Frank Iacobucci
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Frank Iacobucci
Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
In officeJanuary 7, 1991 – June 30, 2004
Nominated by
Brian Mulroney
Preceded by
Bertha Wilson
Succeeded by
Rosalie Abella/Louise Charron
Born
January 29, 1937 (1937-01-29) (age 73)Vancouver, British Columbia
Frank Iacobucci, CC (born January 29, 1937) was a Puisne Justice on the Supreme Court of Canada from 1991 to 2004 when he retired from the bench. He is an expert in business and tax law.
Contents[hide]
1 Early career
2 Retirement from court
3 Awards
4 See also
5 References
Early career
The son of Italian immigrants, Iacobucci was born in Vancouver. He received a B.Comm. and LL.B. from the University of British Columbia and an LL.M. from Cambridge University. Iacobucci practised corporate law in New York and then served as a professor at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law from 1967 until 1982 as well as Dean of the law faculty from 1979 until 1982. He also served as Vice-President and Provost of the university from 1983 to 1985. He entered the public service as Deputy Minister of Justice in the federal government from 1985 to 1988 when he was appointed to the Chief Justice of the Federal Court. In 1991, Justice Iacobucci was appointed as Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada by Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney and served in this capacity until retiring in 2004.
[edit] Retirement from court
Following his retirement from the Supreme Court, Iacobucci was appointed Interim President of the University of Toronto in 2004 and served in that post until he was replaced by David Naylor in October 2005. In September of that same year he joined Torys, a leading Canadian legal law firm with close ties to the Conservative faction of Canadian politics and hence a strangely ironic name given the nomenclature of political conservatives as 'Tories' in Canada, as Counsel, and since 2005 has been the Chair of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.[1]
He sits on a number of board of directors including Torstar, publisher of the Toronto Star and a series of smaller newspapers and owner of Harlequin Enterprises, a global publisher of formulaic 'romance/fantasy' or 'soft-soft-porn' novels aimed at the blue-collar/housewife market.
Iacobucci is currently the commissioner of an internal inquiry into the alleged torture of three Arab-Canadians in Syria and Egypt as the personal appointee of Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper .[2] He also chairs the selection committee for commissioners of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission. [3]
In neither case has he been trained as a lawyer or judge, but there is no question of his favour with the Conservative party of Canada.
[edit] Awards
Iacobucci has been given honorary degrees from a number of Canadian schools, and is also an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. In 2007, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. [2]
The Frank Iacobucci Centre for Italian Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto was named in his honour.
On June 9, 2008, Iacobucci was awarded an honorary Doctor of Law degree by McMaster University.
See also
Reasons of the Supreme Court of Canada by Justice Iacobucci
[edit] References
^ Brown, Louise (2007-07-26). "Studying the Ivory Tower". Toronto Star. http://www.thestar.com/article/240008. Retrieved 2008-07-02.
^ [1]
^ Greenaway, Norma (2009-01-30). "Residential schools commission to start from scratch". Canwest News Service. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Indian+residential+schools+commission+struck/1236113/story.html. Retrieved 2009-02-12.
official Supreme Court bio
Torys profile
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Leon's Furniture should know there is more than one religion in the world
This was a complaint email I sent to Leon's Furniture Ltd. over the content of their commercial at the beginning of the holiday season last year. At the end of the message I mention I would be sending my views to the Broadcast Standards/Advertising organization. I did. The results of that correspondence will have to remain confidential as they requested. Although I did not directly state it in the email, it is my belief that you could challenge a company from a legal perspective on use of religious content of any kind. That being said, I am not a lawyer so I could be mistaken. I have no plans to test my theory, it is just an opinion. Any law student or professor reading this should just calm down. As I said, its an opinion. A copy of the email message is copied below. If anyone has questions or their own opinions, you can reach me at
msdogfood@hotmail.com
Last November I noticed you have begun the Ho Ho Ho sales event. Near the end of the ad you say Merry Christmas which is an OK statement if you happen to be Christian. However, it can be viewed as discriminatory to anyone who practices a religion other than Christianity or anyone who doesn't believe in a religion. Technically speaking you shouldn't show preference to one religion over another in the same way government institutions can't. I am aware that in practice, anyone can put up a Christmas tree but those who do not like the Christian symbolism can challenge you which can cause bad press and legal bills. For practical purposes, if you want to use religious symbolism, you have to represent them all. Since this is not practical due to the number of religions (and variations), stay neutral and I will have much less of a problem watching your commercials. I plan to forward my views to Broadcast Standards organizations
msdogfood@hotmail.com
Last November I noticed you have begun the Ho Ho Ho sales event. Near the end of the ad you say Merry Christmas which is an OK statement if you happen to be Christian. However, it can be viewed as discriminatory to anyone who practices a religion other than Christianity or anyone who doesn't believe in a religion. Technically speaking you shouldn't show preference to one religion over another in the same way government institutions can't. I am aware that in practice, anyone can put up a Christmas tree but those who do not like the Christian symbolism can challenge you which can cause bad press and legal bills. For practical purposes, if you want to use religious symbolism, you have to represent them all. Since this is not practical due to the number of religions (and variations), stay neutral and I will have much less of a problem watching your commercials. I plan to forward my views to Broadcast Standards organizations
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Canada ratifies UN treaty for disabled ... good!
Canada ratifies UN treaty for disabled rights
Last Updated: Thursday, March 11, 2010 6:42 PM ET
CBC News
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, left, and Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, shake hands Thursday after ratification of a convention on disabilities. (Bebeto Matthews/The Associated Press)
Canada has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on the eve of the Paralympic Games in Vancouver.
"Canada is committed to promoting and protecting the rights of persons with disabilities and enabling their full participation in society," Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Thursday after delivering the ratified document to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York City as activist Traci Walters looked on, beaming, from her wheelchair.
"Ratification of this convention underscores the government of Canada's strong commitment to this goal," Cannon said.
"We are officially turning on its head the notion that people with disabilities are helpless, in need of care and in need of pity," Walters said later.
"The government of Canada's ratification today of the convention is an historic event for Canadians with disabilities," said Marie White, national chair of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. "It signals the end of an era where people with disabilities were seen as objects of charity. Ratification of the convention makes real our goal of recognition as full and equal citizens of Canada."
The convention will require provincial governments to update several laws, including making schools inclusive to all students. That means disabled students can no longer be diverted to special schools as some still are, said Bendina Miller of the Canadian Association of Community Living.
She cited the experience of one young girl with an intellectual disability whose parents tried to enroll her in Grade One: "Their fears were proved when they walked in to the school office and the secretary took one look at them and said, 'We don't do Down's [Syndrome] here.'"
That student and others like her must now be integrated into a neighbourhood school.
However, the convention is about much more than adding wheelchair ramps. It shifts the focus from institutionalizing those with disabilities to housing them in the community and allowing disabled people to challenge in Canadian courts, laws or policies that contravene the international law.
However, the signing did not go ahead without a glitch. The location of the news conference had to be hastily changed when organizers realized the original room was not wheelchair accessible.Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/03/11/disabled-treaty011.html#socialcomments#ixzz0hvlCb6XD
Last Updated: Thursday, March 11, 2010 6:42 PM ET
CBC News
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, left, and Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, shake hands Thursday after ratification of a convention on disabilities. (Bebeto Matthews/The Associated Press)
Canada has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on the eve of the Paralympic Games in Vancouver.
"Canada is committed to promoting and protecting the rights of persons with disabilities and enabling their full participation in society," Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Thursday after delivering the ratified document to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York City as activist Traci Walters looked on, beaming, from her wheelchair.
"Ratification of this convention underscores the government of Canada's strong commitment to this goal," Cannon said.
"We are officially turning on its head the notion that people with disabilities are helpless, in need of care and in need of pity," Walters said later.
"The government of Canada's ratification today of the convention is an historic event for Canadians with disabilities," said Marie White, national chair of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. "It signals the end of an era where people with disabilities were seen as objects of charity. Ratification of the convention makes real our goal of recognition as full and equal citizens of Canada."
The convention will require provincial governments to update several laws, including making schools inclusive to all students. That means disabled students can no longer be diverted to special schools as some still are, said Bendina Miller of the Canadian Association of Community Living.
She cited the experience of one young girl with an intellectual disability whose parents tried to enroll her in Grade One: "Their fears were proved when they walked in to the school office and the secretary took one look at them and said, 'We don't do Down's [Syndrome] here.'"
That student and others like her must now be integrated into a neighbourhood school.
However, the convention is about much more than adding wheelchair ramps. It shifts the focus from institutionalizing those with disabilities to housing them in the community and allowing disabled people to challenge in Canadian courts, laws or policies that contravene the international law.
However, the signing did not go ahead without a glitch. The location of the news conference had to be hastily changed when organizers realized the original room was not wheelchair accessible.Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/03/11/disabled-treaty011.html#socialcomments#ixzz0hvlCb6XD
Sarah Palin family once travelled to Canada to receive treatment under the public health-care system she’s so often demonized
Lee-Anne Goodman The Canadian Press
WASHINGTON—Sarah Palin’s weekend admission that her family once travelled to Canada to receive treatment under the public health-care system she’s so often demonized prompted skepticism and ridicule Monday among her critics in the United States.
“My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse,” the former Alaska governor said Saturday night during a speech in Calgary.
“Believe it or not — this was in the ‘60s — we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing, and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.”
Always a popular whipping girl among liberal blogs and news sites, Palin was swiftly derided for the comments Monday as the news reverberated through and beyond the U.S. capital.
A headline on the New York media blog Gawker.com read: “Sarah Palin Supports Government-Run Health Care, Inadvertently Uses ‘Ironic’ Correctly.”
Sam Stein of the Huffington Post suggested Palin was a hypocrite.
“The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada’s health-care system as revolting, with its government-run administration and ‘death-panel’-like rationing,” Stein wrote.
“Clearly, however, she and her family once found it more alluring than, at the very least, the coverage available in rural Alaska.”
There were also doubts about the veracity of her story.
In a 2007 report in the Skagway News, Palin said her family travelled south from the town by ferry to Juneau, Alaska, so that her brother could get treatment after burning his foot when jumping through a fire.
“All these years later, that’s still what people have to rely on here in some instances,” said Palin, who was Alaska governor at the time and pledging to improve the town’s ferry system.
One Alaska-based political blog, The Mudflats, wondered — tongue firmly planted in cheek — whether Palin’s brother suffered a burned foot on more than one occasion and she was simply mixing up two different but extremely similar incidents.
“Or perhaps the story was simply tweaked to tell people what they want to hear, while utilizing the perennial ‘I’m one of you’ meme — a great way to ‘connect to the audience’ while skirting those pesky things known as ‘facts,’” the blog reads.
An email to Palin officials requesting more information about her family’s voyages to Whitehorse for medical treatment wasn’t immediately answered on Monday.
The remarks come in the midst of a furious push by top Democrats on Capitol Hill to meet a deadline imposed by President Barack Obama to get a health-care bill signed into law in the next two weeks.
The self-styled hockey mom, who is being coy about whether she’s considering a run for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, has frequently vilified the Democrats for their health-care overhaul, characterizing it as socialism and accusing Obama of conspiring to do away with the elderly and the disabled with so-called “death panels.”
In November, Palin told Canadian comedian Mary Walsh — in character as Marg Delahunty during an episode of “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” — that Canada should dismantle its public health-care system and let private enterprise take over.
Republicans battling against health-care reform have long claimed that Canadians flood the U.S. to get health care because of waiting lists north of the border.
But Palin’s experience, if accurate, reflects what some studies suggest is a more common trend: Americans travelling abroad to get cheaper care.
A report last spring by Deloitte Center for Health Solutions said 750,000 Americans travelled abroad for medical care in 2007, and forecast that number would rise to six million by 2010. That trend far outpaces the number of Canadians coming to the U.S. for medical treatment.
WASHINGTON—Sarah Palin’s weekend admission that her family once travelled to Canada to receive treatment under the public health-care system she’s so often demonized prompted skepticism and ridicule Monday among her critics in the United States.
“My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse,” the former Alaska governor said Saturday night during a speech in Calgary.
“Believe it or not — this was in the ‘60s — we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing, and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.”
Always a popular whipping girl among liberal blogs and news sites, Palin was swiftly derided for the comments Monday as the news reverberated through and beyond the U.S. capital.
A headline on the New York media blog Gawker.com read: “Sarah Palin Supports Government-Run Health Care, Inadvertently Uses ‘Ironic’ Correctly.”
Sam Stein of the Huffington Post suggested Palin was a hypocrite.
“The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada’s health-care system as revolting, with its government-run administration and ‘death-panel’-like rationing,” Stein wrote.
“Clearly, however, she and her family once found it more alluring than, at the very least, the coverage available in rural Alaska.”
There were also doubts about the veracity of her story.
In a 2007 report in the Skagway News, Palin said her family travelled south from the town by ferry to Juneau, Alaska, so that her brother could get treatment after burning his foot when jumping through a fire.
“All these years later, that’s still what people have to rely on here in some instances,” said Palin, who was Alaska governor at the time and pledging to improve the town’s ferry system.
One Alaska-based political blog, The Mudflats, wondered — tongue firmly planted in cheek — whether Palin’s brother suffered a burned foot on more than one occasion and she was simply mixing up two different but extremely similar incidents.
“Or perhaps the story was simply tweaked to tell people what they want to hear, while utilizing the perennial ‘I’m one of you’ meme — a great way to ‘connect to the audience’ while skirting those pesky things known as ‘facts,’” the blog reads.
An email to Palin officials requesting more information about her family’s voyages to Whitehorse for medical treatment wasn’t immediately answered on Monday.
The remarks come in the midst of a furious push by top Democrats on Capitol Hill to meet a deadline imposed by President Barack Obama to get a health-care bill signed into law in the next two weeks.
The self-styled hockey mom, who is being coy about whether she’s considering a run for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, has frequently vilified the Democrats for their health-care overhaul, characterizing it as socialism and accusing Obama of conspiring to do away with the elderly and the disabled with so-called “death panels.”
In November, Palin told Canadian comedian Mary Walsh — in character as Marg Delahunty during an episode of “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” — that Canada should dismantle its public health-care system and let private enterprise take over.
Republicans battling against health-care reform have long claimed that Canadians flood the U.S. to get health care because of waiting lists north of the border.
But Palin’s experience, if accurate, reflects what some studies suggest is a more common trend: Americans travelling abroad to get cheaper care.
A report last spring by Deloitte Center for Health Solutions said 750,000 Americans travelled abroad for medical care in 2007, and forecast that number would rise to six million by 2010. That trend far outpaces the number of Canadians coming to the U.S. for medical treatment.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Canadian Security Intelligence Service has no comment on Tommy Douglas.
OTTAWA — If Louis Riel had been hanged in 1885 because of an informer among his Metis rebels, Canada's spy agency might still be blocking release of that history-changing revelation 125 years later.
That hypothetical scenario was put to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service last week as part of a legal battle over the government's refusal to fully disclose decades-old intelligence gathered on socialist icon Tommy Douglas.
The agency couldn't say for certain whether it would release the identity of Riel's hypothetical betrayer or withhold the information on the basis of national security.
The equivocal response offers a glimpse into the lengths CSIS will go to protect the secrets of the spy trade, no matter how old or historically significant.
Nicole Jalbert, Access to Information co-ordinator for CSIS, testified she routinely nixes disclosure of intelligence files that would reveal confidential sources or intelligence agents, even if they're long dead and the information gathered decades ago.
She said that rule applies to "more contemporary times" - including the files on Douglas, gathered as far back as the 1930s.
Such files must remain secret "perhaps not forever" but "maybe longer" than 100 years.
Paul Champ, lawyer for The Canadian Press reporter who initiated the legal battle over the Douglas dossier, pressed Jalbert to specify how much time must elapse before CSIS considers it safe to release such information. He wondered for instance what she'd do with a file that suggested Riel had been betrayed to the Northwest Mounted Police by fellow Metis leader Gabriel Dumont.
Government lawyer Gregory Tzemenakis called the question "hypothetical" and "unfair." Nevertheless, Jalbert said in a "very, very old" case like that she'd seek the advice of people at CSIS who deal with "human sources."
"I would leave it to their discretion to make the decision," she said during examination on her affidavit filed with the court in January.
"It's not mine to make when we're dealing with human sources."
In a case that is "very, very old like that, yes, it's not clear in my mind that I have to protect it so I will, I will take an extra step and see if we can release it," she added.
Jalbert distinguished between a "very, very old" case like the hypothetical Riel scenario and those like the Douglas case, which are "just old." In the latter instance, she said she routinely refuses to release the names of informants without checking with anyone else at CSIS.
Some of the intelligence was gathered before the Second World War, but she insisted the Douglas case is "still quite contemporary."
"These people still have families and reputations. How are you going to recruit somebody if you can't guarantee their anonymity?"
The battle over Douglas's intelligence file began in November 2005, when reporter Jim Bronskill made an Access to Information request for the RCMP dossier on the fabled prairie preacher who served as premier of Saskatchewan and federal NDP leader, and who is widely hailed as the father of medicare.
The information was gathered by the now-defunct RCMP security service, transferred to CSIS and eventually to Library and Archives Canada.
Some material was released to Bronskill, showing the RCMP had shadowed Douglas for more than three decades, attending his speeches and even eavesdropping on conversations. His links to the peace movement and members of the Communist Party were of particular interest.
But on the recommendation of CSIS, the archives refused to release large parts of the Douglas dossier, citing national security. The exemptions were upheld by the information commissioner of Canada so Bronskill took the minister of Canadian Heritage, who oversees the archives, to court to force disclosure.
Jalbert's affidavit said disclosure of the dossier could endanger informants and jeopardize the spy agency's ability to conduct secret surveillance. She argued that "the origin of information, its extent and the methods by which it was obtained must remain a secret."
During last week's examination, Champ questioned the qualifications of Jalbert, who started with the federal public service as a secretary in 1977, to determine whether the Douglas dossier should be fully disclosed.
Jalbert, who has worked as an Access to Information officer since 1984 with both Foreign Affairs and CSIS, acknowledged she has no expertise in the spy agency's operations or political history. But she was trained by veteran intelligence officers and, in any event, she said determining what shouldn't be released is "not rocket science."
"You don't have to be an intelligence officer working in that milieu to know what is sensitive and what isn't. ... Good judgment will take an individual very, very far," she said.
Moreover, Jalbert said, CSIS has developed guidelines when advising Library and Archives Canada whether a document should be released.
The guidelines specify the name of any RCMP officer linked to "a covert op" must be withheld. Apart from that, the guidelines say all names and ranks prior to 1945 can be released and outline a sliding scale of higher ranked officers who can be identified in later years.
That hypothetical scenario was put to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service last week as part of a legal battle over the government's refusal to fully disclose decades-old intelligence gathered on socialist icon Tommy Douglas.
The agency couldn't say for certain whether it would release the identity of Riel's hypothetical betrayer or withhold the information on the basis of national security.
The equivocal response offers a glimpse into the lengths CSIS will go to protect the secrets of the spy trade, no matter how old or historically significant.
Nicole Jalbert, Access to Information co-ordinator for CSIS, testified she routinely nixes disclosure of intelligence files that would reveal confidential sources or intelligence agents, even if they're long dead and the information gathered decades ago.
She said that rule applies to "more contemporary times" - including the files on Douglas, gathered as far back as the 1930s.
Such files must remain secret "perhaps not forever" but "maybe longer" than 100 years.
Paul Champ, lawyer for The Canadian Press reporter who initiated the legal battle over the Douglas dossier, pressed Jalbert to specify how much time must elapse before CSIS considers it safe to release such information. He wondered for instance what she'd do with a file that suggested Riel had been betrayed to the Northwest Mounted Police by fellow Metis leader Gabriel Dumont.
Government lawyer Gregory Tzemenakis called the question "hypothetical" and "unfair." Nevertheless, Jalbert said in a "very, very old" case like that she'd seek the advice of people at CSIS who deal with "human sources."
"I would leave it to their discretion to make the decision," she said during examination on her affidavit filed with the court in January.
"It's not mine to make when we're dealing with human sources."
In a case that is "very, very old like that, yes, it's not clear in my mind that I have to protect it so I will, I will take an extra step and see if we can release it," she added.
Jalbert distinguished between a "very, very old" case like the hypothetical Riel scenario and those like the Douglas case, which are "just old." In the latter instance, she said she routinely refuses to release the names of informants without checking with anyone else at CSIS.
Some of the intelligence was gathered before the Second World War, but she insisted the Douglas case is "still quite contemporary."
"These people still have families and reputations. How are you going to recruit somebody if you can't guarantee their anonymity?"
The battle over Douglas's intelligence file began in November 2005, when reporter Jim Bronskill made an Access to Information request for the RCMP dossier on the fabled prairie preacher who served as premier of Saskatchewan and federal NDP leader, and who is widely hailed as the father of medicare.
The information was gathered by the now-defunct RCMP security service, transferred to CSIS and eventually to Library and Archives Canada.
Some material was released to Bronskill, showing the RCMP had shadowed Douglas for more than three decades, attending his speeches and even eavesdropping on conversations. His links to the peace movement and members of the Communist Party were of particular interest.
But on the recommendation of CSIS, the archives refused to release large parts of the Douglas dossier, citing national security. The exemptions were upheld by the information commissioner of Canada so Bronskill took the minister of Canadian Heritage, who oversees the archives, to court to force disclosure.
Jalbert's affidavit said disclosure of the dossier could endanger informants and jeopardize the spy agency's ability to conduct secret surveillance. She argued that "the origin of information, its extent and the methods by which it was obtained must remain a secret."
During last week's examination, Champ questioned the qualifications of Jalbert, who started with the federal public service as a secretary in 1977, to determine whether the Douglas dossier should be fully disclosed.
Jalbert, who has worked as an Access to Information officer since 1984 with both Foreign Affairs and CSIS, acknowledged she has no expertise in the spy agency's operations or political history. But she was trained by veteran intelligence officers and, in any event, she said determining what shouldn't be released is "not rocket science."
"You don't have to be an intelligence officer working in that milieu to know what is sensitive and what isn't. ... Good judgment will take an individual very, very far," she said.
Moreover, Jalbert said, CSIS has developed guidelines when advising Library and Archives Canada whether a document should be released.
The guidelines specify the name of any RCMP officer linked to "a covert op" must be withheld. Apart from that, the guidelines say all names and ranks prior to 1945 can be released and outline a sliding scale of higher ranked officers who can be identified in later years.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Calgary police helicopter and WestJet near mid-air collision.
Calgary police chopper too close for comfort
Last Updated: Monday, March 8, 2010 7:50 PM MT
CBC News
Calgary police helicopters are reported to have flown too close to other aircraft at least 11 times in the last four years, a CBC News investigation has found.
Reports filed with Transport Canada dating back to 2006 say a police helicopter has flown closer than the mandated one nautical mile from other airplanes almost a dozen times.
In December 2009, a WestJet flight from Toronto was 400 metres above ground on its final descent into the Calgary International Airport when the cockpit's alarm that warns of a collision went off, ordering the plane to climb, according to one report to Transport Canada.
It appears the WestJet plane was forced to take corrective action because a Calgary police helicopter with its lights out and with "priority status" flew within 0.7 nautical miles of the Boeing 737. It seems the police helicopter diverted from its approved air traffic control route.
'We don't do anything without air traffic's knowledge and previous approval.'— Kevin Brookwell, Calgary police
Passengers would not have noticed anything out of the ordinary, said Richard Bartrem, a WestJet spokesman.
"It would have felt like any other approach, where we might have had to speed up a bit, depending on winds, or move slightly from left to right. But ultimately, it demonstrates to us that [the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System] works and we were able to take that corrective action," he told CBC News.
Last month, one of the Calgary police's two helicopters came within 60 metres vertically of a Beech King Air 200 owned by North Cariboo Air, sparking a probe by the Transportation Safety Board, the independent agency responsible for air safety in Canada.
"The risk would be, and the ultimate end would be, a collision between the helicopter and another aircraft and of course the ensuing disaster that would result from that," said Jon Lee, a manager with the board. "Secondary to that would be a near-hit or a near-collision, where an aircraft would have to take evasive manoeuvres and in doing so might injure the occupants of one of the aircraftA WestJet plane on its final descent was forced to climb after a Calgary police helicopter was detected too close by. Keith Johnson, safety program manager with the Airborne Law Enforcement Association, said a police chopper following the rules should never get that close to another aircraft.
"Sixty metres is pretty close," he said. "You would probably classify that as what we would call a near mid-air collision; in other words you don't have a collision but you certainly got real close and the risk factors were pretty high."
Calgary police stressed safety is the priority with its helicopters, and its pilots abide by all requests from air traffic control.
"The impression might be that we've got a bunch of rogue pilots that are flying around above the city and just kind of doing what they want because they are the police," said spokesman Kevin Brookwell. "But in actual fact, we are, like everyone else, heavily regulated.
"We don't do anything without air traffic's knowledge and previous approval."
However, in August 2008, the agency in charge of air traffic control reported that a police helicopter took off without clearance.
Air traffic control paramount
Air traffic control can choose to give a police aircraft priority and direct other aircraft to hold their approach or departure, a Transport Canada spokeswoman said in a written statement.
She emphasized that pilots must comply with all air traffic control instructions.
A special exemption allows RCMP pilots to fly without lights in circumstances such as surveillance or pursuit, she added.
The Transportation Safety Board wants the police, federal officials and the Calgary Airport Authority to get together soon to talk about making sure there are no more close calls.
Calgary police air program 14 years old
Calgary Ald. Diane Colley-Urquhart, who is also a member of the city's police commission, said Monday that the public should be informed when any incidents are investigated.
"If there are incidents of this nature, then I believe there should be full disclosure when they occur so that the citizens are aware, even if they're being fully investigated," she told CBC News.
Brookwell said the force will work on any recommendations that may come out of the Transportation Safety Board investigation.
The Calgary Police Service was the first municipal police agency in Canada to have a full-time patrol helicopter program in June 1995. It added a second helicopter in 2006.
The force's air services unit has four pilots, who can be civilians, and four full-time tactical flight officers, who are required to have at least three years of service with the Calgary Police Service.Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2010/03/05/calgary-police-helicopter-close-calls-air-planes.html#ixzz0henkQjAw
Last Updated: Monday, March 8, 2010 7:50 PM MT
CBC News
Calgary police helicopters are reported to have flown too close to other aircraft at least 11 times in the last four years, a CBC News investigation has found.
Reports filed with Transport Canada dating back to 2006 say a police helicopter has flown closer than the mandated one nautical mile from other airplanes almost a dozen times.
In December 2009, a WestJet flight from Toronto was 400 metres above ground on its final descent into the Calgary International Airport when the cockpit's alarm that warns of a collision went off, ordering the plane to climb, according to one report to Transport Canada.
It appears the WestJet plane was forced to take corrective action because a Calgary police helicopter with its lights out and with "priority status" flew within 0.7 nautical miles of the Boeing 737. It seems the police helicopter diverted from its approved air traffic control route.
'We don't do anything without air traffic's knowledge and previous approval.'— Kevin Brookwell, Calgary police
Passengers would not have noticed anything out of the ordinary, said Richard Bartrem, a WestJet spokesman.
"It would have felt like any other approach, where we might have had to speed up a bit, depending on winds, or move slightly from left to right. But ultimately, it demonstrates to us that [the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System] works and we were able to take that corrective action," he told CBC News.
Last month, one of the Calgary police's two helicopters came within 60 metres vertically of a Beech King Air 200 owned by North Cariboo Air, sparking a probe by the Transportation Safety Board, the independent agency responsible for air safety in Canada.
"The risk would be, and the ultimate end would be, a collision between the helicopter and another aircraft and of course the ensuing disaster that would result from that," said Jon Lee, a manager with the board. "Secondary to that would be a near-hit or a near-collision, where an aircraft would have to take evasive manoeuvres and in doing so might injure the occupants of one of the aircraftA WestJet plane on its final descent was forced to climb after a Calgary police helicopter was detected too close by. Keith Johnson, safety program manager with the Airborne Law Enforcement Association, said a police chopper following the rules should never get that close to another aircraft.
"Sixty metres is pretty close," he said. "You would probably classify that as what we would call a near mid-air collision; in other words you don't have a collision but you certainly got real close and the risk factors were pretty high."
Calgary police stressed safety is the priority with its helicopters, and its pilots abide by all requests from air traffic control.
"The impression might be that we've got a bunch of rogue pilots that are flying around above the city and just kind of doing what they want because they are the police," said spokesman Kevin Brookwell. "But in actual fact, we are, like everyone else, heavily regulated.
"We don't do anything without air traffic's knowledge and previous approval."
However, in August 2008, the agency in charge of air traffic control reported that a police helicopter took off without clearance.
Air traffic control paramount
Air traffic control can choose to give a police aircraft priority and direct other aircraft to hold their approach or departure, a Transport Canada spokeswoman said in a written statement.
She emphasized that pilots must comply with all air traffic control instructions.
A special exemption allows RCMP pilots to fly without lights in circumstances such as surveillance or pursuit, she added.
The Transportation Safety Board wants the police, federal officials and the Calgary Airport Authority to get together soon to talk about making sure there are no more close calls.
Calgary police air program 14 years old
Calgary Ald. Diane Colley-Urquhart, who is also a member of the city's police commission, said Monday that the public should be informed when any incidents are investigated.
"If there are incidents of this nature, then I believe there should be full disclosure when they occur so that the citizens are aware, even if they're being fully investigated," she told CBC News.
Brookwell said the force will work on any recommendations that may come out of the Transportation Safety Board investigation.
The Calgary Police Service was the first municipal police agency in Canada to have a full-time patrol helicopter program in June 1995. It added a second helicopter in 2006.
The force's air services unit has four pilots, who can be civilians, and four full-time tactical flight officers, who are required to have at least three years of service with the Calgary Police Service.Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2010/03/05/calgary-police-helicopter-close-calls-air-planes.html#ixzz0henkQjAw
Monday, March 8, 2010
CSIS Played Critical Role in Afghan Interrogations bad news for CSIS .
CSIS Played Critical Role in Afghan Prisoner Interrogations
Source: By Murray Brewster And Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press
Posted: 03/07/10 2:42PM
Filed Under: Top News
Officers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have played a crucial and long-standing role as interrogators of a vast swath of captured Taliban fighters, The Canadian Press has learned.
The spies began working side-by-side with a unit of military police intelligence officers as the Afghan war spiralled out of control in 2006, according to heavily censored witness transcripts filed with the Military Police Complaints Commission.
The spy agency's previously unknown role in questioning detainees adds a new dimension to the controversy about the handling and possible torture of prisoners by Afghan security forces.
It also raises more questions about the critical early years in Kandahar when the Canadian military found itself mired in a guerrilla war it had not expected to fight.
CSIS acknowledged in 2006 that its members gathered intelligence in Afghanistan, but the spy service's precise role has remained in the shadows until now.
Maj. Kevin Rowcliffe, former staff adviser to Canada's overseas operations commander, told investigators with the complaints commission there were questions about how much experience the army's intelligence officers had in grilling prisoners.
"There was a lot of discussion in my headquarters about who was qualified to do interrogations, because we're not talking the normal police interview, we're talking interrogations, which (censored) were doing, not (military police)," says an edited transcript of the Dec. 6, 2007, interview.
A copy of the document was obtained by The Canadian Press.
Military police "were involved in that, but they weren't necessarily involved in interviewing or interrogation related issues; that would be (censored) or some other parade that had special training in interrogation."
Sources familiar with the unedited version say the blanked out references are to CSIS.
Intelligence expert Wesley Wark says the revelations are disturbing, partly because CSIS would have had no specialized knowledge of how to elicit information from Afghan prisoners.
"I find that stunning," said Wark, a historian at the University of Toronto.
The spy agency is legally permitted to gather intelligence anywhere in the world concerning threats to the security of Canada, and has increasingly operated abroad in recent years.
In Kandahar, CSIS officers conducted what's known as tactical field questioning, essentially the first interrogations of suspects, said another source familiar with the process.
They tried to sort out who was a bona fide insurgent commander - or a simple field soldier.
The spies would sometimes make recommendations on which Taliban prisoners to hand over to the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's notorious intelligence service, the sources said.
The final say on whether to transfer always rested with the military task force commander.
The Military Police Complaints Commission asked questions about the CSIS role in Kandahar, but abandoned the angle when it became bogged down in legal challenges about its authority to investigate Ottawa's overall prisoner transfer policy.
Diplomat-whistleblower Richard Colvin testified before a special House of Commons committee last November that the majority of prisoners Canada handed over to the Afghan intelligence service were tortured - a claim the Conservative government and military commanders, past and present, angrily denied.
Rowcliffe's interview transcript prompts questions about whether the military and CSIS officers had enough time to conduct proper interrogations early in the war, when newly arrived troops had little intelligence on the threats they were facing.
The military has 96 hours after capture to decided whether to hand over a prisoner to Afghan authorities, but Rowcliffe said there was pressure to turn them over sooner.
He said he took up the concerns with the commander of overseas operations, saying: "I understand the time sensitiveness of this issue to the Government of Canada, but we may have Osama bin Laden, yet you are trying to get me to give him over as quickly as possible."
But the answer was often "no." His boss, Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, indicated his hands were tied and told Rowcliffe that the federal government's policy was firm.
Yet the concerns persisted.
"I said, we need to take the time to do a proper investigation, interview, interrogation, whatever you want to call it to confirm who we have and what has this guy done or gal done," Rowcliffe said in his statement.
He was asked by police commission investigators where he thought the intelligence would come from if the instructions were to get rid of detainees right away.
"My impression was they didn't seem to care about that," said Rowcliffe, who's retired from the military.
"I don't know if they didn't grasp the importance of it, or just that it was not important because the pressure was . . . to get rid of them because of the Government of Canada."
He said he wasn't sure whether there was pressure from the defence minister and the chief of defence staff.
"I have no idea, but I know from Gen. Gauthier's position that (it was): Get rid of them as quickly as you can and what's taking so long? That's the kind of questions I'd get."
Security expert Wark said it begs the question why Ottawa was so eager to transfer prisoners out of the controlled confines of Kandahar Airfield, where they are brought for initial interrogation.
It will likely fuel human-rights groups' fears that interrogation was being outsourced to the Afghans, he said.
Canada went into Kandahar thinking the Taliban and al-Qaida were simply "a nuisance" and there was a "ferocious under-estimation" of the kind of resistance troops would face, he said.
"The military simply had no expertise. It had been decades since they had to interrogate prisoners of war," Wark added. "And if the military lacked that expertise, you can be sure, CSIS lacked it in spades."
Moreover, Wark said, some hard questions need to be asked about how much knowledge CSIS had in 2006 of Afghanistan and its complex network of competing tribes.
"The answer would be very little," he said. "They didn't have a trained body of people with the language skills, knowledge of the country, knowledge of the tribal situation, who was in charge of which warlord group, what was the nature of the Taliban. Those are all issues they had to develop an expertise on after 2006."
In response to questions, CSIS spokeswoman Isabelle Scott said the agency does not discuss operations.
"We do have a presence in Afghanistan, and we've had one for the past few years. And we continue to provide security intelligence in Afghanistan in support of the safety and security of Canadian and allied forces on the ground," Scott said.
"And we also continue to gather intelligence in Afghanistan in order to mitigate potential security threats to Canada which have a nexus on that country. However, we don't publicly discuss the specific issues linked to operational activities of the service."
The activities in Kandahar caught the attention of the spy agency's inspector general, who investigated "policy gaps and inconsistencies."
The declassified version of Eva Plunkett's 2007 certificate, a top secret report card on CSIS prepared for the public safety minister, contained no suggestion that the spy service had done anything wrong - or illegal, for that matter.
She noted that Afghanistan was "a fundamental intelligence priority" and commended the spy service for impressive work "in an extremely challenging environment." But Plunkett warned that CSIS and National Defence lacked clear policies that would "guide future (censored) activities in this theatre."
Agreements between the spy service and military were out of date, said the annual certificate, made public in May 2008. "I do believe that those who serve in this environment deserve to be equipped with the policy framework to guide their work."
In May 2006, Jack Hooper, then CSIS deputy director of operations, said the spy service's efforts to help Canadian troops in Afghanistan were principally focused on acquiring intelligence to help soldiers defend themselves against attacks.
"This intelligence is known to have saved lives, uncovered weapons and arms caches, and disrupted planned terrorist attacks."
But he did not elaborate as to exactly how CSIS obtained the valuable information.
The Security Intelligence Review Committee, a CSIS watchdog that reports to Parliament, raised concerns about the intelligence service's interaction with detainees in foreign jurisdictions in its review of the Omar Khadr file.
It said last year that when CSIS interviewed Khadr at Guantanamo Bay in 2003, there was policy governing the spy service's investigative activities outside Canada, including operational interviews abroad.
Prior to undertaking such activities, CSIS employees were required to submit a request for approval - to whom, exactly, remains classified.
The review committee found briefing notes that had been submitted prior to each visit to Guantanamo Bay, but these requests fell short of meeting the requirements outlined in policy.
Source: By Murray Brewster And Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press
Posted: 03/07/10 2:42PM
Filed Under: Top News
Officers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have played a crucial and long-standing role as interrogators of a vast swath of captured Taliban fighters, The Canadian Press has learned.
The spies began working side-by-side with a unit of military police intelligence officers as the Afghan war spiralled out of control in 2006, according to heavily censored witness transcripts filed with the Military Police Complaints Commission.
The spy agency's previously unknown role in questioning detainees adds a new dimension to the controversy about the handling and possible torture of prisoners by Afghan security forces.
It also raises more questions about the critical early years in Kandahar when the Canadian military found itself mired in a guerrilla war it had not expected to fight.
CSIS acknowledged in 2006 that its members gathered intelligence in Afghanistan, but the spy service's precise role has remained in the shadows until now.
Maj. Kevin Rowcliffe, former staff adviser to Canada's overseas operations commander, told investigators with the complaints commission there were questions about how much experience the army's intelligence officers had in grilling prisoners.
"There was a lot of discussion in my headquarters about who was qualified to do interrogations, because we're not talking the normal police interview, we're talking interrogations, which (censored) were doing, not (military police)," says an edited transcript of the Dec. 6, 2007, interview.
A copy of the document was obtained by The Canadian Press.
Military police "were involved in that, but they weren't necessarily involved in interviewing or interrogation related issues; that would be (censored) or some other parade that had special training in interrogation."
Sources familiar with the unedited version say the blanked out references are to CSIS.
Intelligence expert Wesley Wark says the revelations are disturbing, partly because CSIS would have had no specialized knowledge of how to elicit information from Afghan prisoners.
"I find that stunning," said Wark, a historian at the University of Toronto.
The spy agency is legally permitted to gather intelligence anywhere in the world concerning threats to the security of Canada, and has increasingly operated abroad in recent years.
In Kandahar, CSIS officers conducted what's known as tactical field questioning, essentially the first interrogations of suspects, said another source familiar with the process.
They tried to sort out who was a bona fide insurgent commander - or a simple field soldier.
The spies would sometimes make recommendations on which Taliban prisoners to hand over to the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's notorious intelligence service, the sources said.
The final say on whether to transfer always rested with the military task force commander.
The Military Police Complaints Commission asked questions about the CSIS role in Kandahar, but abandoned the angle when it became bogged down in legal challenges about its authority to investigate Ottawa's overall prisoner transfer policy.
Diplomat-whistleblower Richard Colvin testified before a special House of Commons committee last November that the majority of prisoners Canada handed over to the Afghan intelligence service were tortured - a claim the Conservative government and military commanders, past and present, angrily denied.
Rowcliffe's interview transcript prompts questions about whether the military and CSIS officers had enough time to conduct proper interrogations early in the war, when newly arrived troops had little intelligence on the threats they were facing.
The military has 96 hours after capture to decided whether to hand over a prisoner to Afghan authorities, but Rowcliffe said there was pressure to turn them over sooner.
He said he took up the concerns with the commander of overseas operations, saying: "I understand the time sensitiveness of this issue to the Government of Canada, but we may have Osama bin Laden, yet you are trying to get me to give him over as quickly as possible."
But the answer was often "no." His boss, Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, indicated his hands were tied and told Rowcliffe that the federal government's policy was firm.
Yet the concerns persisted.
"I said, we need to take the time to do a proper investigation, interview, interrogation, whatever you want to call it to confirm who we have and what has this guy done or gal done," Rowcliffe said in his statement.
He was asked by police commission investigators where he thought the intelligence would come from if the instructions were to get rid of detainees right away.
"My impression was they didn't seem to care about that," said Rowcliffe, who's retired from the military.
"I don't know if they didn't grasp the importance of it, or just that it was not important because the pressure was . . . to get rid of them because of the Government of Canada."
He said he wasn't sure whether there was pressure from the defence minister and the chief of defence staff.
"I have no idea, but I know from Gen. Gauthier's position that (it was): Get rid of them as quickly as you can and what's taking so long? That's the kind of questions I'd get."
Security expert Wark said it begs the question why Ottawa was so eager to transfer prisoners out of the controlled confines of Kandahar Airfield, where they are brought for initial interrogation.
It will likely fuel human-rights groups' fears that interrogation was being outsourced to the Afghans, he said.
Canada went into Kandahar thinking the Taliban and al-Qaida were simply "a nuisance" and there was a "ferocious under-estimation" of the kind of resistance troops would face, he said.
"The military simply had no expertise. It had been decades since they had to interrogate prisoners of war," Wark added. "And if the military lacked that expertise, you can be sure, CSIS lacked it in spades."
Moreover, Wark said, some hard questions need to be asked about how much knowledge CSIS had in 2006 of Afghanistan and its complex network of competing tribes.
"The answer would be very little," he said. "They didn't have a trained body of people with the language skills, knowledge of the country, knowledge of the tribal situation, who was in charge of which warlord group, what was the nature of the Taliban. Those are all issues they had to develop an expertise on after 2006."
In response to questions, CSIS spokeswoman Isabelle Scott said the agency does not discuss operations.
"We do have a presence in Afghanistan, and we've had one for the past few years. And we continue to provide security intelligence in Afghanistan in support of the safety and security of Canadian and allied forces on the ground," Scott said.
"And we also continue to gather intelligence in Afghanistan in order to mitigate potential security threats to Canada which have a nexus on that country. However, we don't publicly discuss the specific issues linked to operational activities of the service."
The activities in Kandahar caught the attention of the spy agency's inspector general, who investigated "policy gaps and inconsistencies."
The declassified version of Eva Plunkett's 2007 certificate, a top secret report card on CSIS prepared for the public safety minister, contained no suggestion that the spy service had done anything wrong - or illegal, for that matter.
She noted that Afghanistan was "a fundamental intelligence priority" and commended the spy service for impressive work "in an extremely challenging environment." But Plunkett warned that CSIS and National Defence lacked clear policies that would "guide future (censored) activities in this theatre."
Agreements between the spy service and military were out of date, said the annual certificate, made public in May 2008. "I do believe that those who serve in this environment deserve to be equipped with the policy framework to guide their work."
In May 2006, Jack Hooper, then CSIS deputy director of operations, said the spy service's efforts to help Canadian troops in Afghanistan were principally focused on acquiring intelligence to help soldiers defend themselves against attacks.
"This intelligence is known to have saved lives, uncovered weapons and arms caches, and disrupted planned terrorist attacks."
But he did not elaborate as to exactly how CSIS obtained the valuable information.
The Security Intelligence Review Committee, a CSIS watchdog that reports to Parliament, raised concerns about the intelligence service's interaction with detainees in foreign jurisdictions in its review of the Omar Khadr file.
It said last year that when CSIS interviewed Khadr at Guantanamo Bay in 2003, there was policy governing the spy service's investigative activities outside Canada, including operational interviews abroad.
Prior to undertaking such activities, CSIS employees were required to submit a request for approval - to whom, exactly, remains classified.
The review committee found briefing notes that had been submitted prior to each visit to Guantanamo Bay, but these requests fell short of meeting the requirements outlined in policy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)