Crowns, Gangs, High Priced Lawyers, Timely Disclosure or the Criminals Walk -- more funding necessary, it is clear

Did you learn much about these hearings from the Canadian media? -- after Ressam and before 9/11 -- How much do you know, even now, about the extent of criminal activity in Canada?

The Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims - Remarks by John C. Thompson, Director of the Institute 26 January, 2000, The Mackenzie Institute

People charged with drug trafficking and other federal offences may get off scot-free if federal prosecution resources are not beefed up, according to senior government prosecutors.

A glut of cases has caused the problem: Too many arrests, not enough lawyers to prosecute. Unless something is done soon, prosecutors in the federal justice department warn, some cases will have to be dropped.

[. . . . ] In Canada, there are federal and provincial prosecutors. Federal prosecutors, who work for the justice department, handle cases involving: drugs, smuggling, tax evasion, immigration, competition bureau, extradition requests and some environmental offences. There are 90 federal prosecutors in Ontario.

Provincial prosecutors, who work for Ontario's attorney-general, deal with murder, theft, assault and myriad other crimes.

"Even the finest adhesive has its load limit. At some point, the fraying twine snaps."

THE WORLD community's selective morality, hypocrisy and double standards are once again on display based on what is happening in the western province of Sudan, known as Darfur.

There, in a hot, barren region roughly the size of France, the Arab-Muslim led Sudanese government and the Arab militia it armed known as the Janjaweed, have killed an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 black African civilians. They are also Muslims, although non-Arab.

The fighting between government forces and the Janjaweed on the one side and rebel groups on the other has also created a million refugees, left two million people desperately in need of food, water and medicine and resulted in what the UN describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

As many as 300,000 people may be at risk of imminent death.

The Janjaweed have carried out ghastly atrocities, shooting men and boys, gang-raping women and girls in front of their families, poisoning wells by dropping the bodies of dead children into them and burning and pillaging entire villages. [. . . . ]

Can you imagine the reaction of the UN and the Arab League if Israel was treating the Palestinians this way, instead of this being another case of Muslims killing and repressing other Muslims?

Remember how nuts they all went a few weeks back about Israel's security fence, which, while it does intrude into Palestinian territory and will eventually have to be moved to provide for a Palestinian state, was mainly intended to stop Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel? [. . . . ]

MEN OF THE DEEPS: "We're Canada's forgotten men," gripes Ernie, reporting for day shift at Zippadeedoodah Mines, the government's underground marijuana grow-op in Flin Flon, Man. "Even Rita MacNeil doesn't know we're down here. We're pot miners." "You think too much," warns his pot mole pal, Bert. "It's a job, eh? Like The Rock says, 'Know your role.' "

"But marijuana's a weed!" Ernie argues.

"It grows anywhere! Sprinkle a few seeds on the ground, you got pot! Why are we 10 storeys underground in an abandoned copper mine? Creating artificial sunlight! To grow bad medicinal pot for less than 600 people! It's totally whacked!"

"Look," says Bert. "This is your federal government at work. Every program must be as complicated as possible. We've got a five-year contract to grow pot underground. We got three years to go. Cash your pay cheque. Don't screw it up."

"But it's bad pot!" [. . . . ]

Vancouver — Police are warning ravers and the nightclub set in this city of a substantial increase in a potentially harmful chemical cocktail that users call trail mix.

The cocktail, according to RCMP Cpl. Scott Rintoul, is typically a blend of potentially deadly ingredients including methamphetamine, ecstacy, Ketamine and the sexual aid Viagra.

[. . . . ] Vancouver Police Insp. Kash Heed said heroin has begun showing up in some batches of trail mix.

"There is some theory to support the fact that heroin is put in the (mix) to increase the addiction to that drug," Insp. Heed said. "Basically you don't know what product you are consuming (by taking trail mix)."

It is time to dust off laws concerning treason and sedition. The Telegraph does not specify who conducted an interview with two British citizens who have taken up arms against the Crown in Iraq. They should do so.

The 23-year-old, who identified himself only by the nom de guerre Abu Hakid (Father of Fury), was asked why he came to fight. He replied: "It is evil against the angels." His 21-year-old nephew, using the pseudonym Abu Turab (Father of Dust), said: "Bush said you are either with us or against us. We had to decide whether to be with him or against him, so we are against him, obviously."

Abu Hakid, who acknowledged that neither man had any military training, said: "We went to fight last night. It was quite fun, actually." He conceded, however, that "it was dangerous."

"Quite fun, actually." It seems there is a class of scum who have taken up jihad as a form of extreme adventure tourism. This is not a lark. These are men who have declared themselves for the slaughter of September 11, 2001, taken up arms against democracy and call it "fun". These are men fighting for an ideology that systematically subjugates women, murders gay men and subjects the rest to arbitrary torture and the whims of a medievalist thought police. And yet Michael Moore has described their ilk as "Minute Men" and I am sure many so-called progressives would agree. Wait for the keffiya wearing radicals and champagne leftists from Hollywood to Cannes to romanticize these b******s. Fun, indeed.

There is no mystery about the controversy over the federal government's decision to buy a fleet of bargain-basement Sikorsky helicopters. It has been a Class A mess from the get-go.

First of all, it's no fun being a guinea pig and that is what Canada is going to be when the very first Sikorsky H-92 helicopters hover off the assembly line four years from now.

[. . . . Jean Chretien, the] prime minister was coming aboard the Vancouver for a visit and a meal with the captain and his officers. Jean Chretien might not have been the military's best friend, but it was always a red letter day for the forces when our version of the commander and chief dropped in.

[. . . . ] The mood was positively dismal amongst the Canadian chopper pilots who had returned from the USS John C. Stennis without their famous passenger. So that night, when the prime minister was feted by the captain of the Vancouver, there was a significant no-show; the man in charge of the frigate's helicopter group. Furious that the prime minister of Canada wouldn't board a Canadian helicopter to land on a Canadian warship, he decided not to break bread with the Vancouver's honoured guest. It was a fateful decision. After only four months of what should have been an 18-month deployment, he was transferred off the frigate. He had only had one regret, according to one of the officers on the Vancouver that day.

"He told me that if he had it to do over again, he would have gone into the captain's mess and told the prime minister what he thought of him for refusing to fly with our crew." [. . . . ]

NEW YORK — Do you know where your investment cash is going? If you are in a public pension fund, there's a good chance that you may be unknowingly investing in companies that do business in terrorist-sponsoring states.

America's largest and most prominent public pension systems invest between 15 and 23 percent of their portfolios in such companies, according to a report released Thursday by the Center for Security Policy.

[. . . . ] The CSP report found that of the 87 public pension funds that provided data — which represents just a few companies doing business in rogue states (search) — the pension systems ranged from Rhode Island, with close to $400 million invested in 41 companies that are active in terrorist-sponsoring states, to the California Public Employee Retirement System, which has over $17 billion invested in 201 such companies.

[. . . . ] "No effort has been made on the part of the vast majority of these institutional investors to disclose to their subscribers and beneficiaries the extent of their exposure [to such nations], let alone end that exposure by divesting themselves of doing business with state sponsors of terror," he said.

The center also announced the launch of its DivestTerror.org Web site, whose primary objective is "to starve terrorists of essential funding and technical support."

The report identified six state sponsors of terror (search), as designated by the U.S. State Department: Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria and Iraq when it was ruled by Saddam Hussein.

The $73 billion in projects being undertaken in terror-friendly states by companies that America’s pension systems hold in portfolio is just a fraction of the actual total business being done there, according to the report.

On average, the leading U.S. public pension funds had investments in: 73 companies doing business in Iran (search); 24 companies doing business in Libya (search); 26 companies doing business in Sudan (search); 31 companies doing business in Syria (search); and 9 companies doing business in North Korea (search).

[. . . . ] We are becoming a grievance-randy country. The right to a negative, the right "not to be offended," is more zealously pursued, and certainly more vigorously and professionally asserted, than the far more venerable, and utterly more central, right of freedom of expression.

[. . . . ] In the new dispensation, the "well-born ladies" are running off to tribunals and rights commissions to set the limits of what is "offensive" or "hateful" or "abusive" and, as was the case in Quebec City, the sensitivities of 92 precious insomniacs outweighed the 380,000 who, apparently enjoyed -- metaphorically, of course -- a perfect night's sleep.

But let us give consideration to the 92. They complain of abuse or offence. If their complaints are justified, who will determine the question? Is it for the agency that holds the power to license or not to license -- the broadcast equivalent of the Keys of the Kingdom -- to act also as the interpreter or judge of what is or is not offensive or abusive or hateful?

[. . . . ] We abridge, curtail or amputate freedom of speech only after the most searching of deliberation by the most eminent of minds in the most scrupulous of circumstances. It is, as we seem to so lazily forget, the cardinal element of the idea of democracy. It is, at core, why we shed blood in great wars, and why every year we pay heartfelt and profound appreciation to those who fought them.

It's a principle that should not be trumped by complaint forms, and certainly not one whose operation can be suspended by a remote tribunal working under a dubious and, in large measure, outdated mandate.

Al-Jazeera is in the news again. Iraqi authorities shut down the Qatari television station’s Baghdad offices, citing the “violence they are advocating, inciting hatred and problems and racial tension.” The U.S. Democratic party decided to take down Al-Jazeera’s banner from its national conference, so it would not be televised around the globe.

But in Canada, in the biggest telecommunications uproar in decades, Al-Jazeera won approval for distribution over Canada’s pristine, politically correct, airwaves. This unlikely success in Canada for an Islamist, antisemitic, pro-terrorist channel was achieved by winning a special dispensation not available to the Fox News Channel, the Italian state channel RAI, or a local Quebec City-based radio station – a dispensation full of implications.

[. . . . ] (The French broadcasting authority, CSA, banned Hizbullah’s Al-Manar satellite television from broadcasting in France on July 28, due to its “anti-Semitic content.” It had been broadcasting since September 2002, during which time hate crimes against Jews have doubled in France, and almost half of French Jews now say they are thinking of leaving France.)

[. . . . ] Despite these many concessions to Al-Jazeera, its advocates have expressed discontent, finding its treatment not special enough. The Canadian office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told its followers to “CONTACT the CRTC. Ask them to revoke their restrictions.” Would-be distributors complain that cleaning up Al-Jazeera is too daunting. “We would have to have somebody 24 hours a day, seven days a week, who spoke Arabic, who understands the Canadian broadcasting standards, and then would be able to black out that particular piece of programming,” bellyaches Peter Bissonette, president of Shaw Communications.

[. . . . ] Muslims are entitled to equal rights; they are not entitled to special rights. Western governments need to make this point often, consistently, and with emphasis. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] Mary Hodder, a product manager at Technorati and creator of the Napsterization blog, finds certain bloggers to be often more trustworthy and accurate in their reports than even major news publications.

That view appears to be widely shared. A survey of 10,000 blog readers earlier this year conducted by Blogads found that 61 percent of respondents found blogs to be "more honest" than other media outlets.

Hodder gives four reasons for trusting bloggers over general-assignment reporters:

* Niche expertise. Newspapers try to cover the whole world, while bloggers can be experts with a deep knowledge about a topic like open-source software or micro-biology.

* Transparency in motives. Bloggers are upfront about their biases and subjective approach, and they have greater freedom to speak from the heart and use a personal voice. Most journalists are constrained by an institutional objectivity. "I often read a reporter's story and wonder, what's their experience? Where are they coming from? What's the context? What do they really think?" Hodder says.

* Transparency in process. Bloggers link to documents, sources and supporting evidence to buttress their own authority. "The top-down press articles I see are written as if they're not connected to anything, as if they just came out of a vacuum," she says.

* Forthrightness about mistakes. When bloggers err, the credible ones publish a mea culpa and take responsibility, with the corrected information alongside their original posting. Not so with newspapers, whose front-page mistakes are corrected in an inside page, or broadcast news, where mistakes are almost never acknowledged. [. . . . ]

Imagine you are a journalist who doesn't take orders from an editor or a publisher of a publication. You don't have to worry about what the advertisers might think, or if your opinion might make you biased. You answer only to your readers, who act as de facto assignment editors.

That's exactly what happened last year for journalist Christopher Allbritton, 34, who set up a blog in September 2002 to ask readers to help send him to Iraq to report exclusively for his Back to Iraq Weblog (he had been to Kurdistan previously). After raising nearly $15,000 in donations, Allbritton spent most of April 2003 in Iraq during the end of the first phase of the war. People commented on posts, wishing him well or asking him questions -- and he answered them and joined in their conversations from afar.

[. . . . ] "I once believed that telling the truth -- or a small part of it -- could help the world," he wrote. "It could help people understand things better and thus make the world better. But this war defies comprehension. It's so stupid and there seems to be no point to anything that happens here. People die on a daily basis in random, terrifying attacks. And for what? Freedom? Stability? Peace? There is none of that here and it's likely there won't be after the Americans leave.

"Iraq has spiraled into a dark place, much worse than where it was a year ago during the war. There is no freedom from the fear that is stoked by mutual hatred, cynicism and an apprehension about the future. So what if one side has superior firepower? Every bullet fired helps kill souls on both sides of this war, whether it hits flesh or lands harmlessly. We -- Iraqis and the Americans here -- are caged by fear, and we are all conquered people now."

[. . . . ] On blogging and journalism:

"Blogs are an addition to mainstream journalism, providing opinion, perspective and possibly even fact-checking. They're NOT a substitution. They should not be, and I hope they don't become one. The media ecosystem needs newspapers of records and crazy bloggers both. Remember, the goal is an enlightened public, and if blogs help in that regard, then they should be celebrated. But if they don't, then they're no better than an annoying pamphleteer."

Professor Mike Adams suggests:

*In the fall semester most campuses sponsor “National Coming Out Day” for gays. Shortly thereafter, sponsor a “National Coming Out Day” for campus conservatives. Ask your administration to provide free counseling and “safe zones” for those ready to come out of the closet. [. . . . ]

Before we convince ourselves al Qaeda is down for the count, check the stats.

Islamist extremists in the world as estimated by moderate Muslim leaders: about 12 million. Fundamentalist sympathizers: 120 million. Those numbers represent 1 percent and 10 percent of the world's Muslim population of 1.2 billion. The CIA puts the extremists much higher — 40 million.

Then there's the number who trust Osama bin Laden more than President Bush: a majority in Muslim countries whose populations total 450 million.

European intelligence services know an alarming number of mosques are privileged sanctuaries used by extremists. Self-proclaimed imams can choose any place, from a basement to a garage, and declare it a mosque, an Islamic place of worship.

Germany has 8,000 mosques, according to German intelligence officials, to minister to a Turkish minority of 2.4 million and some 500,000 North African Muslims. France has some 10,000 mosques for 6 million North Africans; the U.S. about 2,000.

Beyond normal Friday prayers in Western mosques, there is a common anti-American political message, virulent in Europe, more subtle and discreet in the United States. Intelligence chiefs on both sides of the Atlantic agree the Western world in general and the U.S. in particular now face a global ideological foe convinced the U.S. is the fount of all evil. [. . . . ]

The FBI's recent arrests of two imams in Albany following a yearlong sting disclosed their interest in manpads (shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Few of the younger U.S. counterintelligence agents realize manpads literally brought down the Soviet empire. With U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles, the Afghan mujahideen, many of them fathers of today's al Qaeda terrorists, grounded Soviet fighter-bombers, gunships and troop transports. Only eight months elapsed between withdrawal of the last Soviet troops from Afghanistan on Feb. 15, 1989, to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the liberation of Eastern Europe.

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume al Qaeda seeks manpads [. . . . ]

If the most respected member of the Muslim community in Washington, D.C., with easy access to the White House and Congress in the 1990s, can plea bargain his way out of a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah with more than $1 million of Moammar Gadhafi's moola, it is again a reasonable assumption Abdurahman Alamoudi, a U.S. citizen, is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. He was on the board of half a dozen "charitable" Muslim foundations in the tristate region, certified 75 Muslim chaplains for the U.S. Armed Forces, founded and once led the American Muslim Council (AMC), praised by the FBI Director Robert Mueller for its mainstream moderation.

More recently, Mr. Mueller testified before Congress he believes several hundred al Qaeda operatives are living in America. He deliberately understates the case to avoid the label of Islamophobe Muslim-basher.

Some 500 cases of suspected terrorist links are now under surveillance. If one includes al Qaeda's support group of America-hating Muslim fundamentalists with U.S. passports, Osama bin Laden's U.S. footprint is large by any measure.

The latest estimate of illegals in the U.S. is now closer to 12 million than the officially conceded 8 million. ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has 2,300 agents tasked with the apprehending and deporting some 80,000 "criminal aliens" in the U.S., as well as the detaining and removing 320,000 "absconders," foreign nationals ordered deported and now on the lam. Several thousand Arabs and other Muslims are among them.

[. . . . ] But what is not explicable in terms of rational disagreement is the Left's pathological hatred of George W. Bush. It transcends all contention over the issues, the Democratic hurt over the Florida elections, and even the animus once shown Bill Clinton by the activist Right. From where does this near-religious anger arise and what does it portend?

Let's start with the admission that much of the invective is irrational, fueled by emotion rather than reason. Thus the black leadership uses slurs such as "Taliban" and "Confederacy" against Bush, even though no other president has selected an African-American secretary of State and national-security adviser or pledged so many billions for AIDS relief in Africa. Liberals talk of social programs starved, but domestic spending under Bush increased at annual rates greater than during any Democratic administration in recent history. Just read howls of conservatives who worry about Bush's Great Society-like programs.

[. . . . ] For the Left, Mr. Bush is automatically under a cloud of suspicion; he is an unapologetic twanger who likes guns, barbeques, NASCAR, "the ranch," and pick-up trucks. It matters little that George Bush's record on classical civil-rights issues is impeccable, without a hint of the deplorable racism of a younger Senator Byrd, a Lyndon Johnson, or an Al Gore Sr. Every statement Bush drawls out about religion, affirmative action, or abortion is forever suspect — sort of what would happen should a Germanic-sounding Arnold Schwarzenegger quite rightly lecture Californians about the need for greater order, efficiency, cohesiveness, and the willpower to regain pride and purpose. Necessary, yes — but for some, given his accent, Wagnerian and spooky all the same.

[. . . . ] But W.? His wife is pure Texas: a closet smoker from a family that does not have lots of money or status — not a Kennedy or Kerry spouse replete with loot, connections, and European sophistication. Unlike Teresa, Hillary, or Tipper, Laura has no angst about her own career; she doesn't give sermons about super-womaning as wife, mother, and activist exec. Worse still, Laura Bush is happy, proud, and likes who and what she is.

[. . . . ] In short, the Left hates George W. Bush for who he is rather than what he does. Southern conservatism, evangelical Christianity, a black-and-white worldview, and a wealthy man's disdain for elite culture — none by itself earns hatred, of course, but each is a force multiplier of the other and so helps explain the evolution of disagreement into pathological venom.

September 11 cooled the furor of these aristocratic critics, but Iraq re-ignited it. Not voting for George Bush is, of course understandable and millions in fact will do precisely that. But for those haters who demonize the man, their knee-jerk disgust tells us far more about their own shallow characters than it does anything about our wartime president.

And there is a great danger in all these manifestations of pure hatred. We are in a war. And in these tumultuous days, the Left's unhinged odium will resonate with and embolden not only our enemies abroad, but also the deranged, dangerous folk here at home. [. . . . ]

BEIJING -- Yang Zhen, one of tens of thousands of Chinese who are hoping to win admission to a U.S. university this spring, insists that he'll return home after he graduates. ``I am the only child in my family,'' said the earnest 25-year-old, who hopes to study business administration or international relations. If Yang does return to China, he'll be one of a tiny minority. China sends more students to the United States than any other country -- more than 50,000 last year. And although all of them assure U.S. State Department visa officers here that they'll go home after they finish school, as many as 99 percent look for jobs in America instead. Some qualify for special visas for high-tech fields. Some marry Americans. Some simply disappear. ``Once they're in the U.S., they're pretty much free to do what they want to do,'' concedes Charles Bennett, the chief of visa services at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

Ontario has launched a new offensive against outlaw biker gangs, adding a special team of Crown attorneys to toughen the prosecution and sentencing of gang members, Attorney-General Michael Bryant said yesterday.

"Biker gangs are a particularly wicked form of organized crime. They are neither quaint nor corny," he told The Globe and Mail.

"I've established a permanent major-case prosecution team to tackle the megatrials and the large and complicated cases, such as biker gang prosecutions," he said.

The new offensive also includes hiring eight Crown attorneys, assigning a senior one to work on a day-to-day basis with the joint-forces police Biker Enforcement Unit, providing assistance to Crown attorneys in dealing with the time-consuming tasks of disclosure of evidence, and giving Crowns support in arguing for stiffer sentences.

Mr. Bryant's announcement yesterday of the new offensive follows publication in The Globe last month of an extensive series on the activities, expansion and prosecution of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang in Ontario and across Canada.

Until now, prosecutors across the province have fought a steep uphill battle, particularly as regards resources. The bikers, in contrast, are well-financed and typically have been defended by some of the country's top criminal lawyers.

[. . . . ] "The purpose of the major-case prosecution team is to support those Crown attorneys who are working on the big cases and the megatrials to develop the strategies to help us deal with the challenges that come with these cases," so that no Crowns are left to combat biker gang members on their own, Mr. Bryant said.

Disclosure of evidence to defence attorneys can take up large amounts of prosecutors' time, especially in large cases that can involve several defendants, each with his own team of lawyers.

In one case cited in The Globe series, a Crown attorney said he and his assistant faced as many as 87 defence lawyers, all clamouring for documentation of evidence.

The two prosecutors provided 33 boxes of documents for disclosure. That took nine months and cost taxpayers $350,000.

[. . . . ] Timely disclosure is important to avoid delays in a case that defence lawyers then can use to argue for dismissal of charges.

In Edmonton, a major gang case collapsed last fall when a judge threw out charges against 11 people accused of conspiring to sell cocaine. He said the lengthy delay in trying the case violated their Charter rights. The delay arose chiefly because federal prosecutors and the RCMP were slow in disclosing evidence to the defence. [. . . . ]

One of the problems we have in Canada is we have stretched the definition of refugee way beyond what it was intended in the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees. It was originally meant to include people fleeing well-founded fear of persecution on various grounds. We have extended it to include people fleeing from civil conflict, such as civil wars, which the U.N. intended to be only temporarily settled in neighboring countries, and all sorts of social problems, battered spouses, people who oppose the one China policy.

You [the US] have stretched it also to some degree, and I think the major source of this was very effective refugee lobbies in both countries who want to make the doors open, sometimes on humanitarian grounds, sometimes for vested interests. This has been well outlined in a document published in the States by the Center for Immigration Studies just how powerful this lobby is.

We don't have a similar document, but I think we face the same problems in Canada.

I will mention one problem you give us, and that is that you allow many people in as visitors who probably intend to stay here and can't get permanent status here, but they know they can get in under our refugee claim system because we allow people that you don't. So we have had tens and probably hundreds of thousands of people you have allowed in, and then they go up to the border and are able to claim refugee status.

One of the big problems with both of our systems is that once you are into a refugee claim or asylum claim, you are into a very elaborate, many-layered, and costly and long process. This is one of the things that I think encourages people to come and try and stay. [Collacott, 23]

[. . . . ] Enormous immigration levels continue to guarantee Canada's engagement in terrorism. Each year immigration adds about 1 percent to our 29 million population. That is like a roughly 2-million-person increase to the U.S. population per annum, a number so large that penetration by terrorism becomes unavoidable, even by terrorists entering Canada from the United States.

[. . . .] Moreover, Canada's unique policy of multiculturism complicates matters by encouraging extremists to confuse the retaining of cultures with the importing of what Canadian counterterrorist officers call ''homelands violence.''. [Harris 79]

[. . . . ] Absurd refugee laws commonly see ostensible applicants disappearing underground in Canada and the US, a technique apparently used by some implicated in the recent Algerian cases. Some immigrant community leaders have called for immigration levels and laws to be brought into line. [Harris 82]

"Despite his consistent record of promoting radical Islamic fundamentalism and violence, less than one year later, Abu Zant was able to freely enter the United States to give his speech at the Brooklyn charity fundraiser."

On April 21, 1996, the International Relief Association, a US-based charity organization, held a fundraiser ''for the children of Iraq'' in Brooklyn, NY. The main speaker at the event was Sheikh Abdulmunem Abu Zant, a militant Jordanian Islamic cleric. [. . . . ]

During the 1991 Gulf War, Sheikh Abu Zant became famous for his virulent public exhortations of violence against Western ''infidels.'' According to Abu Zant, the war ''is not a war between Iraq and the U.S., but rather one between Islam and the infidels.'' In August 1990, he gave a sermon, during which he thundered ''May God attack the Jews and those who stand with them. May God attack the Americans and those who stand with them. May God attack the Soviets and those who stand with them. May God attack the English and French and those who stand with them. May God destroy completely America and enslave the Jews for rejecting the 'Islamic way.' We call for a people's war.'' At another demonstration against US involvement in the Gulf Crisis later that month, Sheikh Abu Zant threatened that President Bush would leave the White House ''as a cripple in a wheelchair.'' He continued, ''Bush, you have condemned your own people to death'' Either we defeat you or we die for the sake of God.'' During the first of these, to an audience of about 15,000 Islamic militants, Abu Zant shouted, ''Mr. Bush, the fighters of Islam will turn your soldiers into human charcoal and send them back to you in bags!'' He continued, ''Oh women of America, prepare to shed tears for your sons and husbands!'' The crowd answered him with loud cries of ''Allahu Akhbar [God is Great]'' and ''Down with America.'' Banners were unfurled at the rally that read ''What is needed is a gravedigger to bury the Americans'' and ''We shall knock on the doors of paradise with the skulls of the Americans and Israelis.''

[. . . . ] However, Abu Zant's militant Islamic crusade did not end with Iraq's defeat during the Gulf War. He became one of the most outspoken proponents of the Palestinian Islamic terrorist group, Hamas. This was complemented by his unrelenting hostility to any peace with Israel or to anyone who would attempt to achieve it. In November 1994, Abu Zant was quoted as proposing a jihad ''to liberate Palestine as an alternative to this surrender.'' . . . . Despite his consistent record of promoting radical Islamic fundamentalism and violence, less than one year later, Abu Zant was able to freely enter the United States to give his speech at the Brooklyn charity fundraiser. His militant crusade continues undeterred even today. This past October, Zant gave a fiery series of sermons denouncing the Jordanian government's actions to restrict Hamas activity in the kingdom. He ''hailed the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, as the spearhead of jihad (holy war) against the Jewish state.'' The sermons were so bellicose that Jordanian authorities summarily arrested the cleric. Abu Zant's violent opposition to the peace process, his support of the internationally-recognized terrorist group Hamas and his calls for holy struggle against the US were well-known and issued through public channels. Clearly, Western law enforcement agencies have good reason to prevent Abu Zant from traveling to their respective nations. The fact that such an individual was able to enter the United States at will raises a number of serious concerns about the effectiveness of our existing border control measures. [Emerson 69-70]

I recommend to you the creation of a Binational Commission on North American Security, to be created in cooperation with Canada's Parliament.

This Commission should be charged with a mandate to promptly consult with law enforcement and immigration personnel as well as with the community of frequent border users (including representatives of the private sector and communities along the northern border) and recommend to Congress and Parliament a consensus agenda of concrete actions to be taken by officials in both countries to secure the safety of Canadian and American civilians in a manner that is technologically sophisticated and as unobtrusive as possible to the flows of family, friends and free commerce that are the lifeblood of our future prosperity. [Sand, 95]

Civil Servants in Canada answer to elected cabinet ministers; who are in turn nominally accountable in parliament and ultimately to the electors. Consequently, any mistake or blunder on the part of a senior federal civil servant may result in major embarrassment for the minister in the House and in public. If accountability can be said to (ideally) flow in one direction, blame invariably flows in the opposite direction. Over the years, the main aim of any civil service ministry has become to avoid embarrassing their minister. This in turn has lead to a widespread penchant for secrecy in government service. As a result, most agencies are reluctant to share information on a regular or timely basis. [Thompson, 132]

Unlike the situation in the United States, there is no provision that allows the government in some form to designate countries or organizations as terrorist supporters in quite the same way as in the States. Therefore you can have groups and individuals in Canada going to the Government of Canada and applying for what we call a charitable organization status; in other words, the right really to be given donations for various causes without the person donating having to pay income tax on those donations. Anyway, the result is that through misuse you can wind up having people knowingly and otherwise donating to causes that amount to terrorist support. And because those dollars are, in effect, subsidized by the Canadian income tax system, we are the proud subsidizers of terrorism by inadvertence.[Harris, 167]

Mr. Harris, one more question. There is a phenomenon that I heard about recently called, ''TAI,'' Terrorist Agents of Influence. Is that a threat in Canada, and do they have influence on the Canadian Government?

Mr. HARRIS. I think this is an insidious concept. It is found in a number of countries. What it amounts to is an individual who may be connected to a terrorist organization and perhaps relies for resources on some of those ethnocultural communities who I spoke about who had money intimidated out of them and so on. These people can be Terrorist Agents of Influence, can work their way into positions of some influence in the governing political parties and thereby hold sway, in some respects as least, over the policies and decision-making of governments and major political parties. That is something that we are quite concerned about.

I might refer the subcommittee indeed to an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail of 10 February, 1999, which at least claimed that an individual who might have been associated with the bombing of the Air India flight, that that individual was claimed to have been brought around the House of Commons by a Canadian Liberal Party, governing party, M.P., who has supported some of his refugee claims at the same time as he was defined as a possible threat of the country, and who was photographed in the presence of the former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. To make a long story short, these are extremely insidious concerns. [Harris, 168]

The trackers were a group of very unorthodox, but highly experienced and very skilled investigators who went out to serve extradition papers on people and get them out of the country. In one of the classic cases, an American white supremacist had come into Canada to talk to our neo-Nazi community. He is one of those people who took people who have talked about doing things and turned them into people who did things. Within 9 hours of his crossing the Canada border, they located him and placed him back in the United States. Within hours of the appointment of the new Customs Immigration Minister in 1993 with the new government, they were disbanded utterly. Since then there has resulted—in January of last year, we had almost 6,000 deportation warrants that had never been fulfilled, plus, of course, a number of other people we couldn't locate.


Currently, if you are a refugee with a questionable claim and decide to duck your hearing or your hearing was rejected, by the time your hearing has come up, you already have a driver's license and some other essential pieces of ID. You can function anywhere in Canada, indeed within North America, with that ID. The only way you come to the notice of the authorities now is if you are arrested for criminal behavior, in which case a police force might check immigration records and find out that this person is due for extradition. Even then it is often happenstance. . . . [Thompson, 173]

Mr. Thompson, let me go to a specific program that I have heard about in Canada called the Immigration Trackers and Ports Police Program, which has been disbanded. Why was that disbanded?

Mr. THOMPSON. The new Minister in 1993 was actually quite a partisan of the immigration lobby that another witness described today. In fact, he took the immigration review boards and salted them with members of that lobby. I think groups like the trackers had probably attracted the ire of members of that lobby, and that had a large part to do with that. As far the Ports Police, I think it was a straight up cost-cutting measure. I remember that the austerity regime has characterized Canadian spending in the last few years has had a lot of effects. The RCMP cannot finish major investigations without extra funding. [Thompson, 173-174]

Mr. SMITH.. . . . how we could do a better job and what programs would be helpful. . . .

Mr. THOMPSON. I think increased funding, especially for the RCMP. Increased funding for CSIS would also be useful, but someone would have to sit the two organizations together and tell them they are going to cooperate in the future a lot better than they have now. In fact, one story that emerged in the Globe and Mail today I was reading while I was waiting for the aircraft was that CSIS had erased 2 hours of prime interviews with people who were involved with the Air India bombing because they didn't want to hand it over to the RCMP. [Thompson, 175]