[. . . . ] In the pre-dawn hours of Monday morning, someone set two dozen houses ablaze, causing in excess of US$10-million in damage and sparking the largest arson investigation in Maryland's history.

The Hunters Brooke inferno, as large as it was, might have attracted only local attention but for an intriguing twist that has brought it into the national spotlight.

Investigators suggested the fire may be the work of a cadre of eco-terrorists, and the FBI has become worried enough that it has dispatched its own agents to scour the burned-out homes for clues.

The development's troubled history provides reason enough for suspicion. For the past five years, Hunters Brooke has been at the centre of one of the most heated environmental controversies on the Eastern Seaboard.

Local residents teamed with environmental groups in protest because the community borders an endangered habitat known as the Araby Bog, one of the few remaining "magnolia bogs" in the country. [. . . . ]

It's no surprise that Tommy Douglas has been dubbed the "Greatest Canadian" by the CBC and its viewers. The single-payer health-care system he helped pioneer has, in the words of a 2001 Senate report, "achieved iconic status." Indeed it is a testament to the power of the myths surrounding medicare that Douglas could be exalted in this way while no fewer than 815,000 Canadians are waiting for health services, many in considerable pain.

It's time to put both the Douglas myth and the rigid health-care system it protects to bed for good. The socialist ideal that society, rather than individuals, should be responsible for providing citizens with health care can no longer be sustained. As costs continue to escalate, provincial governments are increasingly capping reimbursements for doctors, clamping down on budgets and refusing to invest in new technology. The signs of breakdown can be found not only in growing waiting lists for specialized treatment, but in the fact that one in seven Canadians can't even secure a primary care doctor.

As American satirist P.J. O'Rourke once quipped, "If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free." According to data released this week by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, our national health care tab this year is expected to hit $130-billion -- about $4,000 per person. Toronto-based expert Dr. David Gratzer calculates that a Canadian earning $35,000 a year pays out $7,350 in taxes to support the country's health system. Canada devotes 10% of its GDP to health, a level exceeded by only three other nations. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] All in all, a lot of shareholders' and taxpayers' money supported China Mining 2004, and the good names of these Western participants lent much-craved credibility to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules all aspects of the Chinese economy.

[. . . . ] Instead, only the Chinese media, the CPP's propaganda arm, received press passes. Later, China Mining's Western staff quietly offered us a delegate badge instead of a press badge. The difference is material: A delegate badge prevents one from participating in scheduled press conferences with top Chinese government officials, and even photographing them.

This, at a time when state-owned China Minmetals was threatening to take over Canada's leading base metals miner, Noranda, in the largest takeover in Canadian mining history, and also secure a controlling interest in Falconbridge..

Realistically, the public questioning of China's top ministers and party officials during press conferences was our one chance to obtain answers to the big questions that Minmetals has never answered with respect to its bid: What are your strategic plans for Noranda and Falco? What employees will stay and who will go? For those who stay, what compromises will they be expected to make? Will you respect the Western-defined human rights of the employees of Noranda and Falco? How will you reconcile China's typical pay for miners of $70 per month with Noranda's union wages? How and when will you begin conforming your bookkeeping and corporate disclosure to North American standards? Will you export China's abysmal safety record to Noranda's and Falco's operations? [. . . . ]

Parroting the line that China’s economy will soon surpass that of the United States of America, Canada Prime Minister Paul Martin will position his country closer to China.

[. . . . ] Martin is parroting the line of his long-time mentor Kyoto architect Maurice Strong.

"This is one of the most rapidly expanding markets in the world," Strong told reporters in a conference telephone call from Beijing without elaborating. "China needs a lot of electrical power."

At the time, Ontario Hydro, Hydro-Quebec and the Montreal-based Power Corp. of Paul Desmarais TotalFinaElf fame, had formed a joint venture with $100-million to invest in power plants in China and elsewhere in Asia. [. . . . ]

OTTAWA * Citing human rights violations in "every corner" of China, Amnesty International is calling on Parliament to launch a full-scale review of Canada's relations with Asia's economic powerhouse. The report, to be released today, comes as Prime Minister Paul Martin prepares to travel to China next month as part of Canada's decade-old effort to boost trade with the world's fastest-growing economy. Tension between human rights and trade will be at the forefront for Mr. Martin as he steps up international travel, including a stop in Libya in two weeks to meet leader Muammar Gaddafi. Canadian petroleum companies want Mr. Martin to pave their entry into Libya's potentially lucrative oil fields. Meanwhile, Mr. Martin and Trade Minister Jim Peterson will lead the delegation of business leaders to China next month. A leading Chinese oil and gas company has said it wants to invest in Alberta's oil fields, a move that would help China's growing economy meet its energy needs.

[. . . . ] Potential conflict of interest number one for Volcker is the fact he held a seat on Power Corporation’s international advisory board.

Wealthy Canadian businessman and Power Corporation founder, Paul Desmarais Sr. is a major shareholder and director in TotalFinaElf, the largest oil corporation in France, which has held tens of billions of dollars in contracts with the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein.

Jacques Chirac’s France has been fingered as one of the chief partners-in-corruption in the oil-for-food scandal. The Times of London calculates that French and Russian companies cashed in on $11-billion worth of business from oil-for-food between 1996 and 2003.

Volcker is also a member of David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission, a super-elite cabal of some 300 international powerbrokers, who practically rule the world, but does not publish its membership list on the Internet. [. . . . ]

On the first anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Convention against Corruption, the UN anti-crime office said it would help two developing countries recover whatever amounts were exported of the nearly $11 billion looted from both governments.

In the 1990s, corrupt local officials stole $7.7 billion from oil-rich Nigeria, of which at least $2.2 was exported, and more than $3 billion from Kenya, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Corruption and the transfer of illicit funds have been a major factor in the flight of capital from Africa, with more than $400 billion having been stolen and hidden in foreign countries and around $100 billion of the total to have come from Nigeria alone, UNODC has estimated. [. . . . ]

WHAT MAKES a hero today? Why should it be considered any more heroic to die in a terrorist attack than, say, to be knocked down by a drunk driver? These questions, which have bothered me for some time, arose again this week when we visited Ground Zero in New York, where the 3,000 people who died in the attack on the twin towers are officially commemorated as “Heroes of 11 September 2001”. Why? They were hapless victims of terrorism, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When did dying in tragic circumstances become enough to qualify for all-American hero worship? One consequence of the rise of the victim-hero is that the families of those who died on 9/11 were treated with reverence, as heroes by proxy, in the controversy over Washington’s new Intelligence Bill. In Britain, we are used to seeing victims’ families deployed as human shields by campaigns searching for moral authority. Multiply that by about 3,000, and you have an idea of how the families of 9/11 victims are deferred to. Because the relatives backed the Intelligence Bill, anybody criticising it could be accused of insulting dead heroes. But Americans ought to be able to question the dubious notion that a law could have prevented 9/11, and oppose illiberal measures of state control, without being accused of dancing on the muddy mass grave at Ground Zero. [. . . . ]

ABORIGINES in a remote region of Western Australia have been told that their children must wash their faces twice a day to qualify for government aid.

Children in Mulan, a community of 150 in the Kimberley area, must also shower and turn up daily to school, and residents must keep their homes and gardens free of rubbish.

In return, they will receive state aid worth £62,500 towards the cost of new petrol pumps at a local shop. A further condition is that the community must ensure that petrol from the pumps is not used for sniffing.

The scheme, dubbed “wash for fuel”, has caused an outcry among Aboriginal groups and opposition politicians, who said that it was “patronising and insulting.” But John Howard, the Prime Minister, said it was “common sense” to put the Aborigines on behavioural contracts in return for health and social services, education and unemployment allowances. [. . . . ]

He said it was an indication of the Mulan community's desperation that it was prepared to forgo civil liberties to get essential services. Under the deal, the West Australian Government will provide regular testing for the eye disease trachoma, skin infections and worm infestations.

The policy of providing funding to Aboriginal communities in exchange for behavioural change has spilt the Aboriginal community.

The Government's hand-picked National Advisory Committee has backed the Mulan deal. Council chairwoman Sue Gordon said yesterday: "I don't view anything which is going to benefit Aboriginal people - which Aboriginal people themselves put up - as being paternalistic, because it's not being imposed on Aboriginal people." [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] Harper is doing the same thing as Mulroney, but on a larger scale. He is creating a coalition of Blue Tories, Red Tories, fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, classic liberals, libertarians and yes, soft Quebec nationalists. Unlike Mulroney's coalition -- which was narrow, and fell not long after he resigned as prime minister -- Harper's coalition is broad and can potentially last longer and be more successful.

Harper's decision to balance conservative ideology and political moderation is therefore a wise one. While it may disappoint certain individuals and groups at times, including the Post's editorial board, we must accept the fact that a merger is a give and take process. To expect that the Conservatives would act the same as the Reform Party or Canadian Alliance is simply unrealistic.

Can Stephen Harper become a man for all conservative seasons? No. But more importantly, can he become prime minister? With his current strategy in place, the answer is yes.

A RED-FACED Ontario government is issuing written apologies to 27,000 parents across the province after inadvertently mailing their names, addresses and social insurance numbers to other people. Gerry Phillips, chairman of the management board secretariat, admitted the province could be liable for the widespread breach of personal privacy and has launched an internal audit after recipients of the Ontario Child Care Supplement for Working Families program received their own cheques with someone else's stub included.

Each recipient appears to have received the personal information of the next recipient on the government's list.

[. . . . ] Those affected are part of 100,000 people who qualify for assistance as low-income working families with children younger than 7 years of age.

Phillips said the problem affected all those recipients without direct deposit. [. . . . ]

MORE THAN 250 badges and items of uniforms belonging to Canada's airport screening agency have gone missing and some of them are being sold on eBay, officials admitted yesterday.

"I don't believe we had to take remedial action for any of the articles lost or stolen," said Kevin McGarr, of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA).

PEAK AT SECURITY

McGarr told a Senate national security committee meeting in Toronto the theft of 268 items with the CATSA logo doesn't pose a threat from impostors, who would require security passes to enter restricted areas. [. . . . ]

The three-judge panel upheld the December 2003 decision of Federal Court Justice Simon Noel who said sections of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act are constitutional.

Charkaoui, 31, has been jailed since May 2003 and has lost three bids for bail.

[. . . . ] "But the appellant has been unable to demonstrate that the procedure for reviewing the reasonableness of the security certificate issued against him...do not meet the requirements of the Charter...," concluded the Court of Appeal in an 89-page ruling. [. . . . ]

BRAMPTON, Ont. (CP) - Students were locked down in darkened classrooms for several hours Friday as police searched for a man who fled a high school after a woman believed to be a teacher was shot in the head in the parking lot.

[. . . . ] "All students are safe, secure and well taken care of," Brian Woodland, of the Peel Board of Education, said shortly after the students were released from the school and sent home.

Det. Stephen Rowe of Peel Region police said investigators had determined the students were not at risk.

"It was a conflict between two adults, the students were never in any danger," Rowe said at the scene.

Police would not confirm reports that the woman, who was in her 40s, was a teacher at the school. But a school board official said that's what he had been told by investigators.

Media personality Robert Scully has been rebuffed in his bid to turn his testimony at the Gomery inquiry into a docudrama. "We are not shooting Judge Judy or Twelve Angry Men here," said commission spokesman Francois Perreault. "He has been called as a witness and will be treated like all the witnesses." Mr. Scully, who is to testify on Monday, had requested access to the inquiry hearing room, offices and staff to film a docudrama on cultural scandals. Bernard Roy, the commission's lead counsel, wrote in a letter rejecting the request that Mr. Scully's "contribution" to the commission is as a witness, not as a director or producer of a TV show. Mr. Scully and his production company, Information Essentiale, have received millions of dollars from the federal government, including the $250-million sponsorship program at the inquiry's heart. [. . . . ]

MOOSE JAW, Sask. (CP) -- Rescue crews were combing the Saskatchewan prairie Friday after two pilots from the Canadian Forces' famed Snowbirds aerobatic team crashed in mid-air during a routine training flight Friday morning.

Defence Department spokeswoman Heather Bruner said from Ottawa that both pilots ejected after the 10 a.m. crash, but she did not know their status.

[. . . . ] It was the second crash this year involving pilots from 15 Wing. In May two pilots escaped from a Hawk training jet before it crashed in a private field about two kilometres northwest of the base. [. . . . ]

A former private school owner who orchestrated what is believed to be Canada's largest student-loan scam was sentenced yesterday to six years in prison and ordered to pay back $5.7-million to CIBC and the Ontario government. Lawrence Mpamugo was convicted earlier this year of fraud and attempting to obstruct justice in connection with a scheme that bilked the Ontario Student Assistance Program of at least $12-million. As owner of the now-defunct Credit Valley Institute of Business and Technology, Mpamugo recruited "students" who agreed to enroll at the bogus school and apply for OSAP. When the cheques arrived, Mpamugo kept the tuition portion while applicants pocketed the rest. Very little teaching ever occurred. Mpamugo's lawyers will be in a Toronto courtroom this morning arguing the Nigerian-born Canadian should be granted bail while he appeals the ruling. [. . . . ]