ministerial powers as he did not train to be a lawyer. He trained to be an economist. His Justice Minister is a lawyer and perhaps he should have consulted with him before making that statement.
Full disclosure, I am not a lawyer either. I look at these legal issues as a hobby. As always, I may be wrong in my legal assessments but I stick to general principles. Some lawyers have claimed that this is the first time in history that the Federal Court of Appeals, or any court for that matter, has directed foreign policy in a ruling. Technically, this is incorrect as the Federal Court of Canada made a ruling on Khadr's behalf last year, the government appealed and this is the result of the appeal, making it the second time. Now we will have to wait and see if Ottawa wants to fight this case in the Supreme Court of Canada. For Omar's sake, I hope this does not happen.
msdoogfood@hotmail.com
Sunday, September 13, 2009
stupid stupid Canada Border Services Agency
Reunited with daughter, he is suing Ottawa after mistake sends him to Australia for 3 years
September 12, 2009
Nicholas KeungIMMIGRATION REPORTER
An Ajax man mistaken for an illegal immigrant and wrongly deported by Canada is finally home after spending three years in a birthplace he left as a 9-month-old baby.
"I'd lost hope that I'd ever be allowed to come back here," said Tavis Lamprell, 38, who was adopted at birth in Australia and arrived here with his parents in 1971 as a permanent resident. "There is just a rush of emotions right now. It still hasn't sunk in that I'm home."
In 2005, Lamprell was summoned by immigration officials for an interview at the Greater Toronto Enforcement Centre and slapped with a deportation order as a result of several criminal convictions, including an assault involving a girlfriend. The Canada Border Services Agency did not properly verify his immigration status before sending him to Australia in April 2006, separating him from his 12-year-old daughter.
By law, a permanent resident cannot be automatically deported as a result of a conviction, and is entitled to an admissibility hearing before an immigration judge and to be informed of appeal rights.
Lamprell claimed officials refused to look at his old Australian passport from 1971 with the "permanent resident" stamp on it and threatened to throw him in jail.
"I sold everything I had in Canada and left with two suitcases and a carry-on. I didn't know anyone there," recalled a teary Lamprell, who was deported to Sydney.
Lamprell, a roofer by training, had trouble putting bread on the table because his skills and experience working with asphalt and shingles didn't work in Australia, where builders use slates, concrete tiles and steel for roofing. He ended up working part-time as a furniture mover.
Meanwhile, Lamprell kept looking for a way back to Canada and enlisted the help of Toronto immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman through the Internet.
In March 2007, the Canadian Consulate General in Sydney acknowledged an error had been made and Lamprell had been deported by mistake.
Canadian officials told him he would have to apply for a temporary resident permit, authorization to return and to reapply for permanent residence upon his arrival in Canada. However, Waldman successfully asked the Federal Court of Canada to quash the deportation order, which automatically reinstated Lamprell's landed immigrant status.
Lamprell, who returned to Canada on Sept. 1 at the expense of the Canadian government, and his daughter Natasha have filed a $2.5 million lawsuit against the federal government for negligence in handling his deportation.
In its statement of defence, the government says, "At no time during the (deportation) interview did Lamprell ever indicate or suggest that he was a permanent resident, or that there was any error." It argues he has no right to damages because he didn't challenge the deportation order in a timely fashion.
Natasha, now 15, said she suffered depression after her father left. She was cared for in Canada by Lamprell's now ex-girlfriend.
"It was really hard ... I'd lived with my dad for eight years before he left," said Natasha, who spoke with her father by phone once a week and online over the last three years. "I'm just glad he's back."
Election myth busters Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a Numbnuts!!!.
OTTAWA–They say truth is the first casualty of war– and that goes for political wars, too.
As momentum builds toward another election campaign, so are the urban political myths. Here's a look at some of the most prominent mind-benders.
MYTH: An election would imperil economic recovery.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says an election would "screw up" the fragile economic recovery.
But that's not the view on Bay St. There, it elicits laughter.
"You believe that?" blurted Avery Shenfeld, senior analyst at CIBC World Markets.
National political campaigns are not a cause for concern on Bay Street, he said.
"We don't typically see a lot of financial market or business response to Canadian elections," which, Shenfeld noted, "don't tend to be revolutionary."
Few, if any, glaring differences exist between the Conservatives and the Liberals on key economic issues, observers note.
The Liberals supported the budget of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, above, that contained $35 billion over two years in stimulative spending. And, like the Harper government, the Liberals say that if elected they would tame the deficit without raising taxes or slashing federal transfers to the provinces.
"When you have both the Conservatives and Liberals in favour of corporate tax cuts and both sort of committed to the idea that deficits are a bad thing ... I don't really see how an election is of much consequence to the markets or to the economy," said United Steelworkers economist Erin Weir.
MYTH: The Liberals will wrest power from the Conservatives by joining in a coalition with the NDP and the Bloc Québécois.
Prime Minister Harper fuelled a backlash against his political opponents last winter by saying a proposed Liberal-NDP coalition – supported by the BQ – was an attempt to hijack the results of the Oct. 14 election. And the Conservatives are again reviving the coalition bogeyman.
"If we do not win a majority, this country will have a Liberal government propped up by the socialists and the separatists," Harper told party faithful recently.
But Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, who spurned the coalition idea after taking over last winter, continues to deny having any interest in it.
"Let me be very clear – the Liberal party would not agree to a coalition," he said yesterday.
"In January we did not support a coalition and we do not support a coalition today or tomorrow."
Canadians want a cooperative, well-functioning Parliament – not a Liberal-NDP coalition supported by the BQ, Ignatieff said.
"We know how to make Parliament work," he told reporters. "I'm favourable to compromise, I'm favourable to reaching out."
Nonetheless, a campaigning Harper can be expected to try to fan fears of a Liberal power grab joined with the NDP and BQ.
MYTH: A Liberal proposal to make it easier for laid-off workers to obtain Employment Insurance would be irresponsibly costly.
The Liberals want to ease employment insurance rules to help laid-off workers who cannot qualify for EI payments.
Reducing eligibility to 360 hours of work would allow another 150,000 to qualify for jobless benefits, the Liberals say, at a cost of $1.5 billion.
But the Conservatives have ridiculed that estimate, saying it would run up Ottawa's EI bill by a massive $4 billion annually.
Arguing that this tally by cabinet minister Diane Finley was vastly exaggerated, the Liberals asked Kevin Page, the independent parliamentary budget officer, to analyze their proposal.
Yesterday, Page estimated the 360-hour standard would have a $1.1 billion annual price tag.
Ignatieff said Page's analysis upheld Liberals' bookkeeping and showed the Conservatives' $4 billion tally was "completely false."
MYTH: An election will cheat Canadians out of their home renovation tax credit.
Harper and other Conservatives have raised the spectre that an election call could nullify the tax credit program for home renovations this year.
That's because the measure, though promoted widely, has yet to become law. Conservatives plan to introduce a ways and means motion soon for that purpose.
However, Liberals say they'll no longer support the minority government, meaning defeat of the Conservatives could come first.
Not to worry, Liberals say.
"We support the home renovation tax credit ... and will ensure Canadians are able to claim (it) in 2009 no matter what," spokesman Jean-François Del Torchio said.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Volvo Cars have faulty software which can lead to engine problems.
Volvo Cars announced on Wednesday it planned to recall 26,000 cars worldwide because of faulty software which can lead to engine problems.
it's the electronic module which under certain circumstances does not work as it should. The engine doesn't start or just stops after 100 metres," Volvo spokeswoman Maria Bohlin told AFP.
"All customers will receive a letter informing them to go to a dealer and have the software updated," she added.
The cars concerned are the 2008-2010 models of the S80, V70, XC60, XC70 and S80L (sold only in China), which are equipped with a T6, or six cylinder, turbo-charged engine.
Of the 26,000 cars to be recalled, 12,000 are in the United States where the engine is "very common," Bohlin said, while there were "very few" in Europe.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Why i love The we move to canada blog!!!
shut up and vote
During my first year or so in Canada, I was repeatedly mystified by hearing, over and over, how the populace did not want an election. We don't want a Christmas election, we're too busy with the holidays. We don't want a summer election, we're all at the cottage. We don't want a winter election, it's too cold to go out and vote. We don't want another election, we just had one 18 months ago.
For the life of me, I could not understand it. I once asked readers what this meant. Were people really so busy with Christmas plans that they couldn't spare a few minutes to vote?
Readers told me, no, that wasn't it. It's that their minds are elsewhere. They don't want their family celebrations interrupted. They are out of the country, in warmer climes. They will punish the party that calls an unnecessary election. (If only that had happened in 2008!) They cannot focus on the important issues at hand, can't study their ballots and decide who to vote for. (You can see the answers on this old post.)
The answers did nothing to clarify the issue for me.
You know where you stand on various issues, right? Which party comes the closest to your point of view? Vote for them. No?
It took me a while to realize that Canadians complain about elections. Period. It doesn't matter when they happen or why. Canadians and the media that purport to reflect their views whine about elections. I still don't know why, but I no longer attempt to figure it out.
A corollary to this are the Liberal partisans who defend their party's spinelessness and lack of principles by declaring that an election is unnecessary "at this time". Whenever I would cry out in frustration over Dion or Ignatieff playing coalition partner to the Harper Conservatives, inevitably, a Liberal blogger would stop by to deliver the familiar refrain: "There's no point in having an election just for the sake of an election. It's not the right time. When it's the right time, the Liberals will bring down the Government."
But three crucial words were always omitted. "When it's the right time for the Liberals."
I liked Rick Salutin's take, especially regarding the media's complicity and the transparent hypocrisy of "making Parliament work".
Come on, Canadians. Just shut up and vote.
Suck it up, Canada: What are we – shoppers or citizens? A portion of each, I suppose. But it's fatal to confuse the roles, as seems to be happening with all the whinging and whining over "another" election that "nobody" wants.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper was the first to moan in, right after Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff announced his intention to pull the plug on the Conservatives' minority government. Iggy had a list of plausible enough reasons that would more likely lead you to ask him Why did you wait so long? than What for? The PM's response was that he hasn't met "a single Canadian" who wants an election, which may only reveal the limited range of his contacts.
Yet many in the news media echoed it. I think at random of Suhana Meharchand on CBC Radio's phone-in last Sunday, chortling over the silliness of another election. I may have gone humourless, but I don't really get it.
In a vital democracy, like ancient Athens or the Iroquois confederacy, people were involved in politics continually. Under our system, politics more or less equals elections, so you could call frequent elections our form of participatory democracy. It keeps citizens engaged and parties on their toes. Under a stable majority, everyone goes to sleep for four years. Do you think we'd have had even the minimal action we've seen from Mr. Harper on the economy or on withdrawal from Afghanistan if he'd had a majority?
But everything turns upside down if you treat politics as a shopping trip – I don't waaant an election – rather than the ongoing duty of each citizen. It's like newscasters saying, "Thanks for watching," as if we tune in to do them a favour, rather than from our need as citizens to be informed. Citizenship isn't a consumer choice that you may or may not make. People can opt out of it, but then they lose the right to complain, and it's a mingy choice to make if you think of kids and others affected by actions taken in the name of us all.
Besides, if these whiners really don't want an election and prefer Parliament "to work," why did so many of them object to a coalition last winter? It was the very definition of making Parliament work in a minority situation. I don't think minority governments are inherently unstable; I'd call them inherently alert. The current one has indeed been unstable since it's so distant from the majority of members in the House and voters in the country. But, say, a Liberal minority could well find enough common ground with the Bloc and NDP to enact many things that most citizens would value.
It's the snickering and eye-rolling among media opiners that I find most offensive, as if their stance is so sophisticated. In fact, they function as dupes for a rotten status quo, helping to keep power in the hands of those who can afford to pay for it by getting others, like the party bosses, to fulfill their wishes. There is wreckage to be dealt with out there, lives are still being destroyed, although the recession is supposed to be all but over. My little strip of College Street in Toronto now has a solid row of abandoned small businesses such as we've not seen in previous crises. It's become a street of broken dreams. Add the fact that voting numbers are declining, which the pseudo-wit of the moaners tends to glamorize. The downward trend reduces the constituencies to which politicians must attend, and ratchets up the electoral clout of the resolute pressure groups, such as evangelicals and gun owners.
If there is a problem with another election, it's that voting is all we're ever offered to satisfy our political impulses, and it is a repetitive and intrinsically shallow exercise. But this implies that we should vote for those ready to expand the arena of democratic participation so that we need not shoehorn the entire human political drive into the narrowness of elections.
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