A binding referendum should be held in the next federal election to have capital punishment reinstated. The latest version of young offenders legislation should be scrapped because it's still too soft on youthful criminals.

The much-criticized federal gun registry should be scrapped and the $1-$2 billion it has cost Canada's taxpayers turned over to the country's police forces to hire more front-line police officers.

There should be mandatory legislation to have immigrants who commit crimes, especially violent crimes, deported to their home countries.

Prisoners -- especially those convicted of violent crimes --should have to serve their full terms without early parole.

More prisons should be built -- and not of the "Club Fed" variety with all the comforts of home. Hard labour should be reintroduced to discourage prisoners from repeating their crimes when they are finally released.

More police should be hired to permit police forces to have more officers walking beats and becoming familiar with the people in their neighbourhoods.

[. . . .] "If we need to build more jails, then so be it; I've seen my tax dollars spent on far less important ventures," MacNevin said.

[. . . .] "We feel the death penalty should be reinstated --there should be a binding referendum asking people to vote on capital punishment being returned."

"The young offenders act should be scrapped -- some of these 15-year-olds are street wise and tough," Roy Cornwell wrote.

[. . . .] Whatever, our lib-left politicians and their trendy supporters should think about the concerns of the city's many peaceful, law-abiding citizens. They should respond to them -- and not just keep caving in to the latest opportunistic demands to soften our criminal justice system.

But sources say that if that deal can't be saved, other investors may be prepared to fill the gap, including the airline's creditors, Cerberus Capital Management LP, and some of the country's largest pension funds.

Sources say there have been preliminary talks between the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Board and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board about putting in a joint bid for the airline, should Mr. Li abandon his plans.

"There's a high level of interest among Canadian pension funds for a made-in-Canada solution to this thing ....." according to a source.

"They won't come to the forefront until [Mr. Li's] clock has run out. They would want Li to be out of the way before they show any real interest."

[. . . .] Mr. Milton and his chief restructuring officer Calin Rovinescu drew ire from the airline's employees because they stood to receive millions of dollars worth of stock through their tentative deal with Mr. Li, while rank and file employees gave up hundreds of millions of dollars in concessions.

Mr. Milton and Mr. Rovinescu obtained those concessions on the condition that pensions not be touched, so unions are loath to agree to new concessions from the same bosses.

The bankruptcy court supervising Air Canada's restructuring should extend the airline's creditor protection to give it time to find a replacement for Hong Kong billionaire Victor Li, the monitor overseeing the airline said. In its 23rd report released yesterday, the court-appointed monitor Ernst and Young said Air Canada expects its cash resources to remain stable for several months.

[. . . . ] Li's Trinity Time Investments said Friday it plans to walk away from its $650-million investment. It cited several factors, but put most of the blame on a refusal by Air Canada's unions to make concessions on pensions.

Trinity also released Air Canada from the exclusivity obligations of their investment deal -- a move that will allow the airline to seek out another investor.

Other possible investors could include Cerberus Capital Management, the New York investment firm Trinity beat in a protracted court battle to become Air Canada's controlling shareholder.

Onex Corp., which was part of an earlier bid by The Texas Pacific Group, might also be interested. . . .

LONDON (CP) - The arrests of nine terrorist suspects in Britain and one in Canada last week began with a message intercepted by the National Security Agency in the United States that appeared to give instructions for an attack in the United Kingdom by al-Qaida commanders in Pakistan, The Sunday Times reports.

The newspaper says the message was received by computers at the NSA's electronic eavesdropping centre in Maryland, which monitors millions of telephone calls and e-mails a day.

Police in Britain were alerted of the threat after the NSA analysed the automatic translation of the communication that The Sunday Times said was "thought to be between Britain and Pakistan."

[. . . .] The newspaper said the original tip, picked up by NSA satellites, was given high priority because it appeared to be instructions for an attack passing between Al-Qaida commanders in Pakistan and associates in Britain.

The sender was apparently in the circle around Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, believed to be the mastermind of attacks in Baghdad and Karbala last month in Iraq that killed 280 people during a Muslim religious festival.

The link to Pakistan is also seen as significant because it disproves a view that al-Qaida's command structure had been broken up and scattered by the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan and arrests made around the world in the last 2 1/2 years of the war on terror, The Sunday Times said.

"We all thought there were cells operating in isolation and had been told that the al-Qaida network had been destroyed from the top when suddenly we find a chain of command leading back to Pakistan," a senior Scotland Yard source is quoted as saying.

Ottawa — Terrorism charges against Ottawa's Mohammad Momin Khawaja are linked to raids in London that led to the seizure of a half-tonne of a bomb-making chemical and the detention of nine young British citizens of Pakistani heritage, the RCMP said Friday.

[. . . . ] The Mounties refused to describe the alleged role of Mr. Khawaja, a 24-year-old computer programmer, in the plot. But unattributed reports in Britain suggest he was a “fixer” who facilitated the work of others.

The Mounties, who have previously alleged only that Mr. Khawaja hatched an ambiguous plot in London and Ottawa, said they are in the midst of a “complex and sensitive ongoing criminal investigation” that is not yet complete.

The force insisted Friday that it is fighting a real national security threat, not indiscriminately rounding up Muslims. “It's just to send a message out,” said RCMP Corporal Nathalie Deschênes. “This was just to say our position is we're not looking at a community. We're looking at an individual.”

As such fears were being articulated in the 40,000-strong Muslim community in the Canadian capital, the city's mayor and police chief also issued a statement that “the City of Ottawa is a richer community because of our Muslim families, friends, neighbours, and colleagues.”

[. . . . ] “It's the RCMP and CSIS harassing average Muslims,” [Qasim] added.

OTTAWA -- The father of an Ottawa terror suspect will soon be released after days of questioning by Saudi authorities, a family member said yesterday. Mahboob Khawaja, an international affairs specialist, had been working as an administrator at a college in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, for about 18 months when he was detained last week.

[. . . .]Momin Khawaja, Qasim's brother, was charged Tuesday by the RCMP with terrorist offences related to alleged activities in Ottawa and London.

OTTAWA - The RCMP said late yesterday that Canada's national police force will reverse $4-million in expenses that it improperly billed to its employees' pension fund since 2001 and Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli has asked the Ottawa Police Force to conduct an investigation into possible criminal wrongdoing.

[. . . .] It is the third time in as many years that the RCMP has been forced to call in an outside police force to conduct a criminal probe into its own members' conduct.

Last month, the RCMP and the Quebec Attorney-General asked the Surete du Quebec to investigate possible RCMP misuse of federal sponsorship money.

Two years ago, the RCMP also asked the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate a senior procurement officer who was later found guilty on charges of accepting a free trip from an RCMP supplier.

The RCMP also moved last night to reassure thousands of angry and worried police and civilian members across Canada and thousands more RCMP pensioners that it has the situation under control and that their pensions are not at risk.

[. . . .] "Action has been taken to reverse the improper administrative charges so these expenses are properly charged to the departmental appropriations. These charges over a period of three years amounted to approximately $4-million," he added.

"No funds are missing from the pension plan. The pension fund was never at risk," the RCMP officer added.

[. . . .] Kevin Sorenson, an Alberta Conservative MP and opposition RCMP critic, said it was "rather ironic" the National Post story appeared the same day new whistleblower protection legislation -- which does not offer any protection to employees of the RCMP -- was debated in Parliament. "It is extremely troubling that the RCMP and CSIS employees are exempt from the protections afforded to other public servants who disclose wrongdoings, especially in light of these new allegations," Mr. Sorenson said.

The 25-page secret audit, which a seven-member audit team delivered to Commissioner Zaccardelli last October, revealed that RCMP Pension Fund money was improperly "used to maintain RCMP and Public Service workload, address work back-logs and deliver on a wide variety of initiatives."

Twenty-nine kilometres south of Toronto's shoreline is an imaginary line, separating Canada and the U.S., that could soon turn into an imaginary wall. In less than three months, strict new international and U.S. counterterrorism and security rules for ports and ships will take effect -- and the person in charge of policing the waters of Toronto's port is worried our port could be blacklisted, even shut down to American traffic, for being woefully unprepared.

[. . . .] The problem: no money. [. . . .]

Staff Insp. Hegney estimates he'll need about $8-million to meet the new standards that are effectively turning ports into airport-style-security facilities with more surveillance cameras, fencing and security patrols. But he can't turn to the cash-strapped police force and city for help, and attempts to secure funding from the federal government have been met with silence.

[. . . .] Local police have been patrolling Toronto's section of Lake Ontario, which is approximately 1,200 square kilometres, for more than 150 years. Unlike most other ports, there isn't a Coast Guard or RCMP marine presence.

. . . Auditor-General Sheila Fraser . . . . major problems persist at airports and border crossings and with the high-tech systems Ottawa employs to target terrorist suspects, she said.

[. . . .] "I need to hire more people. I need more boats. More equipment. Even if I got the money today, I don't think I'd still be ready," Staff Insp. Hegney said. "I just can't go buy a boat. It's not like an ice-cream cone."

Conversely, the U.S. government has already given its ports hundreds of millions to beef up security, and has promised more money is on the way. According to maritime experts, the new security rules are expected to cost Canadian ports more than $100-million in start-up costs.

[. . . .] When the new rules kick in, countries will have the right to bar entry to a ship coming from a port that hasn't met the new security requirements. In the worst case scenario, vessels could be turned back at gunpoint. It's widely expected that the U.S. will strictly enforce the new rules.
[. . . .] The port authority is in charge of making sure all the facilities that use the port meet the new security demands. Mr. Armstrong said it will be able to meet that component of the new international requirements despite the fact that it's had to go into its existing budget to fund things such as fencing and new security guards.

"We couldn't wait for the [money] to come to get started," he said.

[. . . . Canada] keeps hitting the snooze button.

How else to characterize the alarming information contained in two reports released on two successive days on the Titanic-sized holes in Canada's security systems and emergency preparedness.

Yesterday, after two years of study, a Senate committee released "National Emergencies: Canada's Fragile Front Lines" that says Canada is woefully unprepared for the aftermath of a terrorist attack or even many natural disasters.

The timing was brilliant, since it coincided with reports yesterday that Canada is ranked No. 5 on an alleged al-Qaida list of sites to destabilize.

[. . . .] After all, how else does one deal with the news that Canada's border officers are not provided with a list of the 25,000 Canadian passports that are lost or stolen annually because Canadian officials are concerned about "privacy concerns"?

As the senate report states: "Within the bounds of financial realism, there is no excuse for unreadiness. Governments are paid to be ready. That is how they earn their keep."

What it should have said is: That is how they SHOULD earn their keep. Instead, we have a government that has spent the past decade distributing Canadian flags to patriotic Canadians and laundering tax money into Liberal coffers to better prepare THEMSELVES for their next opportune election call.

Liberal Senator Colin Kenny, chair of the Senate's Standing Committee on National Security and Defence, said Canadians should be "mad as hell" that the country would at best just "muddle through" a terrorist attack or natural disaster despite billions of dollars being spent since 9-11 by the feds.

[. . . .] Canada "could not get any information out of Ottawa during 9/11 ... We were fortunate that the Acting American Consul General offered to sit in the emergency operations centre and advise us on what was going on from Washington. It was effective but embarrassing."

[. . . .] The senate report also ridiculed Health Canada for its protectiveness about emergency supplies. The department has $330 million in medicine and equipment scattered in secret caches across the country.

. . . two-thirds of the 86 cities which responded to a committee survey had no idea where the caches are or what they contain.

[. . . . Key] areas of federal responsibility - defence, transportation, justice, immigration and our relationship with the U.S. - remain as broken and neglected as ever. That the judicial inquiry he promised to get to the bottom of the ad sponsorship scandal won't even start hearings until fall.

[. . . .] It now seems the Martin brain trust has concluded that things are only going to get worse, so better to have the election now. [. . . .]

Yet our health care system remains a mess, the military is on its knees and post 9/11 our national security system is a disaster waiting to happen - literally - according to both the auditor general and a Senate committee report last week.

Meanwhile, Canadians are fed up with political corruption and the wanton misuse of their tax dollars by Ottawa.

And who is the culprit behind every one of these failures?

Liberals - first led by Chretien, now by Martin.

[. . . .] if Paul Martin is serious about firing up the campaign buses, voters should have only one response. That is, to blow him and his party out of the exhaust and consign 11 years of dictatorial Liberal rule to the dustbin of our history.

The number of states seeking to control the Internet has risen rapidly in the recent years. Mustering powerful and at times compelling arguments -- "securing intellectual property rights," "protecting national security," "preserving cultural norms and religious values," and "shielding children from pornography and exploitation" -- extensive filtering and surveillance practices are being proposed and put in place to curb the perceived lawlessness of the medium. Although these practices occur mostly in non-democratic regimes, many democratic countries, led by the US, are also seeking to police the Internet. Some regulation is to be expected as the medium matures. However, filtering and surveillance can seriously erode civil liberties and privacy and stifle global communications.