Media manipulation!

You have to wonder who is behind the media sometimes; because the way news is reported has a direct impact on the way we view the world. As an example here are two articles on the same subject, one taken from TSN.ca and the other from RDS, notice how the story is radically different

REPORT: CANADA'S NHL TEAMS COULD FACE TRAVEL ISSUES IN USA

TSN.CA STAFF

9/4/2009 8:34:45 PM

A decision by the United States Department of Transportation could have a major impact on Canadian teams in the National Hockey League this season, reports the National Post.

The Department of Transportation in the United States has banned Air Canada's charter planes from flying from one American city to another.

"It's potentially a very significant impact," NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly told Canwest News Services on Friday. "It's crazy and very destabilizing to our business. We're operating on a long-standing interpretation and for it to change overnight on the eve of our season is creating a huge problem for us."

Prior to a recent August ruling by the U.S. government, charter flights that carried sports teams could make several stops in American cities. The new ruling means the charters can only make one stop before heading back to Canada.

In retaliation, Canadian officials have launched an investigation to determine if they will take similar action against charters carrying sports teams from the United States.

"It's extremely messy for both American and Canadian teams," Air Canada executive vice president Duncan Dee told Canwest. "It was a unilateral action imposed without consultation or Air Canada being able to defend itself. It's obvious the U.S. Department of Transportation doesn't watch hockey."

Officials in the United States had been looking into a small number of instances of passengers - injured players or team officials – on the plane boarding in one city and then leaving the charter in another city, a violation of the original agreement.

CASSE-TÊTE AÉRIEN À PRÉVOIR

VENDREDI 04 SEPTEMBRE 2009

ASSOCIATED PRESS

TORONTO - Un désaccord entre le Canada et les Etats-Unis à propos des vols nolisés cause un tas de problèmes aux clubs professionnels de chaque côté de la frontière et pourrait perturber la prochaine saison de la LNH.

Le Globe and Mail a rapporté vendredi que les responsables des transports des deux nations avaient interdit les arrêts multiples pour les vols nolisés des divers clubs professionnels, qui étaient permis depuis de nombreuses années.

Si cette interdiction demeure en place, les équipes de la LNH pourraient éprouver des difficultés à disputer deux matchs en deux soirs dans le pays voisin et pourraient devoir retourner dans leur pays d'origine entre chacun des matchs.

Miami Air International, une compagnie de la Floride qui offre des service de vols nolisés à cinq clubs de la LNH, dont les Penguins de Pittsburgh, a été forcée d'annuler près de 60 vols au Canada en septembre pour des matchs préparatoires de la LNH. La compagnie a aussi annulé quatre vols des Blue Jays de Toronto, club du baseball majeur qui profite également de ses services.

"Ces restrictions représentent potentiellement un gros problème pour nos équipes", a déclaré Richard Peddie, le chef de la direction de Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, propriétaire des Maple Leafs et des Raptors de Toronto, aussi touchés par les nouvelles dispositions.

This article is taken from http://www.agoravox.com/article.php3?id_article=10547

The Canadian Government’s War on Science

For those who did not catch this excellent piece in the Toronto Star I encourage you to take a look.

During the Bush era the Canadian war on science was an embarrassing side show to that of its more wildly offensive southern neighbour which regularly silenced scientists, withheld reports, or simply appointed "expert" panels whose credentials were dubious but whose members could be counted on to produce the "right" answer. Indeed, these sad events are well chronicled in Politics And Science In The Bush Administration drafted for Representative Henry Waxman. (This, as an aside, is what happens when you give elected representatives real research budgets - they look into all sorts of issues to keep the government of the day honest. A similar study by a Canadian MP would have stretched their resources beyond their limit).

But just in case you think the Canadian context is radically different, remember that our government has installed unqualified dependents of the oil industry to government scientific bodies. It has censored government scientists, preventing them from talking about their research at scientific conferences. It has barred officials from talking about climate change or harm reduction strategies for drug users. (It even banned one public servant from talking about a fictional book he’’d written on climate change). It also disingenuously claims "more research is needed" on issues and then either cuts research programs that look into these questions or attempt to manipulate the process to produce outcomes that align with what they already believe (see the above Toronto Star piece).

This is the sad state of science and policy development in Canada. We alone in the world retain a government that is not interested in uncovering what is actually happening, but in fabricating a reality that conforms to an ideologically pre-determined world view. Our government’s two great allies, the Bush administration in the United States and the John Howard’s government in Australia, have moved on.

Today science is regaining its rightful place in the policy development process as evidenced by Obama’s inauguration speech:

The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act-not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.

The mention is short and quick, but it was a powerful signal that, for scientists, the Bush era was over. Suddenly science mattered again in the United States. For the Canadian government this line is still more ominous. Their war on science can no longer hide in the shadow of Bush. And none to soon. As a believer in the power of effective public policy the undermining of science has been an attack on the effectiveness of good government. If our government doesn’t believe in science, how are we then to measure success, on what basis are we to decide which policies are more effective?

Oh, and don’t think the world isn’t noticing. You really have to work extra hard to prompt the world’s preeminent scientific journal - Nature - to write a special oped about how your government has become anti-science.

A couple of other fun links regarding our government’s war on science:

Tony Clement, who happily is not longer the Canadian Minister of Health received a swift rebuke for accusing doctors that work at Insite of being unethical.

Gary Goodyear Canada’s Scientific Minister is a creationist. Best response to this sad state of affairs is the incredulous Brian Alters, founder and director of the Evolution Education Research Centre at McGill University in Montreal. He noted this is akin to asking someone "’Do you believe the world is flat?’ and he doesn’t answer on religious grounds..."

This article is taken from CBC NEWS!

FOREIGN POLICY

A Conservative rephrasing

Taking humanitarian out of international law, changing the words

Deletion of 'child soldier' aimed at Omar Khadr case: expert

Last Updated: Thursday, August 27, 2009 | 6:06 PM ET Comments74Recommend80

CBC News

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo and are living in camps such as the one in Kibati shown in the 2008 photo. Canada has made subtle changes to its position on violence in DRC. (Karel Prinsloo/Associated Press)

There's a change in language taking place in documents and correspondence put out by Canada's foreign service.

Though it may be imperceptible to some, political hounds have noticed an unsettling transformation in language underway since the minority Conservatives took power in 2006.

Widely-accepted terms like "child soldiers," "gender equality" and "international humanitarian law" are disappearing. In their place are the phrases "children in armed conflict," "equality of men and women" and "international law."

While the government downplays the significance of the new nomenclature, critics are accusing the Tories of diluting Canada's longstanding and globally recognized human rights values.

"I think Canadians should be worried about this," Errol Mendes, who teaches constitutional and international law at the University of Ottawa, told CBC's The Current.

Mendes says the government has the democratic right to make changes to foreign policy, but that it's important to be transparent about the process and its motivation. "Do not conduct foreign policy on the sly and policy changes by stealth," he stressed.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon wasn't available for comment to CBC's The Current, but in an interview with Embassy magazine, he said the new phrases "don't change anything."

"It's our vocabulary. I've told my people that these are the policies that we carry out," Cannon told the Canadian foreign affairs newsweekly.

"In some circumstances, it's semantics; in other circumstances, we're going to be changing policies so that they reflect what Canada's values are and what Canadians said when they supported us during the last election."

What about Khadr?

Human rights advocates are particularly worried about how the new language will affect their battle to have Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr repatriated to Canada and recognized as a child soldier.

Omar Khadr, shown in a courtroom sketch from Jan. 19, 2009, is accused of killing a U.S. soldier with a grenade during a battle in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15. (Janet Hamlin/Associated Press)

Khadr, the last Western detainee left at the U.S. prison in Cuba, was 15 when he allegedly killed a U.S. soldier in an Afghanistan firefight. The federal government is actively fighting to leave Khadr there, and has asked the Supreme Court of Canada to review previous court rulings that called for Ottawa to press for his return.

"To replace child soldier with children in armed conflict is to erase the kinds of important distinctions," Audrey Macklin, a lawyer and law professor with the University of Toronto, referring to children as victims or perpetrators in an armed conflict.

"To dumb down our language in a way that erases all those differences and doesn't pay attention to the specificity is to limit rather than expand our capacity to think about this important issue."

Mendes, in fact, believes the move away from the term "child soldiers" is "clearly designed" by the government to back away from support of Khadr.

Under the international Convention on the Rights of the Child, a document championed by former Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney, states are required to help children soldiers reintegrate in society, rather than prosecute them as criminals.

Not 'humanitarian'?

Deleting "humanitarian" from international humanitarian law also strikes Mendes as a blurring the line between two separate concepts.

Canada's Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, speaking in the House of Commons in April, told Embassy Magazine that the new terms are mostly just semantics. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)

"International humanitarian law deals with the basic rights of individuals in armed conflicts, the distinctions between combatants and civilians and protected persons," says Mendes. "International law is generally referencing inter-state relations."

In a document leaked to Embassy, a departmental adviser also outlined a suggested change in Canada's position to violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including the deletion of all references to "impunity."

It also edits the sentence "Canada urges the government of the DRC to take concerted measures to do whatever is necessary to put an end to impunity for sexual violence" to say instead "concerted measures to prevent sexual violence."

A history lesson

Some observers believe the linguistic shift is meant to appeal to a certain segment of Conservative supporters ahead of an anticipated election this fall.

But Morton warns the path paved by the Conservative's linguistic alterations could trigger a re-emergence of the types of insular attitudes present during the Second World War when Canada refused to take in Jewish refugees and interned Japanese-Canadians."There are people who don't like Canada to be a leading humanitarian. There are people who think that's revolting," Desmond Morton, a historian and former director of McGill University's Institute for the Study of Canada, told CBC's The Current.

The historian also cautions that the prime minister risks refusing to acknowledge current realities at his own detriment, pointing to former prime minister R.B. Bennett's alleged refusal to use the term Great Depression.

"By saying [Great Depression] and doing something about it, [then U.S. president] Franklin Delano Roosevelt becomes one of the great American presidents. Because he wouldn't talk about it and pretended it was somewhere else, R.B. Bennett becomes one of our more forgotten prime ministers."

"And if I was giving Mr. Harper advice … I would remind him of that."