Canada getting trapped in U.S. election-year security fears, say analysts
April 28, 2006, canadian press
WASHINGTON -- In a U.S. election year, it’s all about security. And Canada’s getting caught in the crossfire.
While the plan to require passports of cross-border travellers is the top troublesome issue, there are other moves south of the border making Canadian officials and business groups nervous.
Congress, returning from a two-week break this week, will consider legislation that could hold up Canadian cargo at the border after a terrorist strike. And some legislators want to impose major limits on foreign investment in the name of safety.
There’s no doubt U.S. politicians are under pressure to address the concerns of Americans who will decide this fall in mid-term races whether to re-elect them.
And the furor over a deal that would have allowed a firm in the United Arab Emirates to manage six major U.S. ports provided plenty of evidence that voters are plenty worried about foreign ownership.
But some observers say legislators are taking advantage of security fears and neglecting the impact on trade.
"We seem to have come to the end of exceptions for Canada," said Chris Sands, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"It’s an increasingly protectionist Congress. It’s one-size fits all. Canada has to fit into the same box as everyone else. There isn’t that bank of goodwill. But Canada needs to be considered separately in a lot of these cases."
Canadian embassy officials, fearing a repeat of border closings that created havoc on Sept. 11, 2001, have been lobbying against port security bills in the House of Representatives and Senate that could shut down container traffic.
Inspection provisions in both bills don’t distinguish between goods from the north, which are all heavily screened with gamma ray technology before they hit the border, and those arriving in the United States by sea from foreign ports.
"It rang all sorts of alarm bells," said one official. "It could stop container traffic for quite some time."
"We don’t think that those decisions were taken with a full understanding of the amount of security that is in place now in Canada," said Ambassador Michael Wilson. `We have done a lot to track containers from the point of origin."
The issue is particularly worrisome for Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railways that carry much of the cargo.
Both have been working Capitol Hill to educate legislators about what’s already being done to ensure safety.
"We’re very hopeful that as people get more information on everything that’s taking place, we’ll see a final bill come out that will satisfy our concerns," said Karen Hughes, CN’s vice-president for government affairs.
Meanwhile, Canadian companies are assessing the potential impact of protectionist bills introduced after the Dubai Ports World fiasco, where public outrage killed a deal to allow the foreign company to manage U.S. ports.
There was also a major backlash last year against a bid by the Chinese oil company CNOOC for U.S.-based Unocal.
A House bill introduced by California’s Duncan Hunter would set major foreign limits on assets deemed to be part of the critical U.S. infrastructure, like bridges, railways, chemical plants and telecommunications companies.
There’s no distinction between Canada and other countries like China or Saudi Arabia.
"We have what I call a knee-jerk reaction," said James Phillips, head of the Canadian-American Border Trade Alliance.
"The politicians are reacting to the perception of the people who vote. It’s very critical one understand emotion versus reality. Common sense must prevail in the end," said Phillips.
"If you close the country so the quality of life goes down, that’s not protecting your children or your grandchildren."
Some U.S. media organizations have blasted Hunter’s bill, saying it unfairly penalizes foreigners and doesn’t consider longtime allies like Canada with significant investments in the country.
"We’re just going to keep working on this as it evolves," said Hughes. "We certainly want to make sure we continue to operate."
Shirley-Ann George, vice-president at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said the legislation could cause big problems since there are many publicly traded companies with infrastructure holdings in both countries.
"This is potentially of great impact," said George.
"It seems there’s an unfortunate backlash that might not be proportionate to the risk."
Saturday, April 29, 2006
harper's accomplishments ...
harper's tory path to self destruction ...
Accountability act 'a bureaucrat's dream,' information commissioner
CBC, Apr 28 2006
Canada's information commissioner launched a scathing attack against Stephen Harper on Friday, charging that the prime minister has done a complete about-face on a promise to make government more accountable.
'No previous government has put forward a more retrograde and dangerous set of proposals to change the Access to Information Act.' - John Reid
In a special report to Parliament, John Reid said he had "grave concerns" about the Conservative's proposed accountability act, which is now under debate. He charged that it will actually reduce openness in government and make it easier to cover up potentially embarrassing scandals.
Employing unusually strong language, Reid said the legislation "will not strengthen the accountability of government through transparency, it will weaken it.
FROM APRIL 11, 2006: Tories bring in promised accountability act
"No previous government has put forward a more retrograde and dangerous set of proposals to change the Access to Information Act," he wrote. "The new government has done exactly the things for which its predecessor had been ridiculed."
Reid referred to the Chrétien government and the sponsorship scandal, and noted that the Harper's Conservatives campaigned on a platform of accountability in the recent federal election campaign.
FROM APRIL 21, 2006: Threats to delay accountability act 'intolerable,' Harper says
Harper promised more accountability, but the proposed act will "reduce the amount of information available to the public, weaken the role of the information commissioner and increase the government's ability to cover-up wrongdoing, shield itself from embarrassment and control the flow of information to Canadians," he wrote.
Reid called the latest proposals "a bureaucrat's dream."
The Harper government released its proposed reforms to the federal Access to Information Act earlier this month. They add 19 entities that would be covered by the act, but Reid pointed out that it also open 10 new loopholes that would allow civil servants to deny requests for information.
For example, the proposed legislation would prevent draft audits or audit papers from being released for 15 years.
In addition, Reid said the reforms would not require civil servants to create records, and would not give the information commissioner the investigative powers he is seeking.
The federal government objected to the language in Reid's report, but said it is willing to work with the commissioner to refine the legislation.
The language is "excessive," said John Baird, president of the Treasury Board, who said most of the differences are minor.
Baird acknowledged that the commissioner and the government disagree on some points, but he is willing to seek a compromise.
"We're keen to work with him on those areas where I think there can be some agreement," Baird said. The commissioner has "submitted some draft amendments. We're just currently looking at that."
Pat Martin said government needs to strike a balance between Reid's pro-access position and privacy. But Martin, an NDP member of Parliament from Winnipeg, said he takes the commissioner's concerns seriously.
"This is a pretty serious condemnation by the one leading authority on access to information," Martin said. "It was the culture of secrecy that allowed corruption to flourish in Ottawa during the Liberal years. John Reid has actually now said we may be in a worse situation."
Friday, April 28, 2006
next bush will be trying to control the radio stations ...
U.S. anthem in Spanish doesn't thrill Bush
Apr 29, 2006
U.S. President George W. Bush says, "The national anthem ought to be sung in English."
A Spanish-language version of the U.S. national anthem, Nuestro Himno, hit the airwaves yesterday. It was recorded this week by several Latin American pop stars, and its rhythm and instrumentation come straight out of Latin pop.
Released the week that the U.S. Congress returned to debate immigration reform, Nuestro Himno is intended to be an anthem of solidarity for the movement that has drawn hundreds of thousands to march peacefully for immigrant rights in cities across the country.
Bush told reporters yesterday, "I think people who want to be citizens of this country ought to learn English."
Adam Kidron, a British music producer, says he came up with the idea to honour millions of immigrants seeking a better life in the United States.
"It's the one thing everybody has in common," he said, "the aspiration to have a relationship with the United States ... and also to express gratitude and patriotism to the United States for providing the opportunity."
atleast france has the good sense to help the palestinians ...
France pushes for Palestinian aid
April 28, 2006
PARIS (AP) - French President Jacques Chirac called Friday for the creation of a World Bank fund to pay the salaries of Palestinian officials, his office said Friday after he met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
France will raise the issue during talks May 9 with the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia - the four key international players behind the stalled "road map" peace plan, Chirac spokesman Jerome Bonnafont said.
France and other European Union nations earlier this month cut off direct aid to the Palestinian government after Hamas' election victory. The European Union is the largest donor to the Palestinians, with aid totalling more than the equivalent of $600 million US a year.
Because of international sanctions, the Hamas-led government has been unable to pay salaries to 165,000 Palestinian government employees.
France believes aid "must be maintained for humanitarian reasons, as well as for political reasons," Chirac said before going into the talks with Abbas. "And it will push for this continuance (of aid) within the international community and notably within the European Union."
Abbas confirmed at a later news conference that the World Bank channel was among those discussed with Chirac to get aid to the Palestinian people.
"If we do not reach a solution, it will be catastrophic," he said through a translator. "The situation is very grave, complex and sensitive."
Chirac said humanitarian aid must be maintained and enlarged "in particularly through the agencies of the United Nations," his spokesman said. He said aid must channel through institutions independent of the Palestinian government.
The French leader also suggested that more aid could be placed under the authority of Abbas, a moderate, his spokesman said.
Chirac asked Hamas to respect the demands of the international community: to renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist. The militant group, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings, has refused to temper its radical views.
Abbas, a moderate whose Fatah Party was defeated by Hamas in January's legislative elections, has worked to try to keep the West from shunning the Palestinians over the militant group's violently anti-Israel ideology.
"We affirm that we want to live in peace, security and stability next to the state of Israel," Abbas said.
Negotiations based on the so-called "road map" peace plan are still "the most adequate means" to reach a lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said. The plan, which envisions an independent Palestinian state, has been stalled since shortly after its launch in June 2003.
"For that, we are in contact with the Israeli side to start direct negotiations with the government that will soon be formed," Abbas said.
He also warned that "unilateral solutions cannot lead to peace, but will delay it" - a reference to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan to unilaterally draw Israel's final borders with the Palestinians by 2010.
the extent harper will will go to bow to bush ...
Bush-Harper relationship proves personal ties bear fruit: U.S. ambassador
April 28, 2006
'You never want to get into a litigation contest with Americans. It's our national pastime...'
Bush-Harper relationship proves personal ties bear fruit: U.S. ambassador
April 28, 2006
OTTAWA (CP) - The Bush administration heralded the softwood lumber deal as the dawn of a productive new era in Canada-U.S. relations following years of distracting disputes.
U.S. ambassador David Wilkins cited spats over lumber and missile defence but did not mention perhaps the greatest irritant of them all: differences over the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
He welcomed the amicable tone between the Harper and Bush governments and predicted it would serve both countries well - starting with the softwood accord.
Call it a breath of fresh air, a new effort or new energy, he told a conference looking at the Canada-U.S. relationship Friday.
There is a sense . . . both in Ottawa and in Washington that we are entering a positive, productive stage in our relationship.
He said the countries might now start focusing on shared concerns and common objectives - not on the things that divide them.
Wilkins' address represented a far cry from his last nationally televised speech on the Ottawa-Washington partnership.
The U.S. ambassador warned Paul Martin during the winter election campaign that the former prime minister's jabs at the United States were putting the relationship on a dangerous slippery slope.
Wilkins did not refer Friday to the previous Liberal government but made reference to the strained relationship of recent years.
I think there is a growing awareness that you can disagree without being disagreeable, he said. We're all bigger than that.
Wilkins called the Canada-U.S. relationship the most peaceful and productive relationship the world has ever known, the ultimate success story.
So why tell a different story? It benefits neither of us, he said.
Our relationship is and has always been so much bigger and stronger than one issue - whether it be softwood lumber, or missile defence, or whatever issue among the relatively few issues we disagree on.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the seven-year softwood deal Thursday, saying it will return $4 billion of duties to Canadian producers.
Wilkins gave little indication about what projects the two countries could focus on now that softwood appears to have been dealt with.
But two of his predecessors interviewed Friday offered a shopping list of new issues the countries could tackle more easily.
The list includes continental integration, harmonized commercial regulation, border security, the economic rise of China, terrorism, the Middle East and Afghanistan, and poverty and violence in Africa.
Officials on both sides of the border have also indicated that the two governments could attempt some clean-air initiatives. Both have written off the international Kyoto accord and will be looking at common projects they might work on.
Having dealt with softwood makes such future endeavours a whole lot easier, the two former U.S. ambassadors agreed Friday.
Gordon Giffin - who served both the Clinton and Bush governments in Ottawa - said softwood sucked up considerable oxygen any time U.S. and Canadian officials met.
There are just a whole lot of productive things we can now spend a lot of time working on, he said.
Now the first 20 minutes of every meeting doesn't have to be consumed by each side pounding on the table about lumber.
Giffin said the Bush administration was eager to deliver a political win to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new government, which it sees as an ally.
Another ex-U.S. ambassador pointed out that it was also in Harper's interest to get a deal done quickly.
The lingering dispute would have dragged the prime minister down and even hampered his plans to visit the U.S. soon.
How would Stephen Harper even be able to go to Washington? said James Blanchard, a onetime Democrat Michigan governor.
He wouldn't have been able to talk about different issues without having this just hang over his head.
This needed to be resolved before we could put our relations back on track for the future.
He predicted Bush and Harper would enjoy an extended political honeymoon.
But that doesn't mean there won't be other irritants. Already, impending new U.S. legislation threatens to hamper border-crossing and become a major economic nuisance.
Starting next year, anyone entering the U.S. will need a passport or an as-yet-unspecified secure document. The law will apply to air and sea crossings by the end of this year, and to land crossings by the end of 2007.
There are fears on both sides of the border that the new law will slow tourist and economic traffic.
The passport requirement could be a major train wreck if it's not either changed, modified or managed differently, said Blanchard.
He said the border issue will receive more attention now that softwood is out of the way. But the last five years of debating lumber, he said, have been a waste.
He said Canada should have concluded a negotiated deal in 2000 instead of seeking to defeat the U.S. lumber lobby in court.
You never want to get into a litigation contest with Americans. It's our national pastime, he said.
I think that's the real tragedy - it's the wasted opportunities . . .
Anybody who's close to the issue knew it would never be resolved in court. Never. It was never going to happen.
on most accounts, harper crawls behind bush ...
'A new energy' in U.S.-Canada relations: envoy
The Canadian Press, Apr 29, 2006
The Bush administration heralded the softwood lumber deal as the dawn of a productive new era in Canada-U.S. relations following years of distracting disputes.
U.S. ambassador David Wilkins cited spats over lumber and missile defence but did not mention perhaps the greatest irritant of them all: differences over the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
He welcomed the amicable tone between the Harper and Bush governments and predicted it would serve both countries well -- starting with the softwood accord.
"Call it a breath of fresh air, a new effort or new energy," he told a conference looking at the Canada-U.S. relationship yesterday.
"There is a sense ... both in Ottawa and in Washington that we are entering a positive, productive stage in our relationship."
He said the countries might now start focusing on shared concerns and common objectives -- not on the things that divide them.
Wilkins' address represented a far cry from his last nationally televised speech on the Ottawa-Washington partnership.
The U.S. ambassador warned Paul Martin during the winter election campaign that the former prime minister's jabs at the United States were putting the relationship on a dangerous slippery slope.
Wilkins did not refer to the previous Liberal government but made reference to the strained relationship of recent years.
"I think there is a growing awareness that you can disagree without being disagreeable," he said. "We're all bigger than that."
Wilkins called the Canada-U.S. relationship the most peaceful and productive relationship the world has ever known, the ultimate success story.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the seven-year softwood deal Thursday, saying it will return $4 billion of duties to Canadian producers.
Wilkins gave little indication about what projects the two countries could focus on now that softwood appears to have been dealt with.
But two of his predecessors interviewed yesterday offered a shopping list of new issues the countries could tackle more easily, including harmonized commercial regulation, border security, the economic rise of China, terrorism, the Middle East and Afghanistan, and poverty and violence in Africa.
Officials on both sides of the border have also indicated that the two governments could attempt some clean-air initiatives. Both have written off the international Kyoto accord and will be looking at common projects.
bush calls the shots and harper crawls behind ...
DEAL A 'SELLOUT'
NDP claims anti-circumvention clause gives U.S. too much power
The Canadian Press, Apr 29, 2006
B.C. forest industry leaders say a clause in the proposed softwood lumber deal between Canada and the United States could be a deal-breaker, prompting Premier Gordon Campbell to try to quickly quiet their fears.
Industry sources said yesterday the package's so-called anti-circumvention clause could give the U.S. government a veto on changes to provincial forestry policies, impinging on Canadian sovereignty.
They asked Campbell to write a letter expressing their worry to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Campbell, who was attending a joint cabinet meeting with the Alberta government, said he wrote the letter, but added that government prerogatives to make policy will be protected when the agreement is finalized in a few months.
"Just so we're clear, I don't believe there is a policy infringement," he said. "Clearly we want to make sure as we go through this that our position is clear ... just as they will do that in the United States. I think it was important to do that."
Harper also played down concern unforeseen problems could derail the deal.
"There's always some drafting things to be worked out and finalized and there's a lot of litigation to be unwound," Harper said during a stop in Charlottetown.
"But we don't foresee any difficulties. We're pretty firm on the details."
The anti-circumvention clause commits the agreement signatories to take no actions that would undermine the agreement or offset export restrictions.
But sources said it could require provincial governments to submit policy changes to U.S. officials -- for instance revising timber prices in the B.C. Interior, where companies are rushing to harvest stands of beetle-infested trees.
Sources said the issue was not discussed in the feverish negotiations that took place this week leading up to Thursday's agreement. But the written deal submitted Thursday raised a red flag.
B.C. Forests Minister Rich Coleman said the issue surfaced in connection with a market-based pricing system scheduled to take effect for B.C. Interior timber on Sept. 1.
"We wanted to have it on record that because it (the pricing system) had been filed in the United States prior to the agreement, it should not (be affected)," he said. "We do not have a disagreement on that."
NDP Leader Jack Layton used the anti-circumvention clause to amplify his attack on the deal as a sellout of Canadian interests to the United States.
"We're finding out today that this so-called carefully constructed deal is beginning to unravel right before our eyes," he said during a visit to Vancouver.
"It appears that Mr. Harper's style of leadership of my-way-or-the-highway has caused a deal to come into being so fast that the details weren't properly taken care of."
The framework agreement was hammered out in five days of feverish bilateral negotiations led by Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador in Washington, and Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab.
australian military sends home wrong body ...
Family devastated: an investigation will start next week into the mix-up (Department of Defence)
April 27, 2006, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Kovco's family demands answers
Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has further angered the family of dead Australian soldier Jake Kovco with comments about the manner of the Private's death in Iraq last week.
The family is today dealing with a mix-up in which Private Kovco's body was mistakenly left in Kuwait, with the coffin that arrived in Melbourne this morning containing another body.
Dr Nelson has previously said Private Kovco was maintaining his weapon when it discharged, killing him, but today he told Macquarie radio that is not the case.
"He wasn't in fact cleaning his weapon," he said.
"There was obviously a live round in it which there should not have been."
His comments have angered Private Kovco's mother Judy.
"He didn't shoot himself. The gun went off," she said.
She says she was devastated by the mix-up, and describes her son's death as a nightmare.
Dr Nelson has told channel Nine that his initial comments about the death were based on advice provided to him.
"The early report that I had received was that Private Kovco was in a room with two of his mates, and somehow or other I was first advised that he may have been handling his weapon and for some reason it had discharged accidentally and we had this tragic outcome," he said.
"It now seems that perhaps he might not have been actually handling the weapon but that it was very close to him."
Looking for answers
Private Kovco's step-brother, Benn Kovco, says the family is looking for answers and feel that they have been lied to from the beginning.
"We've been kept in the dark and that's the most insulting thing," he said.
"We can handle the truth and it shouldn't be kept from us, we need to have the truth in this."
The president of the New South Wales RSL, Don Rowe, says the Kovco family deserves to know the proper version of events.
"We continue to get conflicts of what went wrong and what didn't go wrong ... and look we've got to expect and be told the truth and be told honestly what happened," he said.
"The family deserves that and the nation deserves that as well."
The Opposition Leader Kim Beazley says Dr Nelson should not be commenting on the matter.
"There is a huge risk here of hurtful things being put about the place, just making the life of the family more of an agony," he said.
Investigation under way
The Prime Minister John Howard has personally apologised to Private Kovco's widow.
And the Chief of the Australian Defence Force, Angus Houston, says the force deeply regrets the mistake.
"I'd like to start by expressing my deep sorrow for the unacceptable circumstances that have happened in the last 24 hours," he said.
"I'm particularly concerned that we have inadvertently given a lot more sorrow to the family than would normally be the case."
He says a formal investigation will start next week into why Private Kovco's body was mistakenly left behind in Kuwait.
The Australian Defence Force inquiry will be headed by a senior officer and a civilian pathologist.
A separate investigation is under way into how Private Kovco died.
Bungled operation
The company responsible for Private Kovco's repatriation, Kenyon International, says it cannot take responsibility for the bungled operation until all the facts are known.
Kenyon spokesman Mario Gomez says the company's focus is on getting Private Kovco's body back to Australia.
"Our focus is to reunite the soldier with his family and try to help them begin the grieving and healing process," he said.
Mr Beazley says the mix-up must never happen again.
"The handling of the remains of Private Kovco should have been with the Australian military," he said.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
vision this; half mast harper ...
Then they came for the Caskets
Sun Media, 26 Apr 2006, CHARLES ADLER
They came for the National Press Gallery. I wasn't a member of the National Press Gallery and I said nothing. They came for the Canadian flag. I wasn't a flag waver and I said nothing. And then they came for the caskets.
Tory true believers will say that this columnist has now gone mad. Is he invoking the good name of the Rev. Martin Niemoeller to make the point that Stephen Harper is becoming Canada's first fascist prime minister?
Not at all. But that's what the left will do with Stephen Harper's clumsy handling of the latest scotch broth from Afghanistan.
The real story is that our guys are giving up their lives to give Afghanistan a chance at freedom and democracy. The hope is that the country can become something other than one in which the world's sickest of predators train to commit mass murder. Canadians are fighting the good fight. But the Harpoons in Ottawa are spearing the real story. Four heroes falling in Afghanistan has morphed into a sad tale of flags and caskets. Flags won't get lowered in Ottawa and caskets won't be seen in Trenton. The left-wing media isn't making this one up. And the more the Harpoons try to lay it off on the media, the more Bush they look.
Stephen Harper's whiz kids surely must have computers. It doesn't take a minute to find out who put an end to having TV cameras at Dover Air Force base when the U.S. coffins were coming from Gulf War I. Dick Cheney was Bush the Elder's secretary of defence. Today Bush continues to talk about his personal relationship with Jesus. But many Americans have come to believe that George's Jesus is fat, bald and evil and goes by the name of Dick.
If the Harpoons want to ape the George and Dick White House, they will get smeared with the kind of language that you see at the top of the column. For years now, the Bush-Cheney strategy has been to blame the media while at the same time feeding selected stories to certain members of the media.
The strategy now has Bush's approval numbers starting to resemble Richard Nixon's. When Neil Young's Let's Impeach the President is released it won't be just the burned-out dope-smokin' lefties who nod with approval.
This week it isn't a Liberal defence minister who is telling the media to stay off the property in Trenton when the caskets come home from Afghanistan. In justifying the move, the honourable member for Subterfuge says the ban was being put in place to protect the families.
Hey, Minister. Please jam a teething ring back into the mouth of the backroom infant who offered you that.
You have not a lick of evidence that military families have been offended by this or by the lowering of the flag at the people's house, the House of Commons. If you want to keep boiling your reputation in oil by putting all this off on the media, good luck with that.
It's probably not easy being Stephen Harper.
Ever since he first went to Ottawa to do backroom work in the '80s, he fell in love with the idea that Liberal governments were without moral legitimacy. The Liberals only formed government because the national media framed the issues, and in doing so, real Canadian leaders were getting framed. The Liberal Goodfellas took Mulroney out to the desert and beat him with a shovel and then did the same to Preston Manning. Facts rarely fracture the fantasies of a young man who is a chartered member of the paranoid right.
The problem is that even paranoids have enemies. If Stephen Harper continues to play it Bush, his government will be buried in a casket of his own making.
harper falling from grace, even by his own ...
Furor over fallen soldiers a major misstep for government, conservatives say
April 26, 2006
OTTAWA (CP) - Even conservative stalwarts agree Stephen Harper's government has blundered into a minefield largely of its own making.
The public pounding the Conservatives are taking over their treatment of returning war dead shows the perils of taking message management too far, a couple of long-time Tories said Wednesday.
The decision to bar public access - via the news media - to the repatriation ceremony for four soldiers killed in Afghanistan followed hard on the heels of a new government protocol that kept the Maple Leaf at full mast on Parliament Hill this week.
The changes had a three-fold purpose: to honour all Canada's military fatalities equally; to protect the privacy of grieving military families; and to generally lower the public temperature on the Afghanistan mission's human cost.
This last, unspoken, rationale is the one that has failed so spectacularly in the short run - and could have a lingering impact on public perceptions of Stephen Harper's administration.
They're inflaming something which is not a particularly positive story for the government about their attitude toward the public's right to access to information, conservative strategist Rick Anderson said.
Anderson doesn't believe it will hurt the Tories immediately, but what they're doing is building a theme - and not a good theme.
That theme of information censorship plays to the worst stereotypes the Harper government has worked so hard to dismiss.
Norman Spector, the former chief of staff to Tory prime minister Brian Mulroney, calls the flag protocol defensible.
But restricting access to the base when caskets are returned smacks of a government that is nervous about public opinion on a highly contentious issue, Spector said Wednesday in an e-mail exchange with The Canadian Press.
The government's opponents will lick their lips at the Bush-lite stereotype, but that's just about the next election, as the decision is for the government.
Even Peter Kent, the veteran newsman, sometime media critic and recent Conservative party candidate, said the government went way too far.
In some ways this undercuts the success of the last couple of months with the Harper visit to Afghanistan and the media's full and complete and terrific coverage of the deployment, said Kent, who said he'd like to run again for the Tories in the next election.
Kent defended the government's motives, if not its timing - clearly, no one intended dishonour - but conceded the moves provide a stick for government detractors.
It's given those who want to make inaccurate analogies a little bit of traction.
Spector, who followed his stint in Mulroney's PMO with a term as ambassador to Israel, called the access decision particularly ill-advised in light of divided public opinion and the sense among many Canadians that we got into this war by stealth, without adequate parliamentary debate or media coverage.
And should the public begin to believe that Harper's much-chronicled - and largely discounted - battles with the parliamentary press are indicative of a wider fear of public scrutiny, the message becomes toxic.
Each event is another layer on the whole picture, and it's now getting to be fairly disturbing when you look at the whole picture, said Peter Desbarats, the former journalist who headed an inquiry into military wrongdoing in Somalia and does not want to see a return to the days of Defence Department stonewalling.
The whole business of accountability, which this government has talked about a lot, depends on access.
for what polls are worth - small sample; now if harper continues to mimic bush - we know what fate will come....
Conservatives enter majority territory says poll taken before flag flap
April 26, 2006
OTTAWA (CP) - The Conservatives have seized a commanding lead in popularity over the Liberals and inched into majority-government territory, says a new survey released Wednesday. ... The telephone poll of 1,002 Canadians was conducted April 20 to 23, and has a 3.1 per cent margin of error, 19 times out of 20.
Conservatives enter majority territory says poll taken before flag flap
April 26, 2006
OTTAWA (CP) - The Conservatives have seized a commanding lead in popularity over the Liberals and inched into majority-government territory, says a new survey released Wednesday.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Tories held a 15-point advantage over the Liberals and broke past what is considered the benchmark for winning a majority government, says the Decima poll. However, the survey was taken before the government stirred up a hornet's nest with a pair of controversial decisions involving the military.
The Conservatives stood at 41 per cent - one point above the mark that is traditionally considered the dividing line that separates majorities from minorities.
The Liberals held 26 per cent and the NDP, despite its continued efforts to chip away at Liberal support, remained a distant third at 19 per cent.
Decima's chief pollster says the Conservatives have been steadily gaining ground since the election. They won a minority government with 36 per cent of the popular vote on Jan. 23.
(They) appear to be continuing to solidify the gains they made in the last election campaign and to perhaps be adding support as well, Anderson said.
It's not yet clear what impact, if any, more recent events may have on Conservative popularity.
Harper was lambasted in the media and ridiculed in several editorial cartoons Wednesday for shutting down a military base to restrict public viewing of the homecoming ceremony for four fallen soldiers.
One such cartoon in the Halifax Herald showed the prime minister hoisting an American flag atop the Peace Tower. Another depicted the Conservative party flag at half-mast, and one showed Harper flapping from a flagpole.
The government has refused to lower the Maple Leaf on Parliament Hill but has lowered flags at some military points at home and abroad.
Anderson, however, said he doubted this week's controversy would reverse Tory momentum.
I'd be surprised if that changed very much as a consequence of this week, he said.
The Conservatives especially gained support among groups that have traditionally been lukewarm to the party: women, young people and urban Canadians.
Anderson says those gains indicate the Tories are earning a reputation as a moderate party and appealing to middle-of-the-road voters.
They have been . . . building a reputation as centrist in governing style, (and) surprising some people in the demographic groups that have resisted the Conservative Party in recent years.
The Conservatives had more support than the Liberals among women as well as men, among every age group, in urban as well as rural areas and in every region except Atlantic Canada, the poll said.
The governing party had a seven-point lead over the Liberals in Ontario, where the Liberals currently hold the lion's share of seats. The Tories held 40 per cent in that province, the Liberals 33 per cent, and the NDP had 25 per cent.
The Conservatives remained three points ahead of the Liberals in Quebec, but both parties continued to languish far behind the Bloc Quebecois. In Quebec, the Bloc held 43 per cent, the Tories had 25 per cent, and the Liberals were at 22.
The telephone poll of 1,002 Canadians was conducted April 20 to 23, and has a 3.1 per cent margin of error, 19 times out of 20.
won't have my support ...
NATO chief warns of higher casualties
The Associated Press, BRUSSELS (Apr 26, 2006)
... De Hoop Scheffer acknowledged that increasing violence could hurt public backing for the mission. "Might there be difficult discussions with public opinion? Most certainly," he said. However he added allied governments were aware of the problem and would work to bolster public support. ...
NATO chief warns of higher casualties
The Associated Press, BRUSSELS (Apr 26, 2006)
Governments in NATO countries must prepare public opinion for the risk of more casualties in Afghanistan as their troops move into the volatile southern region in an expanding security mission, the alliance's secretary general warned yesterday.
"It is a dangerous mission, but NATO cannot afford to fail," Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference. "Realism demands that there will be more incidents, there will be more casualties, but NATO will stand firm."
De Hoop Scheffer briefed reporters before a meeting of NATO foreign ministers tomorrow and Friday in Sofia, Bulgaria. Canada is being represented by Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay.
The Afghan mission is expected to loom large at the gathering, along with the crisis in Darfur and Iran's nuclear standoff with the West.
Attacks on foreign forces in Afghanistan have mounted in recent months as NATO troops have been moving into the southern region to expand their mission from the relatively calm north and west. About 6,000 mainly British, Canadian and Dutch troops are due to move into the south by late July when NATO takes over responsibility for the region from a separate U.S.-led coalition force.
Smaller contingents from Denmark, Estonia and Romania will also move into the south, along with U.S. and Australian troops under NATO command. Four Canadian soldiers were killed Saturday in southern Afghanistan by a roadside bomb in the deadliest attack on Canada's forces in the country.
De Hoop Scheffer acknowledged that increasing violence could hurt public backing for the mission.
"Might there be difficult discussions with public opinion? Most certainly," he said. However he added allied governments were aware of the problem and would work to bolster public support.
In Sofia, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to push for NATO to play a more robust role in Darfur, the restive Sudanese region where African peacekeepers have failed to halt political and ethnic violence which had killed more than 180,000 people and driven more than three million from their homes.
Rice is also likely to seek a common position with the allies on Iran, which is refusing to back down in the face of a United Nations Security Council deadline that it suspend enrichment of uranium, a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or material for warheads.
Iran was not on NATO's official agenda but is expected to come up at an informal dinner tomorrow night where Rice will meet with her counterparts from Canada and 31 European countries from NATO and the European Union for free-ranging talks on world affairs.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
good in theory, yet i beg to differ on the farmers usage ...
New Democrat MP wants total ban on non-essential pesticide use
April 25, 2006
OTTAWA (CP) - A New Democrat MP is advocating a total ban on non-essential use of pesticides in Canada. ... he claims users tend to pile on pesticides to a much greater degree than farmers do in agricultural applications ...
New Democrat MP wants total ban on non-essential pesticide use
April 25, 2006
OTTAWA (CP) - A New Democrat MP is advocating a total ban on non-essential use of pesticides in Canada.
Pat Martin of Winnipeg is introducing a private-member's bill in the House of Commons that would impose a national moratorium on cosmetic use of the potentially unhealthy chemicals.
Martin says recent studies indicate some lawn-garden chemicals are more threatening to people - especially children and pregnant women - than animal-based studies suggest.
About 90 Canadian municipalities have already banned the non-essential use of pesticides.
Nevertheless, Martin says more than 50 million kilograms of pesticides are still used in Canada each year, 35 to 50 per cent of them on lawns, parks and golf courses, where he claims users tend to pile on pesticides to a much greater degree than farmers do in agricultural applications.
Martin says his long-overdue bill would put the onus on manufacturers rather than governments to prove their products are safe.