Anyone Up For A Citizen's Arrest?

That is the question Toronto lawyer Paul Cavalluzzo essentially asks, given the egregious contempt for law that the Harper government in general, and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander in particular, is showing regarding refugee health care:

Our government has clearly refused to comply with an order in a case in which the court found that the government’s denial of health benefits to refugees was a violation of our Charter of Rights (Ottawa’s Treatment Of Refugees Is Shocking – Nov. 7).

This defiance is in the face of the court refusing the government’s request to stay the order. Moreover, the government has publicly stated that it is obeying the court order, in spite of the clear facts to the contrary.

In my practice of law, I’ve represented trade union leaders who have gone to jail as a result of defying court orders. Perhaps it’s time for a citizen’s arrest of Immigration Minister Chris Alexander or indeed the PM, who likely authorized this defiance.

It’s time this government learned that the rule of law means the law applies equally to all. It is not enough to wax eloquently on Remembrance Day that we should honour our fallen soldiers who fought valiantly and died to protect the rule of law. We truly honour them by complying with the rule of law and not defying it!

Contempt of a court order is an insult to their memory.

What Will Be The New Excuses For Inaction?

H/t The Globe and Mail

Now that the United States and China have signed a deal to drastically reduce their carbon emissions, one can only imagine that the Harper propaganda machine is now in overdrive, probably squirming under the unwanted attention this deal will direct at the regime.

As noted by The Pembina Institute yesterday,

“Canada has long justified its own failures to limit the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by pointing to the inaction of heavy emitters like the U.S. and China, but that excuse does not stand up to scrutiny.

“With this announcement, China is showing real leadership on climate change. Given the energy demands of China’s growing population and economy, identifying a target year for its emissions to peak, along with a plan to invest heavily in clean energy generation, is a significant and ambitious step.

The Harper spin machine has some formidable facts it will have to twist and pervert if it is to continue facilitating climate change. Here are some of those facts as provided by the Institute:

- Canada is among the top emitters, per capita, in the industrialized world
- Canada and the U.S. have both committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020.
- The U.S. is likely to meet its 2020 climate target, while Canada is expected to miss its emissions target by 20% (122 megatonnes of CO2e).
Canada’s oil and gas sector regulations are now eight years overdue. In the meantime, emissions from the oilsands are set to rise from 34 megatonnes to 101 megatonnes between
2005 and 2020.
- Canada has regulated emissions related to 10% of the energy in its electricity system, whereas the U.S. has targeted all electricity emissions.
- Canada’s coal regulations are mitigating 0.4% of our emissions by 2020. The U.S. clean power plan would mitigate 4.9-6.6% of U.S. emissions.

Perhaps the first salvo has already been fired, with the Conservatives employing a technique they have honed over the years - baldfaced lies and non-sequiturs. Stephen Lecce, a spokesman for Harper, said

"Canada has taken decisive action to reduce emissions, while our economy has grown and over 1.2 million net new jobs have been created since the global downturn"

Perhaps the regime will take a page out of the U.S. Republican playbook, which was quick and predictable in its denunciation of Obama's deal:

"I was particularly distressed by the deal ... which, as I read the agreement, requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years while these carbon emission regulations are creating havoc in my state and other states around the country," said U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell on Wednesday.

Or maybe, as illustrated in yesterday's post on Fox News' reaction to the deal, it will simply indulge in bafflegag or attempt to change the conversation. Already, as reported in The Globe,

Mr. Harper and Alberta Premier Jim Prentice insist Canada cannot impose costly emission regulations on the oil sands unless the United States adopts GHG rules for its oil sector.

If none of these strategies work, I suppose Harper could just continue doing what he has done best for so long: bury his head in the Alberta tarsands.

Apples and Mandarins

The logic of Fox commentators is, to say the least, difficult for an old fella like me to follow:

Says Pat Robertson: "She's Asking For It"

What is she asking for? Why, divine retribution, of course.

Watch. Learn. Repent!

UPDATE: Lest We Forget

Brutality against women can come from those whose duty it is to protect and serve:

A Winnipeg woman said this week that she had filed a complaint after an officer beat her in her own home as her 8-year-old son watched.

Lana Sinclair told CBC that Winnipeg police officers showed up on Halloween night to investigate reports of “yelling.” One officer spoke to her son, while another officer talked to her.

“He came up to me and poked me,” Sinclair recalled. “I was sitting on a chair in the kitchen and I jumped up and said you don’t need to touch me.”

The officer pulled out a baton, and beat her with it, she explained to CTV. She said he then smashed her face into a work table, and into the floor.

UPDATED: Many thanks to Inse for providing this link to a very disturbing video showing physical brutality by a London Metropolitan police officer. In this case, unlike the vast majority in Canada, the offending officer was charged and terminated.

A Sobering Remembrance Day Reminder

I have to confess that all of the extra 'enthusiasm' for this year's Remembrance Day makes me uneasy. Poppy sales are at an all time high. Special and protracted ceremonies are planned. Government propaganda is being churned out incessantly.

While I fully respect the fact that many people fought and died to protect our increasingly fragile freedoms, the reflexive reaction of a wide swath of citizenry to the military, especially since the events of last month, should be cause for some concern. It suggests to me a willingness to suspend critical faculties when they are most needed, given that we currently strain under the yoke of probably the least democratic domestic regime in our history.

Two Star letter writers address these concerns effectively:

Re: ‘I know Hitler will destroy Germany,' Insight Nov. 8

I have read, with fascination, David Halton’s story of his father’s reporting on the early days of the Nazi era in Germany. Glorification of the military; rush to war at the first opportunity; rigorous control of the media message; muzzling of dissent; demonization of certain groups. Remind you of anywhere?

People everywhere must constantly be vigilant or live to regret it.

John Simke, Toronto

Matthew Halton, in his 30-part German series for the Star, provided an intersting description of Gleichschaltung, in which Germans served the state rather than the other way around after the Nazis wrested control of Germany in 1933.

To Halton, Gleichschaltung “was ‘bringing into line’ every aspect of German thought and activity, the Nazis’ rationale for suppressing “political parties, trade unions, independent churches, even long-standing provincial governments whose powers were stripped away.”

Call me crazy, but wouldn’t Gleichschaltung somewhat describe Harper Inc.’s end-game?

Alan Pellettier, Scarborough

H/t Operation Maple

No Surprises Here: The Fraser Institute Shows Its Biased Incompetence

Of course, right-wing groups like the Fraser Institute never let facts and data get in the way of a rabid ideology: