OKA, QUE.- A change of leadership for police at the Kanesatake Mohawk reserve caused tensions to erupt yesterday and saw Grand Chief James Gabriel's house burn to the ground.
[. . . . ] The former police chief Terry Isaac and former deputy chief Larry Ross were reinstated to their posts as part of a move by Mr. Gabriel to crack down on crime. Tracy Cross, the interim police chief, described by Mr. Gabriel as too soft on crime, was relieved of his duties at the Mohawk reserve, 50 kilometres west of Montreal.
Mr. Gabriel contends the criminal elements feared the reinstatement of Mr. Ross and Mr. Isaac. "They know these two men will uphold the law," he said. "We're going to restore law and order, now more than ever."
VANCOUVER - [Mandeep Sandhu] who was briefly a member of a federal Liberal riding executive before being disqualified last month had his Victoria home searched by police and his computer hard drive seized.
[. . . . ] He was hand-picked for the Victoria-area riding executive by Dave Basi, a former ministerial assistant fired after a 20-month organized crime and drug investigation that resulted in raids at the B.C. legislature on Dec. 28.
[. . . . ] Les Jacques, vice-president of the riding, said Mr. Basi -- a major organizer for the federal Liberals -- more than doubled the memberships in the riding by signing up a large number of Indo-Canadians in the summer, just before the deadline for delegate selection for the annual general meeting.
''We had in the neighbourhood of 289 to 300 people ... signed up,'' Mr. Jacques said. ''In August, 439 Indo-Canadians were dumped on us by Mr. Basi and group.''
Mr. Jacques and his team worked with Mr. Basi's group to choose a slate of 10 directors to be acclaimed at the December meeting. They wanted an acclamation to ensure the riding executive would be cohesive in preparing for the upcoming election.
But on the day of the meeting, Mr. Basi made a last-minute change to the slate to add Mr. Sandhu's name, Mr. Jacques said.
''He made the change from the floor [of the meeting]'', said Mr. Jacques, 65.
[. . . .] Mr. Sandhu could not fulfill his position on the executive because he does not have a Liberal party membership. ''As far as I'm aware he holds a membership to the federal NDP,'' Mr. Jacques said.
U.S. authorities filed criminal charges yesterday against a Saudi student who ran a Montreal-based Internet site that was allegedly used to recruit and raise money for Islamic terrorists.
[. . . . ] Mr. Al-Hussayen's brothers are medical doctors in Calgary and Toronto. His uncle, Saleh Abdel Rahman Al-Hussayen, visiting from Saudi Arabia, travelled from Canada to the United States shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks, staying in the same Virginia hotel as three of the men who hijacked American Airlines Flight #77, the plane that was crashed into the Pentagon. The uncle was interviewed by the FBI then, but ''feigned a seizure, prompting the agents to take him to a hospital, where the attending physicians found nothing wrong with him,'' the U.S. has alleged in court documents. He has returned to Saudi Arabia.
[. . . . ] Mr. Al-Hussayen solicited money for the Palestinian Hamas and ran Web sites, for the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA), the Saudi-based Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, the Saudi company Dar Al-Asr, two sheiks and ''entities through which he provided material support and resources to terrorists.'' He faces a possible 15-year sentence if convicted.
"We think the new Conservative Party has to attract more people like those of us who support the Red Tory Council - conservative Canadians who, for example, support individual entrepreneurship, free and fair global trade, bilingualism, same-sex marriages, and streamlined government services that help the truly needy. We're going to work hard to make sure that our concerns are at the front and centre of today's conservative political debate."
My Commentary:
No-one argues with much of this -- though I do argue with the implementation of bilingualism as promotion of French outside Quebec and repression of English in several ways in Quebec. I think Canadians need to have referenda on changing marriage law and other emotive issues such as abortion, abortion at different stages of fetal development, et cetera.
As an example of where I would question helping the needy is an actual case of a welfare recipient who would seem worthy -- until you realize that someone too lazy to get up in the morning to get to work on time is not exactly needy of anything but a boot in the butt, an alarm clock, and to be cut off welfare. (an actual case!) Welfare must define this adult as needy since the person receives welfare; I would differ. The devil is in the details, as usual.
The Red Tory center is too close to the Liberal's so-called center for my taste. A Liberal party in power for a long time has its own definitions, of course, which it then uses CBC Pravda to spout -- but I am getting on my favourite soap-box -- again.
I want a conservative alternative to the left that has been changing Canada so fast -- without sufficient input from ordinary Canadians and without ordinary MPs being able to do much because of the demands of caucus solidarity. Under the Liberals for many years, government has really been doing the bidding of the Prime Minister and his clique--or claque--the PM deciding and the backbenchers voting for it. The MPs alternative has been to be turfed out by an all-powerful PM.
Too, government has been funding vocal interest groups and rights commissions--not responsibilities commissions, note--who then can afford to fight battles the average person simply cannot afford -- in time or money.
I don't like rule by back-room Tories any more than by the back-room Liberals. Let's see what ordinary Canadians think and not be told what to think by a bunch of leftish Tories who don't like the thought of losing their back room status. Coservatives might actually win an election if they stopped aping the Liberals and came out swinging with new policies that don't ape Liberal policies. NJC
