Colvin disputes witnesses' detainee testimony

CBC News

Former Afghanistan diplomat Richard Colvin slammed back at some of the testimony heard from witnesses at the committee investigating the Afghan detainee affair, insisting that he had warned Canadian officials that prisoners were being abused.
In a detailed 16-page letter, Colvin outlines 17 statements he takes issue with that were made by witnesses at the parliamentary committee looking into the Afghan detainee affair.
"Some of their evidence, with respect, was inaccurate or incomplete," Colvin wrote.
He fires back at witnesses who rejected his claims that he warned top Canadian officials in 2006-07 that Afghan detainees handed over to Afghans were subsequently being tortured.
In his letter, Colvin highlights six reports sent to Ottawa in 2006, including one he said noted that "torture is rife" in Afghan jails.
"The report used the word 'torture' repeatedly," Colvin wrote.
Colvin writes that during a meeting in March 2007 with 12 to 15 officials in Ottawa, he informed them that the Afghan intelligence service "tortures people, that's what they do, and if we don't want our detainees tortured, we shouldn't give them to the [Afghans]."
Colvin said that at that point, the note-taker stopped writing and put down her pen.
Colvin worked in Kandahar for the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2006. He later moved to Kabul, where he was second-in-command at the Canadian Embassy. In both jobs, Colvin visited detainees transferred by Canadian soldiers to Afghan prisons. He wrote reports about those visits and sent them to Ottawa.
Colvin also stuck by his claim that all detainees transferred by Canadians were likely tortured. He wrote that that information came from "highly credible sources" and not from detainees.

Innocent Afghans detained, Colvin insists

Colvin also takes issue with testimony that denied that innocent people were detained, saying Afghanistan's own intelligence service claimed most of the detainees were unconnected to the insurgency.
During his testimony, Rick Hillier, former chief of the defence staff, said it was "ludicrous" for Colvin to claim all detainees were tortured. As for Colvin's assertion that most of those detained were innocent, Hillier had said "nothing could be further from the truth."
The committee heard from David Mulroney, the government's former senior adviser on Afghanistan, who denied Colvin's claims that he tried to muzzle Colvin.
Colleen Swords, a former assistant deputy minister at Foreign Affairs, also denied Colvin's allegations she had told him to stop writing things down.
But Colvin writes that embassy staffers were told "they should not report information, however accurate, that conflicted with the government's public messaging."
He writes that after the embassy put out a 2006 human rights report which repeatedly used the word torture, "Mulroney told us in person that we should be very careful about what we put in future reports."
As for Swords, Colvin disputes her testimony that those with concerns were told to use the phone first, and then write things down later.
"This is incorrect. Her message to me was that I should use the phone instead of writing," Colvin writes.
Colvin also rejected witness claims that Afghan detainees are trained to say they have been tortured. He wrote that those witnesses "seemed to be confusing Taliban insurgents (poorly educated Pashtuns, usually illiterate, with a parochial, Afghanistan-centred agenda) with al-Qaeda terrorists (international jihadists, often highly educated)."
Colvin also responds to criticisms that he never raised his concerns personally to Defence Minister Peter MacKay, despite having met with him.
"It was not the job of [Foreign Affairs] officials in Afghanistan to push our concerns on ministers, unless they explicitly invited them, which none ever did. Doing so would have invited a reprimand from our superiors," he wrote.

Seniors separate 'on a regular basis' to afford care

CBC News

Senior New Brunswick couples commonly get divorced or legally separated so they can afford nursing home care, says a seniors advocate.

'It is happening I would say on a regular basis and I think the reason why we do not hear about it is I feel that people are afraid.'— Veronica Ratchford, seniors advocate

As more people enter nursing homes, Veronica Ratchford, a representative from the Coalition for Seniors and Nursing Home Residents' Rights, said an increasing number of couples are legally splitting up so they can get government help with the cost of that care.
"It is happening, I would say, on a regular basis and I think the reason why we do not hear about it is I feel that people are afraid," Ratchford said.
"They're afraid to speak up against government policies and also they are embarrassed for the public to know their income and what financial situation that they're left with."
Judy MacKenzie, 66, and her husband, Alton, legally separated on Dec. 11 after 45 years of marriage.
Alton had at least two strokes in 2003 and has had to be cared for in a Miramichi nursing home ever since.
Judy, who now lives in Fredericton, said the bill for her husband's care is about $2,500 a month and the Department of Social Development is requiring her to pay about $700 of that.
After paying her rent, car payment and power bill, MacKenzie said she's left with less than $500 a month to cover groceries, prescriptions, gas and insurance.
The only way to pay less for her husband's care is to get a legal separation, she said.
Once it goes through, the cost of Alton's care will be based solely on his income, which should reduce the cost to the MacKenzies.
The Department of Social Development said last week that they wouldn't comment on individual cases, but a spokesperson said the provincial government offers financial assistance to clients who struggle to pay for care.

Seniors private about finances

Ratchford said this isn't an issue many people are aware of because seniors are often very private about their finances.
"A lot of the seniors feel that it's a government policy, this is the rules and they're left with no choice if they want their loved one to be placed in a nursing home then these are the dollars that they're obligated to pay," Ratchford said.
"So they don't speak out and they don't say anything and then the public is not made aware of it and then government really is not forced to make any changes."
Ratchford said she wants more seniors to speak out about the impact on their lives in an effort to embarrass the New Brunswick government into making changes.

Anatomy of a spin gone wrong

Don Newman: The Colvin allegations 

  

It is fascinating to watch the Conservative spin doctors worry among themselves about the fallout from the Afghan prisoners' revelations and then go into full spin mode whenever a journalist or a camera comes into view.

"Nobody cares beyond the Queensway," they intone as one, referring to the expressway that marks the end of downtown Ottawa, about 25 blocks from Parliament Hill.
These spin doctors are the party faithful who receive the emails with the talking points that the government puts out to try and shape the political argument of the day.
All the parties do it. But as with most of the tools of modern political campaigning, the Conservatives do it best.
In this case, Conservative spin doctors have also been doing it full bore since Nov. 18, when Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin began his testimony before a parliamentary committee.
Chief of the Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk holds a news conference at National Defence headquarters in Ottawa on Dec. 9, 2009. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press) Colvin testified that during his posting in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007 he had attempted to warn his superiors of the possible abuse and torture of Afghan detainees after they were turned over to local authorities.
Six days later, he told the committee that officials in Ottawa ignored and then tried to suppress his warnings that prisoners transferred to Afghan authorities were likely tortured.

Stopping the spin

The organized response by the spin doctors was to question Colvin's integrity, character and motives.
The more public response by the government was to bring forward the retired generals who had served in Afghanistan during that period — including the former chief of the defence staff Rick Hillier — to deny the allegations and say no warnings were received.
Only this time, the spin hasn't worked.
And now the Harper government has been stopped in its tracks.
Stopped by the current chief of the defence staff, Gen. Walt Natynczyk, who now acknowledges he wasn't fully informed of everything that went on.
Stopped by the signatures of 71 retired Canadian ambassadors on a letter in support of Colvin. And stopped by the common sense of Canadians who could not see any motive or benefit for Colvin in coming forward as he did.
Indeed, despite the attacks on Colvin, in particular by Defence Minister Peter MacKay, and the full-court press by the spin doctors that no one cares anyway, it turns that many Canadians think Colvin has been telling the truth.
The latest EKOS poll, for example, shows a majority believe that at least some of the prisoners transferred by Canadian troops to Afghan authorities were tortured.
What's more, among the people who think that, over 80 per cent believe there is a strong chance that people in the government were aware of that possibility.

The dominos fall

That poll was taken before the bombshell news conference on Wednesday by Natynczyk, just a day after testifying at the Commons committee.
Natynczyk told reporters he had just received information that confirmed that a prisoner taken into custody by Canadian troops in 2006, and then transferred to Afghan authorities, had indeed been severely beaten.
Not only did that new information contradict Natynczyk's testimony before the committee, it contradicted what Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Defence Minister MacKay, former defence minister Gordon O'Connor and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon have been saying.
It also contradicts the testimony of Rick Hillier, who was the top guy in 2006 when the transfer and beating took place.

One name stands out

Natynczyk's move to set the record straight was an honourable one and it didn't surprise anyone who knows the general as a man of principle.
The fact that, as the chief of the defence staff, he took his lumps and used the public route of a press conference to correct the record is particularly impressive.
So too, is the letter from the former diplomats, generally models of discretion, reproaching the government for attacking Colvin in the first place.
Many of the signatories are former stars of the Canadian diplomatic service but one name that really stands out is that of Robert Fowler.
He is, of course, the former ambassador who was kidnapped and held for ransom along with a colleague last year around this time in Niger, while on a special mission for the UN.
The other signatories also had distinguished foreign service careers, but Fowler's recent travails — and his exemplary international reputation — give the letter added profile.
Faced with Natynczyk's reversal and the diplomats' letter, the government has been trying a new spin cycle.
Incredibly, some Conservative politicians and their acolytes are now claiming that Natynczyk's new information confirms what they have been saying all along, that the detainee system needed to be tightened up.
MacKay, who is the primary target of the diplomats' letter for slamming Colvin in the first place, is now praising the military and the foreign service, while claiming, along with the prime minister, that those opposition politicians who want more information on detainee transfers are in fact attacking these two institutions.
Maybe that new spin will work. But the more likely case is that the information and advice from trained military and foreign service professionals who know what they are doing, will trump the webs woven by politicians and their spinners who often seem as though they don't.

Protest grows against Tory attack on Colvin

More than 35 top diplomats add names to list as MacKay faces mounting pressure in detainee-abuse case

Paul Koring and Steven Chase

Washington and Ottawa — From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Published on Wednesday, Dec. 09, 2009 12:00AM EST Last updated on Wednesday, Dec. 09, 2009 12:11PM EST

The number of former ambassadors protesting the Conservative government's attacks on diplomat Richard Colvin is snowballing, with organizers saying the list will exceed 35 today and is headed for 50.
The initiative began days ago after more than 20 former diplomatic heads of mission banded together to speak out against Ottawa's response to Mr. Colvin's testimony on Afghan-detainee abuse. They warned that it threatens to cast a chill over the foreign service and they singled out Defence Minister Peter MacKay for having "savaged" the diplomat in public.
"It's quite amazing," organizer and ex-Canadian ambassador Gar Pardy said of the growing response from former top diplomats. "People just want to be part of it."
Furor over the matter boiled over in the House of Commons yesterday, where Mr. MacKay faced the first public calls for his resignation over allegations that Canadian-captured prisoners handed over to Afghans were later tortured.
Although Mr. MacKay has repeatedly insisted that not a single case of torture could be proven, he acknowledged through a spokesman yesterday there is "credible evidence" that detainees transferred to Afghan security forces have been tortured.
That acknowledgment marks a significant departure for Mr. MacKay who for years has repeatedly insisted that not a single case of torture could be proven. Yesterday, his spokesman confirmed that the "minister has not denied being advised of credible evidence" of post-transfer torture.
However, Mr. McKay still maintains no absolute proof exists, his officials said yesterday.
In Parliament yesterday, the NDP said Canadians no longer have confidence in the minister.
"The minister has on nine separate occasions told the House there is not a scintilla of evidence of mistreatment even as the entire country was shown evidence that torture did take place," said the NDP's defence critic Jack Harris. "Will he resign?"
Instead, Mr. MacKay's parliamentary secretary, Laurie Hawn, mouthed "bullshit" as opposition MPs insisted the government knew of transfers to torture.
Knowingly transferring a prisoner to torture or abuse is a Geneva-Conventions-grade war crime.
Mr. MacKay has based his denials on information he said was handed to him by the advice of generals and senior officials within the Department of Defence.
Yesterday, General Walter Natynczyk said that he wasn't among the military officers who advised Mr. MacKay there was no evidence of detainee torture.
"I know that I didn't, so you would have to ask the minister's office in terms of who advised him," Canada's chief of defence staff said.
According to one senior military source, Mr. MacKay has never broached the subject with Gen. Natynczyk since he replaced now-retired general Rick Hillier more than a year ago.
As Mr. MacKay's office sought to justify the basis for the minister's long series of denials, spokesman Dan Dugas pointed to public statements by retired generals, including Mr. Hillier, who was chief of defence staff when Mr. MacKay made the first of his sweeping denials in November of 2007.
Although the "credible evidence" phrase with respect to transferred detainees has been used by ministers in the past, it was only to refer to what soldiers and diplomats were reporting from Afghanistan.
Detainee transfers have been halted at least five times since The Globe and Mail first published, in April of 2007, harrowing accounts of post-transfer torture and beatings. Mr. Dugas said yesterday that it would be incorrect to connect all halts of transfers with "credible evidence" of torture. Some might be for other reasons, he said.
However, the Minister's office came closer than ever to admitting that on at least one occasion, the evidence was so compelling that an Afghan prison warden was removed as a direct consequence.
" 'Credible evidence' is where you have an allegation supported by substantive evidence, such as that which was identified in November, 2007," Mr. Dugas said, referring to an instance in which a Canadian-transferred detainee pointed out to Canadian diplomats the electrical cables with which he claimed to have been beaten.
Mr. Dugas said "this evidence would not have been found, and the [prison] warden would not have been removed, if our government had not acted to improve the detainee transfer arrangement."
The shifting positions come two weeks after the long-simmering detainee-abuse issue was reignited by allegations from Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin that likely all prisoners captured by Canada in 2006 and 2007 were tortured after being handed over to the Afghans. But nearly 14 days of questions have produced little in the way of new disclosures on the matter from the Harper government.
Gen. Natynczyk, who appeared yesterday before a defence committee, contradicted the sworn affidavit of another senior Canadian officer who has detailed an instance of a post-transfer beating more than two years ago.
According to a soldier's field notes and the sworn affidavit of Colonel Steve Noonan, Canada's first Kandahar Task Force Commander, a Canadian-captured detainee was beaten by Afghan security forces before Canadian soldiers intervened and rescued him in June of 2006.
Gen. Natynczyk claimed the case wasn't one of a Canadian-transferred detainee being maltreated by Afghans because the man was never officially listed as captured, even though Canadian soldiers stopped, questioned, and photographed him.
Col. Noonan had been selected by the military to provide the sworn affidavit in the government's defence in the case. His affidavit of April, 2007, has never been corrected or withdrawn.
 
With a report from Jane Taber

The Urgent Threat to World Peace is … Canada

Posted December 1, 2009

The harm this country could do in the next two weeks will outweigh all the good it has done in a century.

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 20th November 2009
When you think of Canada, which qualities come to mind? The world’s peace-keeper, the friendly nation, a liberal counterweight to the harsher pieties of its southern neighbour, decent, civilised, fair, well-governed? Think again. This country’s government is now behaving with all the sophistication of a chimpanzee’s tea party. So amazingly destructive has Canada become, and so insistent have my Canadian friends been that I weigh into this fight, that I’ve broken my self-imposed ban on flying and come to Toronto.
So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petrostate. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.
Until now I believed that the nation which has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works.
In 2006 the new Canadian government announced that it was abandoning its targets to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol. No other country that had ratified the treaty has done this. Canada was meant to have cut emissions by 6% between 1990 and 2012. Instead they have already risen by 26%(1).
It’s now clear that Canada will refuse to be sanctioned for abandoning its legal obligations. The Kyoto Protocol can be enforced only through goodwill: countries must agree to accept punitive future obligations if they miss their current targets. But the future cut Canada has volunteered is smaller than that of any other rich nation(2). Never mind special measures; it won’t accept even an equal share. The Canadian government is testing the international process to destruction and finding that it breaks all too easily. By demonstrating that climate sanctions aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, it threatens to render any treaty struck at Copenhagen void.
After giving the finger to Kyoto, Canada then set out to prevent the other nations from striking a successor agreement. At the end of 2007 it single-handedly blocked a Commonwealth resolution to support binding targets for industrialised nations(3). After the climate talks in Poland in December 2008, it won the Fossil of the Year award, presented by environmental groups to the country which had done most to disrupt the talks(4). The climate change performance index, which assesses the efforts of the world’s 60 richest nations, was published in the same month. Saudi Arabia came 60th. Canada came 59th(5).
In June this year the media obtained Canadian briefing documents which showed that the government was scheming to divide the Europeans(6). During the meeting in Bangkok in October, almost the entire developing world bloc walked out when the Canadian delegate was speaking, as they were so revolted by his bullying(7). Last week the Commonwealth heads of government battled for hours (and eventually won) against Canada’s obstructions. A concerted campaign has now begun to expel Canada from the Commonwealth(8).
In Copenhagen next week, this country will do everything in its power to wreck the talks. The rest of the world must do everything in its power to stop it. But such is the fragile nature of climate agreements that one rich nation – especially a member of the G8, the Commonwealth and the Kyoto group of industrialised countries – could scupper the treaty. Canada now threatens the well-being of the world.
Why? There’s a simple answer. Canada is developing the world’s second largest reserve of oil. Did I say oil? It’s actually a filthy mixture of bitumen, sand, heavy metals and toxic organic chemicals. The tar sands, most of which occur in Alberta, are being extracted by the biggest opencast mining operation on earth. An area the size of England, of pristine forests and marshes, will be dug up, unless the Canadians can stop this madness. Already it looks like a scene from the end of the world: the strip-miners are creating a churned black hell on an unimaginable scale.
To extract oil from this mess, it needs to be heated and washed. Three barrels of water are used to process one barrel of oil(9). The contaminated water is held in vast tailing ponds, some of which are so toxic that the tar companies employ people to scoop dead birds off the surface(10). Most are unlined. They leak organic poisons, arsenic and mercury into the rivers. The First Nations people living downstream have developed a range of exotic cancers and auto-immune diseases(11).
Refining tar sands requires two to three times as much energy as refining crude oil. The companies exploiting them burn enough natural gas to heat six million homes(12). Alberta’s tar sands operation is the world’s biggest single industrial source of carbon emissions(13). By 2020, if the current growth continues, it will produce more greenhouse gases than Ireland or Denmark(14). Already, thanks in part to the tar mining, Canadians have almost the highest per capita emissions on earth, and the stripping of Alberta has scarcely begun.
Canada hasn’t acted alone. The biggest leaseholder in the tar sands is Shell(15), a company that has spent millions persuading the public that it respects the environment. The other great greenwasher, BP, initially decided to stay out of tar. Now it has invested in plants built to process it(16). The British bank RBS, 70% of which belongs to you and me (the government’s share will soon rise to 84%), has lent or underwritten £8bn for exploiting the tar sands(17).
The purpose of Canada’s assault on the international talks is to protect this industry. This is not a poor nation. It does not depend for its economic survival on exploiting this resource. But the tar barons of Alberta have been able to hold the whole country to ransom. They have captured Canada’s politics and are turning this lovely country into a cruel and thuggish place.
Canada is a cultured, peaceful nation, which every so often allows a band of rampaging Neanderthals to trample all over it. Timber companies were licensed to log the old-growth forest in Clayaquot Sound; fishing companies were permitted to destroy the Grand Banks: in both cases these get-rich-quick schemes impoverished Canada and its reputation. But this is much worse, as it affects the whole world. The government’s scheming at the climate talks is doing for its national image what whaling has done for Japan.
I will not pretend that this country is the only obstacle to an agreement at Copenhagen. But it is the major one. It feels odd to be writing this. The immediate threat to the global effort to sustain a peaceful and stable world comes not from Saudi Arabia or Iran or China. It comes from Canada. How could that be true?

www.monbiot.com


References:
1. http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/inventory_report/2007/som-sum_eng.cfm
2. The government has pledged to match the (feeble) US 2020 target (which in Canada’s case means just 3% against 1990 levels) , but unlike the United States, Canada has proposed no cuts beyond that date.
3. Eg http://www.canada.com/story_print.html?id=a1a6748c-ef0c-4acf-acad-1cef2bdae5b7&sponsor=
4. Andrew Nikiforuk, September 2009. How The Tar Sands Are Fueling The Global Climate Crisis.
Greenpeace Canada. ***
5. http://www.germanwatch.org/klima/ccpi09res.pdf
6. Lee Berthiaume, 17th June 2009. Government Planned to Split EU On Climate Change Talks. Embassy Magazine. Cited by Andrew Nikiforuk, ibid.
7. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/print/CTVNews/20091012/kyoto_091012/20091012/?hub=Canada&subhub=PrintStory
8. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/26/canada-criticised-over-climate-change
9. WWF, 2008. Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel?, Page 27.
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/unconventional_oil_final_lowres.pdf
10. http://peopleandplanet.org/tarsands/localimpacts
11. Environmental Defence, February 2008. Canada’s Toxic Tar Sands: the most destructive project on earth.
http://www.environmentaldefence.ca/reports/pdf/TarSands_TheReport.pdf
12. Andrew Nikiforuk, ibid.
13. http://peopleandplanet.org/tarsands/localimpacts
14. Andrew Nikiforuk, ibid.
15. ibid.
16. ibid.
17. Ed Crooks, 16th November 2009. Canadian Protest Over RBS Oil Sands Role. The Financial Times.

MPs out of the loop on Afghan torture? Unlikely

Under a majority Conservative government, former diplomat Richard Colvin's assertion that Canada knowingly allowed scores of Afghan civilian detainees to fall into the hands of torturers would likely have remained the stuff of informed behind-the-scenes speculation.
Until a parliamentary subcommittee stepped in to look into the matter, the government had deployed a lot of heavy legal artillery to prevent Colvin from telling his story to a more private inquiry held by the independent Military Police Complaints Commission.
Why?
From the Prime Minister on down, the Conservative government has always claimed it was unaware of detainee torture at the hands of the Afghan authorities, at least until a case surfaced in 2007, prompting a belated review of the detainee transfer protocol.
But Colvin's narrative makes it clear the government could not have been in the dark about the potential prevalence of torture unless the country's top civil servants conspired to keep their political masters out of the loop, and that is highly unlikely.
As of 2006, Colvin – who was serving in a senior official position in Afghanistan – was sending scores of reports warning of systematic detainee abuse. At first they seemed to fall on deaf ears. In time, he was asked to deliver them only verbally.
There is no evidence those instructions stemmed from a lack of confidence in Colvin's professional judgment or in the information he provided.
He is currently posted at Canada's embassy in Washington as a senior intelligence officer.
The embassy is hardly a backwater on the Canadian diplomatic circuit. It is not the kind of venue where rogue officials are normally posted until they can be quietly put to pasture.
According to Colvin, the clampdown order came from the very top, from officials who reported directly to Prime Minister Stephen Harper or his ministers, often on a daily basis.
In 2006 and 2007, the Afghan file was not only Canada's most important military engagement in decades; it was also the Prime Minister's self-chosen defining foreign policy file.
Moreover, Harper had come to office purporting to make human rights a more significant cornerstone of Canada's foreign policy, a notion he missed no occasion to spell out in public and, presumably, in private.
At the time the Conservatives took power, the public service was still reeling from the fallout of the Gomery inquiry into the sponsorship scandal. By and large, federal mandarins were determined to take all available steps to avoid getting tangled up in a partisan chain of command again.
It would have been an astounding decision on the part of the senior civil service to keep its Conservative masters out of any critical loop on the Afghan file.
In the House Thursday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay did not say the government had not been apprised of Colvin's reports. Instead, he dismissed them as lacking in hard evidence and implied that they were based on Taliban propaganda. It is hard to ascertain how Harper or his ministers could have come to such a definitive and contrary conclusion from their Parliament Hill offices. Colvin, among others, was supposed to be their eyes and ears in Afghanistan
His testimony comes at a time when Canada's military deployment in Kandahar is starting to wind down.
Given the heavy toll of the mission and its ambiguous results, some form of comprehensive post-mortem was already very much in order.
The latest developments make that even more of a necessity.
The Gomery commission was set up for much less cause than a suspicion of high-level wilful negligence of Canada's human rights obligations.

Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. 

Canadian news media less free

By Steve Rennie, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - The news media got a little less free in Canada this year, says a watchdog group in its annual ranking of press freedom worldwide.

Canada fell to 19th place this year from 13th last year on Reporters Without Borders' index of freedom of the press. The analysis covers print, broadcast and online journalism in 175 countries.

The Paris-based group, also known by its French acronym RSF, says court challenges to journalists' rights to protect their sources precipitated Canada's drop six spots from last year's ranking.

Lawsuits intended to silence critics under the weight of the hefty cost of a legal defence - known as strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP suits - also factored into the drop, said Dennis Trudeau, a spokesman for Reporters Without Borders' Canadian chapter.

"There are issues like real protection of sources," he said.

"Where a reporter could theoretically face jail or a fine for not revealing his sources is in our view, especially when we're dealing with public issues, a unreasonable restriction on freedom of the press."

Earlier this year, Canada's top court agreed to take on a press freedom case involving the sponsorship scandal.

The Supreme Court of Canada agreed to hear the Globe and Mail's challenge of a gag order that barred it from reporting settlement talks between Ottawa and a Quebec advertising firm.

The top court has already agreed to hear a separate challenge of the Quebec Superior Court's attempt to force Globe and Mail reporter Daniel Leblanc - who broke many of the scandal's first stories - to reveal his sources.

Chris Waddell, a journalism professor at Carleton University, says another issue of news media freedom that comes to mind is the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which has come under fire recently over a couple of high-profile cases.

One of those cases involved a Mark Steyn book excerpt on the Maclean's magazine website. The excerpt was accused of promoting hatred and contempt of Muslims.

That case was tossed out, but led some to demand that the commission be disbanded.

Moreover, many Canadian journalists complain the country's freedom-of-information legislation lacks teeth.

The Access to Information Act allows people who pay $5 to request files held by the federal government.

The law requires a response within 30 days, though departments can take extensions under certain conditions. But delays of 120 days or longer are common, and even then the government frequently misses its own deadlines.

The Harper government recently nixed recommendations to expand and modernize Canada's access-to-information and privacy laws.

A House of Commons committee had recommended, among other things, that the information commissioner be given more power to force the government to disclose information in a timely manner.

But Justice Minister Rob Nicholson quietly rejected the proposed reforms as too cumbersome, unnecessary or ill-considered.

Mary Agnes Welch, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, says reporters all over the country are having trouble prying even the most basic information from the federal government.

She says it takes departments days to answer routine questions, and even then replies often come in the form of email talking points.

"The amount of information flowing out of Ottawa has come to a trickle," Welch said.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office did not directly answer questions about Canada's drop on the Reporters Without Borders' list.

"Canada's is a great democracy where freedom of the press is a fundamental part of our society," Dimitri Soudas said in an email.

The top three spots on Reporters Without Borders' list went to Denmark, Finland and Ireland, while Eritrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan rounded out the bottom three.

The United States rose to No. 20 this year from No. 40 in last year's ranking, which the group attributes to more relaxed attitudes toward the media under U.S. President Barack Obama.

The group compiles the list based on questionnaires completed by journalists and media experts around the world, as well as data on attacks, arrests, laws and overt or covert censorship.

From the ChronicalHerald

Spreading the wealth unevenly

Nova Scotia’s three Tory ridings getting more stimulus cash than the other eight put together

By STEPHEN MAHER Ottawa Bureau

Tue. Oct 13 - 4:45 AM

OTTAWA — Nova Scotians in Conservative ridings should be feeling a little action in their economic plan by now, because an analysis of federal stimulus spending in the province shows blue ridings are awash in pork.In fact, more money — $162 million — is being spent in those three Tory ridings than in Nova Scotia’s other eight ridings put together.

» DETAILS: Click here for a complete list of where exactly the money is going (EXCEL spreadsheet)

Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s riding of Central Nova is the big winner, with $87.7 million in stimulus money, 13 times as much as the $6.6 million being spent in Dartmouth, held by a Liberal. In fact, Mr. MacKay’s riding received more money than all five Liberal ridings in the province combined.

After Central Nova comes NDP Halifax, which benefited from university infrastructure spending, then two more Conservative ridings: West Nova, where the feds are spending $41.1 million, and South Shore-St. Margarets, with $33.4 million.

The analysis by The Chronicle Herald supports the conclusions reached by a federal Liberal party report, which found that Conservative ridings across the country have been getting more federal economic stimulus funding than opposition-held ridings have.

Transport and Infrastructure Minister John Baird has rejected the Liberal analysis.

"The Liberals . . . are up to political mischief," he recently told the National Post. "I think any fair examination of all our infrastructure programs will show they’re pretty fairly distributed."

In Nova Scotia, though, the projects announced so far do not appear to be fairly distributed.

If the $322 million in federal stimulus funding so far announced were divided evenly among Nova Scotia’s 11 federal ridings, each riding would get $29 million. Central Nova is receiving about three times that much, while Dartmouth has received only a fourth of that amount.

Most of the stimulus money was negotiated between the Harper government and the provincial government of former premier Rodney MacDonald. The metro Halifax ridings — which lacked Conservative representation at either the federal or provincial level — got the smallest amounts of money, except for Halifax, which benefited from university infrastructure spending.

Much of the money for Central Nova is in the form of two highway bypasses at Antigonish, for a total of $45 million — projects that will benefit the whole province, according to Dan Dugas, a spokesman for Mr. MacKay.

Mr. Dugas pointed out that the federal funding is not decided only by the feds.

"There are three levels of government involved in the selection and the funding, so there are three levels of accountability," he said.

He also pointed out that the final numbers may paint a different picture than this database does.

"When you look at figures out of context, you paint a picture that isn’t complete," he said.

One federal Liberal riding that did well is Sydney-Victoria, which got $30 million. Liberals note, however, that much of that money went into the provincial riding of Cape Breton North, held by Progressive Conservative MLA Cecil Clarke.

New Democrat MP Peter Stoffer, whose Sackville-Eastern Shore riding received only $8 million, said the numbers show the federal Tories are spending money to look after their political interests.

"It appears that Conservatives looked after themselves first and everyone else second," he said. "This is understandable in pork-barrel politics. They would be screaming and yelling if the situation were reversed, if the Liberals or New Democrats had done that."

Things would have been better if the stimulus had been handed directly to municipalities using the gas-tax formula, said Sydney-Victoria MP Mark Eyking.

"It could have been rolled out quicker," the Liberal said. "It could have been rolled out fairer, and I think the accountability, they didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. They could have just taken a page from the U.S. book."

The final accounting will show that the money was handed out fairly, said Chris Day, a spokesman for Mr. Baird.

"We’re quite confident that, when judged on the totality of our infrastructure investments, each region will get its fair share," he said Monday. "Bottom line is: three levels of government are involved in selecting and funding projects. That’s three levels of accountability to taxpayers."

The independent parliamentary budget officer and opposition politicians have complained that the federal government has made it difficult to figure out where the stimulus money is going, in contrast to the United States, where details of all the spending are available online.

The main federal website tracking the spending — actionplan.gc.ca — has a map of the country with icons showing projects but no details about the amount of spending or the schedule.

Several weeks ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a reporter at a news conference in Oakville, Ont., that he could produce a list of projects across the country. Despite repeated requests from The Chronicle Herald, the prime minister’s office has yet to produce such a list.

The Chronicle Herald compiled a database of federal stimulus projects using several lists on the federal government’s Building Canada website. The longest list — Nova Scotia Infrastructure Initiatives — is missing the dollar amount for many of the projects, so the newspaper acquired them from the provincial and municipal governments.

The paper also included all projects that aren’t on the lists but have been the subject of news releases under the federal government’s Economic Action Plan — for example, $10.3 million in federal funding for the Lunenburg County Lifestyle Centre, a new recreation centre planned for Bridgewater, in Conservative MP Gerald Keddy’s riding of South Shore-St. Margarets.

Two large funding commitments in Tory ridings weren’t added to the list because they were not made under the Economic Action Plan. They are $66 million in funding for CFB Greenwood, including a new recreation centre, in Conservative MP Greg Kerr’s riding of West Nova, and $12 million for a new recreation centre in Pictou County, in Mr. MacKay’s riding.

Mr. MacKay announced the sports centre in Pictou County in March, although the municipalities in the region had not agreed to provide their share of the funding.

"Making a difference at home is the reason I ran for public office," said the release from Mr. MacKay. "That’s why it gave me great pleasure to announce $12 million on behalf of the Government of Canada for the Pictou County Wellness Centre."

The release does not state under which federal program the recreation centre will be funded, which is unusual.

Several similar projects in opposition-held ridings have been unable to get federal money even though they, unlike the Pictou County centre, have firm funding commitments from the provincial and municipal governments.

In Halifax Regional Municipality, for instance, the federal government refused to provide funding for a new four-rink complex for Bedford, amid rumours of backroom manoeuvring by local Tories who support a rival project.

A Colchester County recreation centre has funding commitments from the province, the county and the town of Truro, but the federal government has yet to offer any money, although Mr. MacKay signalled during the provincial election that money would eventually be forthcoming.

A federal byelection in the riding of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley is to be held Nov. 9, and Ottawa can’t deliver a funding commitment until the campaign is over. The traditionally Conservative riding was held by Bill Casey, who defied Mr. Harper over the Atlantic accord and then sat as an Independent. He resigned in April to become Nova Scotia’s representative in Ottawa.

Greg MacArthur, Truro’s deputy mayor, said he expects a cheque from Ottawa after the byelection, as Mr. MacKay has indicated the rec centre project will get federal support.

"I said that Mr. MacKay is not going to lie to 50,000 people," Mr. MacArthur said. "He’s an honest man and he’ll show up with the funding."

WHERE THE MONEY IS GOING

Federal stimulus spending, by riding:

Conservative ridings

Central Nova: 32 projects, $87,702,343

South Shore-St. Margarets: 39 projects, $33,493,446

West Nova: 42 projects, $41,162,998

Total: $162,358,787

Liberal ridings

Cape Breton-Canso: 24 projects, $18,771,176

Halifax West: 6 projects, $7,992,432

Kings-Hants: 19 projects, $15,653,857

Sydney-Victoria: 35 projects, $33,267,380.67

Dartmouth: 7 projects, $6,646,292

Total: $82,331,137.67

NDP ridings

Halifax: 12 projects, $45,008,653.33

Sackville-Eastern Shore: 7 projects, $8,050,735

Total: 53,059,388.33

Independent ridings

Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley: 30 projects, $24,746,730

Total of all spending: $322,496,043

Sources: The following online lists of federal program spending — Nova Scotia Infrastructure Initiatives, Recreational Infrastructure Canada Program, Community Adjustment Fund, Knowledge Infrastructure Program, 2009 Government of Canada Economic Action Plan news releases.

Gun Control Canadian style!

Ottawa giving up millions in gun registry fees

Last Updated: Monday, October 5, 2009 | 6:15 PM ET Comments368Recommend74

Alison Crawford, CBC News

The Conservative government is relinquishing millions of dollars in gun registry and licensing fees at a time when the government is running record budget deficits.

Documents obtained by CBC News under access to information show the federal government's decision to waive fees for people licensing their firearms will cost more than $15 million this year alone. Should the fee waiver be extended for another three years, internal forecasts predict an additional $60 million in "projected lost revenue."

The Conservatives started granting amnesty to gun owners in 2006 — neither forcing new owners to register rifles and other long guns, nor collecting fees from those who already had. It also waived fees for licence renewals. The amnesty has been extended twice more since then.

Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan didn't dispute the amounts cited in the documents, but he insisted no money is being lost.

"Federal budgets have committed funding to offset the cost of this waiver to the RCMP," he said in a statement emailed to the CBC.

The statement also said that statistics compiled by the Canadian Firearms Centre, "indicate that compliance with the requirement for Canadians to register as a firearms owner has increased throughout the extended waiver period."

A spokesperson for Van Loan, responding to requests for more detailed information, said that between 2006 and 2008, the renewal rate of possession-only licences increased to 65 per cent from 50 per cent.

Those numbers, however, appear to be at odds with statistics produced by public servants at the Department of Public Safety, which show a downward trend in licence renewals.

In February 2008, Lyndon Murdock, the director of firearms and operational policing policy at Public Safety, emailed his director general Mark Potter. The message said, "Data does not tell compelling story re: effectiveness of measures vis-a-vis promotion of compliance."

The department refused CBC's requests to speak with Murdock.

That's not the only discrepancy.

Scott McDougall, the director of strategic policy and planning at the Canadian Firearms Centre, also wrote an internal memo in February 2008 stating that 95,000 people had not renewed their firearms licences but still appeared to have guns in their possession.

Lot of confusion

Last week when CBC asked for more up-to-date information, the RCMP reported that 138,000 have let their possession-only licences expire. Of those, 70,000 are people who moved and never provided the centre with a new address. The Mounties say 1.9 million Canadians own guns.

Toronto Police chief Bill Blair said that among gun owners, there is "a great deal of confusion about a number of amnesties that have been announced by the federal government."

Blair, who also heads up the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, pointed to Project Safe City in Toronto, where officers physically show up to check in on known gun owners.

"We have been going to people's homes where we know that they were previously in possession of firearms that were registered that they failed to re-register and we're finding not only those weapons but additional weapons that people have acquired as well and failed to register," Blair said. "And so I think the amnesties have even caused some confusion among gun owners."

The Liberal Party's public safety critic Mark Holland agreed.

"If people are told that there is no consequence for not licensing their weapon, it's no surprise that they don't. And these facts bear that out. When they're told that there's no impact for them to ignore it, then they're going to ignore it."

As for the fee waivers, Blair said the lost revenue "just adds to the burden that Canadians are going to have to pay eventually to get this caught up when we restore the requirement that these weapons get properly registered. And we're very hopeful that that will take place."

Very nice solution

The University of Lethbridge political science professor Peter McCormick said that's unlikely to happen any time soon. By extending the amnesty year after year, he said, the Conservatives are deftly handling a hot-button issue.

McCormick said the strategy allows the government to pacify rural and western voters who oppose the registry as well as urban Canadians who support it.

"Elegant is too nice a word, but this is actually for the government a very nice solution," he said.

"You can keep saying to the westerners, we're amnestying, we're doing what we can. And everyone goes off saying, yeah, yeah and they're nodding their heads and they're happy. Not a bad package for the government."

The balancing act may cost millions, but the political payback is worth it, McCormick added.

"Amnestying fees is not the same thing as abolishing the registry. It's hard for the Opposition to get traction on it. And sure, it costs, what, $10, $15 million dollars a year in forgone revenue for the government, but we're talking $50 billion deficits these days. What's $15 million among friends? For the government, I think it's quite a bargain."

controversial truth!

This article was highly controversial with people from both side of th political spectrum . but upon further verifications, I found everything mister Martins says to be true.

Lawrence Martin

Why the Harper government flunks the Reagan litmus test

Lawrence Martin

Last updated on Saturday, Sep. 19, 2009 03:07AM EDT

The maestro is at it again. Stephen Harper controls the political universe. His opponents make a lot of noise, but down deep, they're timorous. His stock rises, theirs falls.

He forced an election last fall without a compelling reason. He said his legislative program was being blocked when it wasn't. He unfixed his fixed election date. Now, when the popgun shooters on the Liberal benches want to bring on an election, Mr. Harper, with a straight face, flattens them with shame. They don't have a good reason, he says. It being Ottawa, hypocrisy's hometown, no one even burps.

The PM caves on employment insurance, doing stuff he said he'd never do. But he wins the spin game. Headlines suggest his opponents have fallen victim to his sorcery, as they have so many other times. Threatened by the notion of a coalition, Mr. Harper has turned the public perception of a coalition government – routine in other countries – into some kind of rare disease. Michael Ignatieff dare not mention it. Nor, despite the growing deficit, dare he mention new taxes. While planning to raise EI premiums, the PM has cast tax hikes into something worse than scurvy.

He lords over all. It's a jaw-dropping performance. It's as if he's bulletproof when, in fact, he's highly vulnerable.

Vulnerable? There's a wonderful litmus-test question once posed by Ronald Reagan. In campaigning against Jimmy Carter, the Gipper famously askedwhether the country was better off than it had been four years earlier. If the Harper foes put forward that query, they might find more appetite for going to the polls.

Our economy was quite splendid four years ago, just humming along. It staggers now. Owing to the global recession, unemployment nears double digits. The deficit gathers at an alarming rate, moving toward record levels.

On trade, our exports to the United States have declined over the past four years. Instead of pursuing alternative markets, the government, in the grip of old-think, dithered. Only now is it waking up to Asian opportunities.

On the Afghan war, the Conservatives saw promise four years back. Gung-ho on the mission, Mr. Harper forced a quick vote for its extension. His optimism was misguided. Today, more than 100 deaths later, the inferno worsens. Our withdrawal is planned.

There's the environment. A breakthrough has seen the Conservatives progress from climate-change deniers to climate-change dawdlers. Instead of having Canada take a lead on the international stage, it plays a wait-and-see game.

Four years ago, the Tories made high-sounding promises on democratic reform and transparency. Today, Mr. Harper runs one of the most overcentralized command centres the country has ever seen. On matters too many to mention, his cynical government has seized the moral low ground.

On health care, there's been little progress of note. There's no national energy policy, despite the projected shortages of natural gas. There's no overarching ambition for this country, period.

There've been some accomplishments: a revitalized military, a higher profile for Arctic sovereignty, anti-crime measures and, by way of the PM's brilliant stroke on nation status for the Québécois, some progress on national unity.

The Conservatives should neither be blamed for starting this recession nor credited with ending it. Economic tides from afar were, and remain, the decisive influences. The Tories' stimulus spending will help the recovery, but the outlays were opposition-induced. Their economic forecasts have been repeatedly cockeyed and embarrassing. Because of their prerecession profligate spending and their slicing of major revenue providers such as the GST, the Conservatives bear a goodly part of the responsibility for what could very well become a structural deficit.

The record leaves ample ammunition, but the Liberals have allowed Mr. Harper to frame the debate. Smartly, he has made the opposition the issue. And he's kept the national discussion focused more on his political machinations than his policy history.

So far, the Liberals have come at the PM with an empty suitcase. Their policy alternatives are few, and there's no application of the Reagan litmus test. It's a test they should have ringing in every Canadian ear. It may even be justification for an election campaign.

Too much control?

Article taken from CBC.ca

VIEWPOINT

Henry Champ

Mr. Doer goes to Washington

Last Updated: Friday, September 4, 2009 | 2:44 PM ET Comments8Recommend19

By Henry Champ, special to CBC News

Upon hearing that former Manitoba premier Gary Doer will be the next Canadian ambassador to the United States, Fen Hampson of Carleton University's School of International Affairs told the Ottawa Citizen: "Doer has a good personal relationship with the prime minister and Americans will know he's someone who can pick up the phone and call the prime minister."

Hampson has at least part of the equation right. Americans like to do business with ambassadors who have the ear of their leaders.

But the reality is that it's been a long time since Americans have felt the Canadian embassy is the place to go to reach Canada's prime minister.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and former Manitoba premier Gary Doer, Canada's new ambassador to Washington, on the day of his appointment. (Canadian Press)

This is not to question whether Gary Doer is the man for the job.

America's political elite likes dealing with its counterparts. They like doing business with politicians.

They especially like those who have a history at the ballot box and who know what it takes to be successful.

Three times a winner as Manitoba premier will get Doer a tonne of respect in the American capital.

What's more, Doer's Rolodex has probably more American names in it than almost any other Canadian politician.

He's been active on the border issues, particularly with his efforts to create enhanced driver's licences. He's on first name basis with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, after joining the governor's Western Initiative on Climate Change, the only Canadian to do so. And he established a Manitoba office in Washington. In fact, I've often seen him in the company of top congressional figures. He looks right at home.

Doer is a schmoozer. He never saw a crowd he didn't like.

The shacklers

However, there is one crowd he is not going to like. The bureaucrats at Foreign Affairs in Ottawa and the public relations folks in the Prime Minister's Office.

As Stephen Lewis, who served successfully as Brian Mulroney's ambassador to the United Nations told the Globe and Mail recently:

"It's a bit of a shock when you get into the role and realize that you're much more shackled.

"Foreign Affairs dictates the content of what you say and do in a significant measure. They can write the speeches and insist you deliver them, and they make sure that the talking points on your policy briefs are adhered to.

"You're sort of unprepared for it and I think I learned over time you shouldn't be constrained by it."

It's hard for me to imagine Stephen Lewis being "constrained" by very much. I would love to have been a fly on the wall during some of his conversations with the Ottawa mandarins and public relations folks.

Mulroney had a foreign policy agenda he wanted put forward and he was generally happy to deal directly through his UN ambassador. Ottawa's bureaucrats didn't interfere.

It was the same tone with Allan Gottlieb, a Trudeau appointee, who had a long run (1981-89) as the ambassador to Washington.

Mulroney kept him on because he felt he needed Gottlieb and his huge array of social contacts during the delicate free trade talks. Gottlieb had a pretty free rein and the prime minister's ear.

Rebuked

Since then, however, Canadian prime ministers have been content to allow some of the other power centres in Ottawa to whittle away at the Washington embassy.

The embassy once had the finest set of contacts in the American capital and Canadian embassy staffers covered Capitol Hill like dust.

Every committee meeting that remotely involved Canada had a staff person present taking notes and schmoozing the members before and after the hearing.

Regular visits were made to member's offices. No celebration, no event went uncovered.

But then the embassy official who headed this operation was seen by some in then prime minister Paul Martin's office as trying to be too much the diplomat: he was better known than the ambassador.

So he went back to Ottawa, somewhat rebuked, and the Capitol Hill effort waned.

The PM's ear

One of the more successful of Canada's recent ambassadors to the U.S., I would argue, was Frank McKenna, like Doer a former premier.

A Liberal, McKenna nonetheless forged a solid relationship with the George W. Bush White House in his short time as ambassador, partly because he had been close to the president's father. Both McKenna and the former president, George H.W. Bush, had been on the board of the powerful Carlyle Group investment firm.

McKenna was a frequent visitor to the White House, more often than previous ambassadors. But his time in Washington was one of frequent bickering with Ottawa insiders.

McKenna was a much sought after dinner speaker. He made a speech in Canada once in which he called the American government "dysfunctional" and was highly critical of Congress. He praised the Canadian parliamentary system as more "efficient."

Official Ottawa choked on the headlines, but many American politicians thought he had it about right.

Of course it is not just the ambassadors who face continual second-guessing. The prime minister's office recently hired two former White House press secretaries to do the kind of prep work and background studies normally done by the embassy.

This is the situation Gary Doer is walking into.

Now, I'm one who believes Prime Minister Harper should take every advantage of the American media to sell Canada's case. But the recent hiring of former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer to arrange interviews for Harper while he was on his latest trip here is over the top.

There is a large press office in the Canadian embassy here that is more than capable of arranging those interviews. Getting on Fox news and CNN, or being interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, is not magic.

There is no question a prime minister must be served. It is, after all, his foreign policy and his duly elected government.

But as Doer measures the curtains for his new office, he needs to be aware that recent history does not bode well for what Prof. Hampson calls having the prime minister's ear.