Adscam/ Gomery Inquiry/ et al

[Rifleman62]

Anyone who saw Question Period, or the lowlights yesterday, should feel ashamed. The PM was pathetic. When asked the simple question (if he had lunch  with Claude Boulay) several times he answered with the "hidden Agenda" card on health policy. He absolutely refused to answer the question. Trying to buy Quebec, so that the Liberals would have the majority of  Ontario and Quebec seats in Parlament. What does that strategy mean to Canadians outside of those Provence's? It means we are not relevent. Is this party and it's head ( don't use the term,  leader), that Ontario wants?

 

[atticus]

Has anyone looked at the Alberta poll results in the article scm77 had?
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1113252718119_108661918/?hub=TopStories

Alberta: The Liberals (21 per cent, +8 points) continue to trail The Conservative Party (54 per cent, -3 points) by a large margin. The NDP (11 per cent, -6 points), and the Green Party (6 per cent, -6 points) are down somewhat.

I realise that Tory support is still more than twice the number of the Grits, but why the increase for the Grits? It doesn't seem logical to me.

I've seen a few different polls done by different groups and they were all surpirisingly different (everything from liberal support at 24 with Tory at 36 to being quite a bit closer). It was probably caused by lots of people being asked in central edmonton or something. I can name two people that I know that support the liberals, and the only reason they do is because they want Alberta to separate.

Yeah, eye for an eye sounds fair...

 

[Cloud Cover]

I can name two people that I know that support the liberals, and the only reason they do is because they want Alberta to separate.

Now that is a strange statement. Are you saying that people in Alberta who wish to separate would do so by disingeniously voting liberal?

 

[canadianblue]

the NDP rose 2 percentage points in the latest polls.  WTH, everyone in Canada raise their hands who thinks Canada needs more failed socialist policies! 

Well, thats probably because they aren't viewed as failures among Canadian's. To those outside of the country they are viewed as failures. Not really sure the reason behind the sentiment, I think it has alot to do with the legacy Pierre Trudeau left behind, and many say that he was the man that shaped Canada.

 

[atticus]

Now that is a strange statement. Are you saying that people in Alberta who wish to separate would do so by disingeniously voting liberal?

Well, I'm not saying that for people I've never talked to about it. It was just two people that I know, and it really makes no sense to me at all either. They think we'd get all this money and that all the busness would come to Alberta, and then we'd be super rich. Liberals are a federal Canadian party and I don't see how voting for a party that isn't pro separation would do anything.

I did find this poll which was conducted by CBC, and at the bottom it shows a bunch of different polls.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2005/04/25/1012122-sun.html
 
Tory blasts Grit 'boondoggle'

By KATHLEEN HARRIS, OTTAWA BUREAU, SUN MEDIA
 
Calling it another "$100-million Liberal boondoggle," a Tory MP wants Canada's Auditor General to investigate after a federal building sat empty for nearly a year as taxpayers shelled out $500,000 a month in rent. The building in Gatineau, Que., is owned by Liberal Senator Paul Massicotte's company. Pierre Poilievre also wants a Commons committee to study the ethics of a senator acting as landlord to government.
"It was rented for the purpose of housing government employees, and there are none," he said. "To this moment, half the building is empty, even though taxpayers are paying the full price. That is an egregious waste of tax dollars."
Poilievre said an inquiry must get to the bottom of why this "massive error" occurred.

The company collecting rent is Montreal-based Alexis Nihon Group, which won a $100-million, 15-year contract from Public Works and Government Services Canada to develop the federal complex. Massicotte, appointed to the Senate in 2003 by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, is the company CEO.
Poilievre said he is not attacking Massicotte's integrity, simply raising questions about the ethics of a senator gaining a lucrative federal contract. He could not say if any Tory senators have deals with the feds.
Susan Murray, spokesman for Public Works Minister Scott Brison, said the move was delayed because the major client, Library and Archives Canada, was consolidating with the National Library of Canada. That made planning for operational requirements difficult on top of a "fit-up" required to meet the needs of LAC.

Murray said taxpayers are getting good value and the contract was "competitive, fair, open and transparent."
Rent for the Gatineau building is significantly below going rates in Ottawa. Seven of the 10 floors are now occupied and the remaining space is to be filled by July 2005.

  :crybaby: :crybaby:

 

[I_am_John_Galt]

Interesting ... this was the subject of "Whistleblower" (?) on CTV News just the other night ... IIRC the media really started sucking up to BMPM when it looked like he was sure to win (the first time) ... hmmmmm.

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

I'm now so angry I could spit. 



M.  :rage:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Link:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050524.wgomaud0524/BNStory/National/

$355-million was spent on sponsorship, auditors say
Tuesday, May 24, 2005 Updated at 2:32 PM EDT

Canadian Press

Montreal â ” Forensic auditing done for the Gomery inquiry has revealed the federal government spent $355 million on sponsorship-type activities over a 10-year period.

A report by Auditor General Sheila Fraser that looked at contracts between 1997 and 2003 concluded that $250-million was spent on sponsorship.

But the Kroll Lindquist Avey auditing firm, which was hired by the Gomery sponsorship commission, tabled a report at the inquiry Tuesday that included funding going back to 1994 as well as for the 2003-04 year.

The report said about $150-million of the $355-million went in commissions and fees to ad agencies. Ms. Fraser's report pegged the amount at $100-million.

Kroll said the additional money was included because the special programs it was used for were similar in nature to sponsorship activities.

Kroll reviewed more than 7,000 boxes of documents and released a 189-page report that looked at all the advertising agencies that were involved in the sponsorship program.

The report also said Groupaction Marketing, which allegedly funded the federal Liberals under the table for years, issued $406,000 in cheques that could have been converted to cash.

The auditors did not trace the destination of any of the cheques but they did flag a large portion of the $1.1-million Groupaction president Jean Brault says was funnelled to the cash-strapped Quebec wing of the federal party between 1993 and 2002.

Kroll listed a series of cheques in the name of Mr. Brault, his wife or associates from 1996 to 2002.

â Å“We have identified ... various Groupaction cheques totalling $406,514, which may have provided Mr. J. Brault with the opportunity to obtain cash amounts,â ? said the report.

Kroll also attached a dollar figure to all contributions to the Liberals â ” registered and unregistered â ” heard during testimony at the inquiry.

The auditors said $768,000 was donated above board to the party and added, â Å“if the amounts identified by Mr. Brault as payments for a political purpose are included, this amount rises to $2.5-million.â ?

Mr. Brault's alleged illicit contributions were pegged by Kroll at $1.76-million, but the auditors did not endorse the figure, listing it under the heading â Å“payments suggested by Brault.â ?

But Kroll did raise questions about another $430,000 of Mr. Brault's alleged unreported donations.

Documents previously tabled at the inquiry indicate Mr. Brault paid the $430,000 to the Pluri Design firm owned by graphic designer Jacques Corriveau, a friend of former prime minister Jean Chrétien. Mr. Brault has said Mr. Corriveau told him the money was destined for the Liberals.

Kroll, while not backing the claim, said â Å“the available documentation does not indicate what services, if any, were provided by PluriDesign to Groupaction for the $430,370 it received.â ?

The auditors said they requested Corriveau's bank statements from 1994 to 1999, along with other financial data, but that the information was â Å“not available for our review.â ?

A panel of three Kroll auditors discussed their wide-ranging report at the inquiry on Tuesday and were expected to reveal other details about the scandal-ridden program on Wednesday.

Mr. Corriveau will also be called to testify for a second time this spring.

Former Liberal official Daniel Dezainde told the inquiry Mr. Corriveau admitted to running a kickback scheme that funnelled cash to the Liberals from sponsorship ad firms.

Mr. Corriveau has denied all of the allegations against him.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[a_majoor]

You know, our plight isn't that unique in the greater world:

http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/20056821728.asp

Corruption, Not Terrorism, Rules Iraq
by James Dunnigan
June 8, 2005
Discussion Board on this DLS topic

The biggest obstacle to economic revival is not terrorism, but corruption. For example, over a third of Iraq's potential oil revenue is lost to corruption and theft. Thieves tap right into pipelines, put the oil on barges and float it away to neighboring countries, where unscrupulous brokers buy the â Å“hotâ ? oil at a discount. If the oil thieves encounter any of the security troops guarding the oil facilities, they bribe them. This is fine for the security guards, whose main job is to prevent terrorists from blowing things up, not stealing some oil. Another popular scam is to take advantage of the subsidized fuel inside the country. You can buy gasoline for less than ten cents a gallon. It costs much more than that in neighboring countries. That's why there are always fuel shortages in Iraq. The gas is illegally bought up and exported. Stop this illegal trade, and you stop the fuel shortages. But too many Iraqis are too accustomed to taking a bribe. It will require a massive effort to stop the corrupt practices.

Many of Saddam's old bureaucrats are back on the job, and for many of them, the main job is collecting bribes for doing their work. Otherwise, the bureaucrats are endlessly clever in dreaming up obstacles to getting anything done. The corrupt officials work in cooperation with criminal gangs, who act as enforcers, and protectors. But its so dangerous in Iraq, what with all the kidnappings, and angry citizens out to kill corrupt bureaucrats, that many of these officials operate from offices in neighboring Jordan or Iran.

Iraq may be free of Saddam, but it is not yet free of the corrupt practices that allow someone like Saddam to take power, and keep it. While much is made of the terror Saddam used to keep Iraqis in line, we forget that he often used corruption, and the willingness of too many Iraqis to take the money and look the other way. The corruption has gotten so bad, especially the oil thefts, that the government is planning on firing several hundred thousand government workers. The money simply isn't there to pay them. The money, instead, is in the pockets of local criminals, or foreign bank accounts belonging to corrupt officials. Until Iraq can confront and conquer this enemy, they will not be able to enjoy the benefits of their oil wealth.

Despite the security and corruption problems, $5.5 billion has been spent on 3,200 reconstruction projects. These include work in the areas of Buildings, Health, and Education; Oil, Security and Justice; Electricity; Transportation and Communications; and Public Works and Water. Actually, only 2,389 of these projects has begun, with 1,174 completed and 1,215 still underway.

Just imagine that we were not plagued by corrupt practices like Adscam, the Billion Dollar Boondoggle, the Foundation sinkhole, Shawinigate etc. etc. Shawinigate and Adscam sucked over 10million Cdn from the taxpayer and into the pockets of identifiable players, the Billion Dollar Boondoggle sluiced up to $3 billion (the amount was never really determined) away and the "Foundations" have $7 billion dollars which is not accountable to Parliament, the Auditor General or ANYONE to play with. Imagine what our economy would look like if money wasn't being bled from the pockets of the productive. Just imagine....

 

[a_majoor]

Exit strategy

Monday, 13 June 2005
Mark Steyn

The Liberal Party of Canadaâ ? isn't the catchiest name for a Quebec biker gang. On the other hand, it's no more clunkily uncool than, say, the Rock Machine or any of the province's other biker gangs. The Liberal party is certainly a machine and it's proving harder to crack than most rocks, and it's essentially engaged in the same activities as the other biker gangs: the Grits launder money; they enforce a ruthless code of omerta when fainthearted minions threaten to squeal; they threaten to whack their enemies; they keep enough cash on hand in small bills of non-sequential serial numbers to be able to deliver suitcases with a couple hundred grand hither and yon; and they sluice just enough of the folding stuff around law enforcement agencies to be assured of co-operation. The Mounties' Musical Ride received $3 million from the Adscam funds, but, alas, the RCMP paperwork relating to this generous subsidy has been, in keeping with time-honoured Liberal book-keeping practices, â Å“inadvertently lost.â ?

Meanwhile, Daniel Dezainde, former director-general of the federal Liberals in Quebec, testified under oath that his life was threated by Alfonso Gagliano's sidekick, Joe Morselli. Mr. Morselli was the guy in charge of the dough at Liberal HQ in Montreal. By happy coincidence, his catering company also has the contract for RCMP HQ in the province, and for Quebec's federal tax HQ in Shawinigan. Yes, folks, in Shawinigan it's not all scenic attractions like federally funded dancing fountains; they've also got a big tax office in town--which makes sense: since so much of it's spent there, you might as well mail it there direct.

If we could go back to 1867 and start all over again, I don't suppose even Canadians would settle for rule by biker gang, especially one as crass as the Chrétienâ “Martin Crock Machine. But, if you do it incrementally, eventually it's just part of the background hum of our lives. During the Clinton era, there were disaffected types in Arkansas muttering that Slick Willie and his gang had had certain inconvenient persons removed from the scene; one recalls that, following Kathleen Willey's 60 Minutes interview detailing the president's attempt to â Å“comfortâ ? her, her cat mysteriously disappeared. But, even at the height of the Starr investigation, there weren't prominent political figures testifying under oath that they'd been threatened with a cement overcoat by Clinton aides.

Oh, well. â Å“Everybody does it.â ? When this all got going, I said in this space that the indifference of Canadians in general and Ontarians in particular was the real issue, and it gives me no pleasure to have been proved so right so quickly. I flew back to Montreal from overseas the other day and the trolley dolly offered me a Globe and Mail. I made the mistake of accepting it. On the letters page, every Gomery-related missive was brimming with indignation . . . against Stephen Harper. Good grief, I wondered. What's he been up to? Laundering money? Diverting public funds into party coffers? Whacking his enemies?

But no. Insofar as I could tell, he'd given a speech. But every Globester was hopping mad. â Å“The politics of hate begets hate,â ? warned Frank White of Windsor (Ont.). â Å“When the election comes, Paul Martin and his Liberals will have my support for having had the courage to call the Gomery inquiry.â ?

â Å“There is little doubt who's wasting our money right now,â ? declared Stephen Beaumont of Toronto (also Ont.). â Å“Stephen Harper and Gilles Duceppe. One wonders just how much their childish strategy of shutting down parliamentary business will wind up costing you and me.â ?

â Å“What is he going to accomplish by having this manic election of his?â ? sighed Graham Norcutt of Castleton (Ont. yet again). â Å“How many millions of dollars are going to be wasted that could have been put into health care or education?â ?

And, as for this business of a no-confidence vote, Globe readers, while stopping short of claiming that Stephen Harper gives you cancer, were united in their conviction that, if you've got it, he'll certainly make it worse. â Å“All of us and our families who deal with a diagnosis of cancer say, 'Shame on him!'â ? wrote Pamela Keeley Nolan of Pitt Meadows.

Which is in B.C. rather than Ont. Nonetheless, you'd be hard put after reading The Globe to detect any signs of a swing to the Tories in 416/905 land. Across the page in the editorial column, the great thinkers of Front St. were taking refuge under that flimsiest of umbrellas and sloughing off a bit of lofty plague-on-both-their-houses boilerplate. â Å“There are more than enough stunts to go round,â ? deplored The Globe's editorialists. â Å“By their actions, the Conservatives and Liberals have catered to the cynicism many Canadians share about politics.â ?

Oh, put a sock in it, you droning Globot. Equivalence is usually false, and that goes whether it's Harold Pinter insisting during the Cold War that the Soviets and the Yanks are no different from each other, or Canuck media grandees insisting that a ruling party which wields most of the levers of power and which has corrupted significantly the few it doesn't directly control and some neophyte leader who's never held government office are equally at fault. That's â Å“everybody does itâ ? nonsense of the worst kind. Even if it were true that â Å“everybody does it,â ? it would still make sense to switch every couple of years and give some other folks the chance to do it. Ever since 9/11, I've argued that stability is an irrational fetish and that my bottom line in the Middle East is that even rotating dictatorships would be an improvement over the same stagnant, fetid, decade-in-decade-out dictatorship. As Baghdad and Riyadh and Damascus and Cairo go, so goes Ottawa. Even if â Å“everybody does it,â ? the Chrétien-Martin Crock Machine have been doing it too long.

The big flaw at the heart of the Westminster system is that in order to function as intended--by codes and conventions--it depends on a certain modesty and circumspection from the political class. When Winston Churchill used to refer to himself as â Å“the King's first minister,â ? he wasn't just observing the niceties. Rather, he was acknowledging that in our system of government even the most powerful politician is a subordinate of the constitutional order. Canada has historically shown signs of impatience with that necessary modesty and circumspection: we were the first Commonwealth country to put prime ministers on our banknotes. Personally, I'd rather have Her Majesty on the full set but, if that's not to be, then better Billy Bishop or Lucy Maud Montgomery than letting the Queen's first ministers dominate our money. It's not just that, in the great sweep of our national story, Sir Robert Borden doesn't seem like that big a deal, but that even putting Macdonald on there over-inflates the office--and over-inflation of the prime minister's office is the worst legacy of the Trudeaupian cult.

This month, the prime ministerial state notched up another landmark victory against constitutional government: after a week of daily procedural defeats, it was clear that the Martin biker gang did not command the support of a majority of the House of Commons. So what did the Liberals do? They covered their ears and said, â Å“Can't hear you.â ? And don't look to Adrienne Clarkson to stand up for the constitutional order and do as Sir John Kerr did down under 30 years ago: fire the government and call an election. Rick Salutin, a leftie I'm rather fond of, declared that he was relaxed about the scandal, the waste, the obstructionism and the contempt for Parliament because, whatever their motives, the Martin-Layton deal â Å“provides childcare, housing, urban relief, and a balanced budget--exactly what voters say they want!â ? Speaking for myself, I don't want at least three-quarters of that list, and, even if I did, I wouldn't want to get them this way. But it seems oddly appropriate that government â Å“child careâ ? should be ushered in through a shameless constitutional abuse that pre-supposes that we're all children, too distracted to care.

It's not about child care or housing or â Å“urban relief.â ? It's not about wasting millions on an election when we could be wasting them in the vast maw of â Å“education.â ? It's about whether we still have the capacity for self-government: free men don't remain so if they cease to value their freedom.

On my Air Canada flight, I eventually wearied of The Globe and Mail, with its editorial equivalists and a readership unanimously convinced there's nothing wrong with Canadian politics except for the strident rhetoric of Stephen Harper. So I switched on my â Å“personal audio/video systemâ ? and the screen flared into life with one of those quintessentially Air Canada formulations: â Å“To begin, press EXIT.â ?

That's what it's all about: we cannot guarantee that a Conservative government will be perfect or squeaky-clean or super-competent. But we should all know that declining to punish the Liberal party for its serial abuses will guarantee more years of remorseless corrosion of our democracy. There is not even the possibility of restoring our institutions unless Messrs. White, Beaumont and Norcutt's fellow Ontarians are prepared to return the Liberals to opposition. Like Air Canada's video monitor says: To begin, press EXIT.

 

[I_am_John_Galt]

The Sgro Report ("Strippergate") was just released (a couple of links from the Western Standard, for better or worse):

Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Unspinning Strippergate

CBC news, May 10:

"Sgro said she is also in the clear regarding conflict allegations stemming from a ministerial permit granted to an exotic dancer who worked on her re-election campaign in 2004 . . . "

CTV news, June 21:

"In his long-awaited final report on former immigration minister Judy Sgro, the federal ethics commissioner concludes she was indeed in a conflict of interest."

http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2005/06/unspinning_stri.html

Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Sgro Report -- More Liberal corruption revealed

Buried on page 19 of the Sgro Report is a description of how Temporary Residency Permits were used to buy votes during the election campaign.

The bottom line:

    * 128 permits issued during the 5 weeks of the 2004 federal campaign
    * 43, or 33%, were issued in the final week of the campaign
    * 76, or 59%, of the TRPs were supported by an MP
          o of these 76 TRPs , 24, or 31%, were supported by Judy Sgro herself
          o 19, or 80%, of Judy Sgro's TRPs were issued in the last 24 hours of the campaign
          o another 50, or 66%, of the MP-supported TRPs issued during the election went to Liberal MPs
          o only 2, or 3%, of the MP-supported TRPs issued during the election went to Conservative MPs

Angry in the Great White North has the full details.

http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2005/06/sgro_report_mor.html

 

[Edward Campbell]

This, from today's Globe and Mail, is every bit as bad - maybe worse - than the sponsorship scandal.

There is a stinking green haze of corruption hanging over Parliament Hill and it dirties all parties - and the bureaucracy, too; worse, it sullies all of us because we vote fo these people.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050622.wxibbitson22/BNStory/National/

John Ibbitson
Stop this insanity at once

BY JOHN IBBITSON

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2005 UPDATED AT 4:25 AM EDT
FROM WEDNESDAY'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Here's the nub of it: During the 2004 federal election campaign, the Liberals gave out visitors' visas as though they were mints. They did it to help their re-election prospects, by making sure that Liberal ridings benefited and opposition ridings did not.

Critics have always maintained that the Liberal Party of Canada uses the immigration system as a patronage tool to secure the loyalty and the votes of new arrivals. Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro has demonstrated that the critics are right.

It took a public inquiry to root out the ties of patronage and corruption that infected the sponsorship program. What will it take to get to the bottom of the patronage and corruption that infects the immigration system?

Mr. Shapiro released his report yesterday into allegations of unethical conduct by former immigration minister Judy Sgro. Ms. Sgro's advisers fought among themselves, broke all sorts of rules about remaining arms-length from ministerial business during election campaigns, allowed people seeking government favours to work on her campaign, and encouraged her to make unethical decisions, in which she acquiesced, although the former minister claims she was ignorant of what was going on.

But that's not the important part. Mr. Shapiro's report also deals with the question of visitors' visas, officially known as temporary residency permits.

Immigration ministers can issue TRPs to people who otherwise wouldn't qualify, on compassionate grounds. MPs from all parties often submit requests for TRPs on behalf of immigrants who want to bring over family or friends for a visit or a sporting or cultural event.

Before the election, Ms. Sgro told her staff that she would only be issuing TRPs on an emergency basis, and that no TRPs were to be issued for partisan political purposes. "We were going to try to keep ourselves down to the ones that were most urgent," she told Mr. Shapiro in sworn testimony.

Once the election campaign got under way, however, the minister's good intentions fell by the wayside. Various staff members testified that there was increasing pressure (from where, Mr. Shapiro does not say) to loosen the restrictions. There was also increasing fear that the Liberals would lose the election and, consequently, the ability to issue the permits.

The minister's office, said one staffer, went "from a no permit except during emergencies to . . . I won't say a 'free for all' . . . but to change of attitude that there are much more forthcoming permits."

Ms. Sgro gave out 128 TRPs during the election campaign. Seventy-six of them were issued at the request of members of Parliament -- two of them opposition MPs, the other 74 from Liberal MPs (it would be interesting to know who they are) or Ms. Sgro herself. Many of the 74 TRPs were issued on behalf of relatives or associates of people working on Ms. Sgro's election campaign.

Ms. Sgro told reporters yesterday that Liberal MPs got virtually all of the TRPs because Liberals represent urban ridings with large numbers of immigrants. Bosh. There are no immigrants in Montreal (Bloc Québécois) or Vancouver or Calgary (Conservatives)? The NDP only gets the farm vote?

Immigrant community leaders press Liberal politicians for visitors' visas, increased quotas (especially of family-class immigrants) and other favours. In exchange, they work on election campaigns and donate to the Liberal Party, and encourage other immigrants to do likewise. The Liberals hand out the favours and reap the rewards.

Some Liberals insist it isn't so. The onus is on them to prove it. The time has come for a swift but in-depth look at politics and patronage in the immigration system, with a view to eliminating both, perhaps by taking away ministerial discretion and transferring those powers to an ombudsman. There must always be room for compassion in exceptional circumstances, but there is no excuse for perverting that impulse for political ends.

This simply has to stop.

jibbitson@globeandmail.ca

© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.​

The solution is not, simply, to limit or rescind ministerial discretion.  Civil servants can be inept and/or corrupt and sometimes the rules make no sense - the law really is an ass - and only ministers can cut through the Gordian knot.  We need a complete overhaul of both immigration and refugee polices - starting with understand that they are not the same thing, they are not even very closely related.

We solve refugee problems at the source: by reducing or removing the conditions which make innocent people flee their homes in real, legitimate fear for their lives.  That may involve stringing some dictator up on a lamp-post; that's OK.  We also built and staff refugee camps close to the places refuges want to be - their own homes.  We do not make refuges into displaced persons in a cold, unfriendly, far-away place like Ontario.

We need to recruit the immigrants we want - not just wait to see who shows up and wants in.  Then we need to welcome the ones we want and point the others at less discriminating places - like France.

 

[a_majoor]

The solution to all these problems is disarmingly simple:

Brecht â Å“The solutionâ ?

After the uprising of the 17th June

The Secretary of the Writers Union

Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee

Stating that the people

Had forfeited the confidence of the government

And could win it back only

By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier

In that case for the government

To dissolve the people

And elect another?

 

[Edward Campbell]

I don't want to belabour this, but:

"¢ Ibbitson is getting on to the right track - it is systemic reform we need, not just a knee-jerk reaction to (maybe) corrupt Liberals; and

"¢ There is an important national security issue; badly designed or ineptly managed immigration and refugee systems provide cover for terrorists.


Our immigration and refugee determinations systems - and they need to be separate - must, each, have a national security component.

Here is today's offering from John Ibbitson in the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050623/IBBITSON23/Columnists/Columnist?author=John+Ibbitson

Time to split Grits, immigrants
BY JOHN IBBITSON

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2005 UPDATED AT 8:15 AM EDT

The Immigration Minister strikes back.

Yesterday's column alleged that Canada's immigration system has become dangerously politicized, with the Liberal Party handing out temporary residency permits to relatives and friends of constituents in Liberal ridings, among other favours. Immigrants show their gratitude by working for and supporting the party at election time.

The column urged an independent investigation of political interference and patronage at Citizenship and Immigration Canada. It also suggested that the minister's discretion in issuing TRPs should perhaps be transferred to an impartial ombudsman.

Joe Volpe, who has been Immigration Minister for five months, denies these allegations. As for the Ethics Commissioner's suggestion that TRPs were handed out to Liberal MPs during an election campaign, perhaps for partisan purposes, "I think he's wrong," Mr. Volpe said in an interview.

An average of 13,000 TRPs are issued each year, he said. Of those, only 800 are issued personally by the minister, usually to assist visitors attending conferences or sporting or cultural events. There simply isn't the means or opportunity, Mr. Volpe insisted, for serious corruption of the immigration system by politicians.

As for giving the power to issue permits to an ombudsman, "you have to be able to point to someone who's accountable," he said. "There isn't anyone who is more accountable than the minister."

But there is too much evidence of party and patronage ties between the Liberal Party and recent immigrants to suggest that patronage is non-existent, or that TRPs are always issued on a purely impartial basis.

The minister, however, does have a point on the larger issue. We should not let political controversy torpedo the need for policy reform. Canada needs to increase its intake of immigrants from the current level of 210,000 to the Immigration Department's target of 320,000 as quickly as possible. If we do not, this country could soon face a declining population and an acute labour shortage.

Critics will say that Canada already takes in more immigrants per capita than any other country, and that statistics show that too many of these immigrants are falling into poverty. True enough. But here's another statistic: From the Ottawa River to Vancouver Island, unemployment levels are at 6 per cent or lower, with a few rural exceptions, meaning these provincial economies are operating at full employment. In fact, labour shortages are already emerging in key sectors of the economy.

You worry about refugee applicants who go underground when their applications are rejected? Maybe they're joining the 20,000 illegal migrants working in Toronto in the construction industry alone. Should we round up these people and deport them?

Of course not. Instead, Mr. Volpe wants to "regularize" their status, which is another word for offering them asylum. He also wants to increase incentives that encourage immigrants to move out of Canada's large cities.

Another stat: New Brunswick takes in 700 immigrants annually. Only 40 per cent of them stay in the province -- that's fewer than 300 permanent immigrants annually in a province of 750,000 people. No wonder New Brunswick has a serious shortage of skilled workers.

One solution, which the Liberals are pursuing, is to encourage foreign students to study in regional schools, to offer them work permits, and to guarantee them permanent resident status when they graduate, without having to return to their country of origin.

Some time next decade, immigrants will account for all of Canada's labour force growth. As the developed world grapples with the phenomenon of depopulation due to low birth rates, this country's liberal immigration policies could be our competitive ace in the hole.

But that's liberal with a small "l." Mr. Volpe won't admit, or can't accept, that his party has become far too intimately tied to the immigration system. It's time to establish some distance.

Voters should insist on it. If the Liberals refuse, the next election affords a direct remedy.

jibbitson@globeandmail.ca

© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.​

We should NOT  be regularizing refugee/asaylum seekers' status - that is madness and it is nothing at all other than the worst sort of political pandering - bribery - aimed at immigrant groups.  Corruption!

We need to move refugees back towards their homes - which is where real refugees should want to be.  We cannot, must not just deport and dump - we need to build acceptable refuges, near refugees' homes and equip and staff them, too, but that's another subject.

 

[Danjanou]

There is an important national security issue; badly designed or ineptly managed immigration and refugee systems provide cover for terrorists.

Our immigration and refugee determinations systems â “ and they need to be separate â “ must, each, have a national security component.

We should NOT  be regularizing refugee/asaylum seekers' status â “ that is madness and it is nothing at all other than the worst sort of political pandering â “ bribery â “ aimed at immigrant groups.  Corruption!

We need to move refugees back towards their homes â “ which is where real refugees should want to be.  We cannot, must not just deport and dump â “ we need to build acceptable refuges, near refugees' homes and equip and staff them, too, but that's another subject

Speaking as someone who works in the front lines of our present mess (and who for obvious reasons will never be the one suggesting, writing policy), Edward you're right on the money.

The problem with the ostrich technique of management so prevelent in the civil service these days (at all three levels federal, provincial and municipal), means don't expect changes anytime soon. First of all too many people have built their careers and empires on the present mess and will do anything to protect it. Secondly a lot of them see nothing broken.  :

 

[Edward Campbell]

Sorry to keep harping at this, but here is a good example - from today's Globe and Mail - of one (of the many) problems we have with our Citizenship and Immigration system and bureaucracy.

I am blaming the bureaucrats, to some extent.  They should be serving the country's interests, not just interpreting the letter of the law.  The junior ones have little choice: they are duty bound to obey the rules; the senior ones are duty bound to:

"¢ Recognize the holes; and

"¢ Press their political masters to plug them - going public, if need be, to apply and maintain pressure on the politicians.

The emphasis is added by me.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050624.wxsyria24/BNStory/National/

Ottawa issued travel visas to Syrian general's family

Relatives visited Montreal so hardliner's grandchild would be born Canadian citizen

BY MICHAEL DEN TANDT

FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2005 UPDATED AT 5:25 AM EDT
FROM FRIDAY'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Ottawa - The daughter and daughter-in-law of a hard-line Syrian general have received visitor's visas from the Canadian embassy in Damascus to allow them to give birth in Canada and confer citizenship on the general's grandchildren, sources say.

Zeina Khair and her mother, Soha Tabaa, recently returned to Syria after a spring visit during which Ms. Khair delivered a baby girl, a Syrian source familiar with the situation said.

Montreal interior designer Maya Samaan sponsored the visit. "They're friends of mine, they happened to come here for a while, and they left," she said.

Ms. Khair is married to Majed Suleiman, the son of General Bahjat Suleiman. Until last week, Gen. Suleiman was chief of Syrian interior intelligence and one of the most powerful members of the country's dictatorial regime.

Gen. Suleiman's daughter, Randala Suleiman, also received a Canadian tourist visa from the embassy in Damascus, but has not yet used it, a source familiar with the situation said. The visa is valid for six months and expires in November.

Randala Suleiman is seven months pregnant and intends to travel to Montreal this summer to give birth, the source said.

It is common for the children of senior Syrian regime figures to travel to Canada to deliver their children, the source added. "The political interest is to have a safe haven for their children and also to guarantee study for them at low cost."

According to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, there is no rule or law preventing the practice.

Ms. Khair and Ms. Suleiman have delivered babies in Canada, in 2002 and 2003, respectively, the source said. In those cases, the visas were issued after Gen. Suleiman made a request to the embassy.

At that time, the ambassador in Damascus was Franco Pillarella, who sparked an uproar last week at the Arar inquiry when he refused to acknowledge Syria's poor record on human rights.

There is no evidence that Mr. Pillarella, now ambassador to Romania, or the current Canadian ambassador to Damascus, Brian J. Davis, personally intervened in the Suleiman cases.

Sources say Mr. Davis and the younger Mr. Suleiman know each other socially. Mr. Davis and his wife, Beverley, received positive treatment in the most recent two issues of the English-language version of Layalina, a Damascus-based restaurant and society magazine owned by Majed Suleiman.

An article in the May edition describes Canadians as "tolerant, easygoing people who can live and interact with everyone and adjust to all circumstances," and concludes that "all these characteristics are combined and very well reflected in one man, who happens to be the perfect representative of his country and of the Canadian people, Mr. Brian J. Davis."

Sources at the Department of Foreign Affairs would neither confirm nor deny that the general's daughter and daughter-in-law were given visas, citing the Privacy Act.

Department spokesman Sébastien Théberge said only that "our ambassadors apply the highest degree of diligence in their daily work and Ambassador Davis is a man of integrity. He is not involved in managing visa applications."

Immigration Minister Joe Volpe could not be reached for comment yesterday. His spokesman, Stephen Heckbert, denied that either the minister or anyone in his office had been alerted to the request.

"The minister's office did not receive a heads-up on the issuance of this particular visitor's visa, no."

Requests for personal comment from Mr. Pillarella and Mr. Davis were declined.

Immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman, who has dealt with Syrian cases, including the matter of Maher Arar, said visa requests from members of a prominent regime family would not have been granted without discussions at a senior level.

"You can be sure that there were consultations at very high levels and there was a political decision made, in the interests of 'good relations,' " Mr. Waldman said.

Richard Kurland, also an immigration lawyer, noted the irony of the case, considering Canada's recent experiences with Syria.

"Our Middle East foreign policy bureaucrats couldn't manage to get Arar out of a Syrian prison, but they sure could facilitate citizenship for the family of Syria's notorious intelligence director," he said.

"I would sure like to know who was at the switch."

Martin Collacott, who was ambassador to Syria in the early 1990s, confirmed that so-called "birth citizenship" is widespread in countries such as Syria, and criticized the practice.

"What gives you the right to get Canadian citizenship for your child just by coming here to have the baby?"

© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.​

We need to recognize that this is only one of many, many areas in Citizenship and Immigration Canada with potential security problems - magnify this by twenty or so and you have some idea of the tip of the iceberg.  Further, Citizenship and Immigration is not the only department with extensive international tentacles - many others, including  Heath, Heritage and Industry have extensive international dealings and bring people to Canada, on special permits, on a routine basis for conferences, etc, and then get permits and extensions for family members, too - even DND does it (or, at least, it did ten or fifteen years ago).

 

[a_majoor]

BZ to Captain Ed for blogging this stuff (funny how it never gets repported in the MSM). If you were thinking the Gomery inquiry just couldn't reveal any more filth: 

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004902.php

Gomery Financial Analysis: Corruption Includes The RCMP And Privy Office

The Fraser Institute has performed a financial analysis of the financial analysis of the Sponsorship Program, which shows that the corruption and graft runs far deeper than previously thought. The amounts of money and the scale of its laundering dwarf earlier estimates:

    The numbers of people and amounts of money involved in the Gomery inquiry are larger than previously known. Problems with federal government sponsorship and advertising programs can be understood using an economic theory of incentives and institutional structure.

This study finds that at least 565 organizations and individuals are identified in reports and testimony related to the Gomery inquiry. The original 2003 Auditor General sponsorship and advertising report cited only 71 organizations. The activities under investigation are therefore quite widespread.

    The people identified in these reports and testimony are politicians and bureaucrats (government insiders), and political party members and business people(government outsiders). This paper finds that almost all of them have an exclusive financial link to the Liberal Party of Canada (hereafter referred to as the Liberal party). They donated at least 40 times more to the Liberal party than to all of the other main political parties combined from 1993 to 2003.

    This paper finds that these individuals privately donated at least $3.9 million to the Liberal party and received at least $7.4 million in private payments from the Liberal party from 1993 to 2003. The Gomery inquiry forensic report found only $2.5 million in Liberal party donations.

Fraser found that those participating in Adscam by paying the entry fee of a Liberal Party donation wound up getting a hell of good ROI for their effort. The "economic rent" of those donations -- unearned financial benefits -- amounted to a whopping 50 times their initial donation, on average. Furthermore, Fraser found that Liberal government insiders took advanatge of their access to the $120 million in public funding. Liberal cronies did much better than that, however. They had access to $1.2 billion in contracts, almost all of that given to those with Liberal connections, which generated $190 million in "private benefits".

But that will not be the biggest blockbuster of the report. In its full report (PDF file here) http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/files/Gomery.pdf,  FI flatly states that the Liberal Party co-opted the RCMP and the Privy Office by demanding money for access to the Prime Minister:

  First, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Privy Council Office (PCO) were charged $112,000 and $44,000, respectively, for seats accompanying the prime minister during the 2000 election campaign. These revenues were not recorded for the 1997 campaign, a notable omission.

    It is an apparent conflict of interest for government agencies, especially those engaged in law enforcement, to pay a governing political party for services rendered during an election. This financial entanglement can impair perceptions of independence and due process that are essential to the proper functioning of those agencies.

At the time when the Liberal Party used the Sponsorship Program to launder money back into its own campaigns, they charged the RCMP and the Privy Council Office for their services, putting them in an extraordinary position. The RCMP should have remained independent of the Liberals as the only check on their power and potential for corruption. Just when Canada needed a strong law-enforcement agency to detect the theft that took place, the RCMP had entered into a financial relationship with the Liberals instead. Neither organization paid any money to any other Canadian political party.

I wonder why that was. A lot of Canadians might wonder at that as well.
Posted by Captain Ed at July 7, 2005 10:13 PM

People, email this and the links to your local newspapers, community newspapers, radio stations and every place else this might get reported. Email it to every person you know. True, the CBC and Toronto Star will certainly ignore it, but if there is a critical mass of informed people, maybe (just maybe), we will finally get some real action as opposed to promises and empty words.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here is a comment, from today's Globe and Mail by Normal Spector who was, inter alia Mulroney's Chief of Staff in the '80s.

I agree with three important points Spector makes:

"¢ One of the key indicators of a healthy democracy - respect for the laws by the government - has been eroded, seriously, by the Liberal governments of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin.  The transparency index is just one indicator of our descent;

"¢ Gomery's findings are going to be a bit mild because of his limited mandate; and

"¢ Pelletier was Guité's co-conspirator; his denials are not credible.  If Pelletier was 'in' then so was Chrétien - the Chief of Staff, any Chief of Staff worthy of the name, IS the boss when he asks or 'advises.'

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050711.wxcospec11a/BNStory/specialComment/

What Judge Gomery will find

BY NORMAN SPECTOR

MONDAY, JULY 11, 2005 UPDATED AT 8:11 AM EDT
FROM MONDAY'S GLOBE AND MAIL

In 1995, Transparency International ranked Canada the fifth cleanest country in the world in its corruption index. That rating, the first by the international watchdog, reflected the legacy of the 1984-92 Tory government.

By the end of Jean Chrétien's decade in power, the country had fallen to 12th place. While Prime Minister Paul Martin deserves credit for setting up an inquiry into the sponsorship mess -- one reason for our falling reputation -- Mr. Justice John Gomery is dealing with only a small part of the problem.

Notably, Mr. Gomery has not looked at the lobbyists who, between election campaigns in which they participate, benefit from lucrative arrangements with organizations seeking to influence government decisions. And, while the Gomery commission's mandate included government advertising programs, it did not include polling contracts that were part of the sponsorship process.

Testimony at the commission revealed that Mr. Martin's constituency office in Montreal lobbied for sponsorship grants for constituents and political supporters. Yet, when Alfonso Gagliano's counsel tried to find out what Mr. Martin knew that justified cashiering his client as ambassador to Denmark, Mr. Gomery cut off the questioning. He also cut off testimony by Benôit Corbeil, a former executive director of the Liberal Party, who alleged that sponsorships were about making the Liberals coterminous with federalism in Quebec, to the exclusion of their partisan competitors.

Mr. Chrétien's closest political adviser, John Rae (an executive at Power Corporation) was never called to testify. Nor were Mr. Corbeil's allegations in the media that judgeships were for sale in Quebec ever examined at the inquiry.

With all that's off the table, the big remaining question is who was responsible for the whole mess. In his closing submission, Mr. Chrétien's lawyer said his client had been "betrayed" and "kept in the dark" and was no more responsible for sponsorships than for anything else -- "good and bad" -- that took place while he was in office.

That argument was echoed by the lawyer representing the federal government. However, Sylvain Lussier agreed that what had gone wrong was due to a breakdown in the chain of command that saw an underling like Chuck Guité meeting directly with ministers and even the prime minister's chief of staff:

"How can you . . . not have an aura of impunity developing around the individual, until finally, as you say, they become untouchable, because it seems that all their actions are endorsed when in fact, for the most part, the actions are not known? But, by permitting these contacts without an ongoing vertical relationship, by permitting this system, precisely this aura of impunity was created . . . "

In my PMO experience as Brian Mulroney's chief of staff, the level of direct involvement between the chief of staff and a mid-level public servant like Chuck Guité is unheard of. The position is very powerful and everyone wants your ear. However, as I can also testify, the position is very burdensome and there are only so many hours in the day.

Mr. Chrétien's former chief of staff, Jean Pelletier, justified these meetings by observing that neither Mr. Guité nor Public Works deputy minister Ran Quail knew anything about the regions of Quebec where sponsorships were supposed to have an impact.

That's true. However, in a matter as critical as saving the country, you'd think Mr. Chrétien would have replaced the deputy minister or given responsibility to someone who knew Quebec better. Unless the sponsorship game was designed to give the PMO control.

Mr. Pelletier testified that he only provided advice, and that Mr. Guité took the final decisions on which projects to fund. One need only ask how long Mr. Guité would have lasted in his position had he rejected Mr. Pelletier's advice.

Let's put it this way: If either Mr. Chrétien or Mr. Pelletier had been unhappy with how the sponsorship program was being run, officials like Mr. Guité would not have been able to get away with breaking every rule in the book, as the auditor-general put it, as long as they did.

© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.​

The "aura of impunityâ ? which lawyer Lussier described is still in place.  The PMO is the absolute centre of the Canadian political system and it has replaced the PCO as the centre of government - which has the effect of being a coup d'état perpetrated in about 1968 and, sheepishly, accepted, ever since, by all of us Canadians.

 

[Wayne Coady]

But Edward what is your solution to this problem ? We know how far Gomery is permitted to go, but how  do we taxpayers end this, it took place under the governance of the only two political parties to ever form "government" . It has gone on for years, how do we end it?

 

[Edward Campbell]

But Edward what is your solution to this problem ? We know how far Gomery is permitted to go, but how   do we taxpayers end this, it took place under the governance of the only two political parties to ever form "government" . It has gone on for years, how do we end it?

My solution?

Well it is highly evolutionary; it involves reaffirming the fundamental values of a liberal, constitutional democracy.  Those values would be:

"¢ 'Respect' for the liberty of each and every one of us which begins with ensuring absolute equality at and under the law (but ONLY at/under law) for every person in Canada (more about that in some other time and place, maybe*) regardless of race, creed, sex, status, etc - limited only as can be demonstrated as necessary in a free and democratic society;

"¢ Respect for the constitution which is, essentially, a contract between several sovereign political entities and the people of Canada.  In that contract we, the people, consent to surrender a variety of  'rights' and 'freedoms' in order to secure peace, order and good government; and

"¢ Respect for democracy which is, at its root, government with the consent of the governed, according to laws.

It is my belief that liberty is the 'greatest' of these values and it is best assured when men and women gather together to assert their power over all the institutions which intrude into their daily lives.  That means governments and their bureaucracies, banks, businesses, trade unions, churches, associations, hospitals and, indeed, the police and the armed forces, too.  I believe that one effective way this can be done is for people to form or join political parties.  Several of these parties have, over the decades, been vital national institutions through which ordinary Canadians have promoted their values.  I do not agree with all the values of all my fellow citizens but, so long as their values do not involve treason, sedition, crime and corruption I support their right to advance them and to secure, for their party, the levers of government.

I think all four of the major parties in Canada need makeovers.  Each needs to certify for all Canadians that it adheres to the fundamental, core values, above.  Each needs to select leaders and candidates who are committed to liberty and a constitutional democracy.  There is nothing to prevent people who share our fundamental values from wishing to break up the country - there are good, honest, liberal-democratic separatists who respect our constitution; they just want it to evolve in a different direction.

I applaud people who want to assist in governing our country without joining any political party.  I, personally, like the Westminster model of government which requires a governing 'team' to secure and hold the confidence of the House of Commons (which I, personally, would like to rename as the National Assembly).  Political parties emerged to help manage that constitutional fact-of-life.  I do not want to dump the baby out with the bath water so I want to retain parties, too.  Independents who succeed in getting elected and want to participate may have to find ways to accommodate the party system.

In short, Mr. Coady, I think a reformation of sorts, within our established, indeed comfortable political system is needed to accomplish the ends I see as necessary.  I think all Canadians need to participate in this process because I think Mr. MacLeod is right about the nature of political parties in the 21st century: they are mechanistic election campaign management organizations, too far removed from policy and values.  I believe we, people like you and me, Mr. Coady, need to take back the parties and bend them to our wills.


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* I think our Supremes made a reversible error.  I think that anyone who has failed to get past our customs and immigration services - or who gets past them improperly - should NOT be in Canada and not be protected by our laws.