A police spokeswoman said the guns, purchased legally in Texas, were destined for Arab criminal organizations in Montreal. They included handguns, pistols and revolvers.

Mr. Peter MacKay (Central Nova, CPC): Mr. Speaker, a Senate report on national security and defence said today that Canadians depend mainly on luck when it comes to national security. The committee, like the Auditor General last spring, identifies inadequate background checks of airport employees and a lack of controls in restricted areas as major security problems. The Minister of Transport's “the dog ate my homework” attitude over the loss of more than 1,100 uniforms is alarming.

Will the minister now listen to his Senate colleagues and the Auditor General and immediately begin rigorous background checks on those with access to restricted areas, before his luck runs out?
[Translation]

Hon. Jean Lapierre (Minister of Transport, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have had a look, a brief look to be sure, at the Senate committee report. It is a very useful report. Over the years, various departments have drawn on it. When we have reviewed all the recommendations, I will ask my department to prepare a clause by clause answer to this report, because I take it very seriously.

My first meeting as Minister of Transport was with Senator Colin Kenny, because I believe his work is essential to the country's security.

Mr. Peter MacKay (Central Nova, CPC): Mr. Speaker, our Minister of Transport is a fashion expert. However, as he says, his airports are as leaky as sieves. There are not enough employees and they are poorly trained. Packages and goods go through without being checked. Entry into an airport is far too easy.

Will the minister address this interminable list of flaws?

Hon. Jean Lapierre (Minister of Transport, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, of course. Moreover, all recognized employees in these airports must pass a security test. The previous five years of their lives is investigated to ensure they have nothing questionable in their past and that passenger and airport security are not endangered.

As a result, the system is in place, but we will be going further, for we intend to make greater use of biometrics to recognize our employees. The technology that will be used is currently being tested in four airports in Canada. . . .

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Mr. Bradley Trost (Saskatoon—Humboldt, CPC): Mr. Speaker, not long ago the Minister of Public Works and Government Services said, “We should be getting rid of the long gun registry. A billion dollars would have been better spent on the RCMP”.
My question is for the Minister of Finance. There are thousands of RCMP officers required to fill vacancies across Canada, particularly in Saskatchewan. Seventy-six per cent of Canadians want more police, not a billion dollar boondoggle registry.

Why has the Minister of Finance failed to find the resources to fill the RCMP vacancies across Canada and in Saskatchewan?

Hon. Anne McLellan (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we are training more RCMP officers. We are training them in fact in Regina, Saskatchewan to serve all across this country.

Just to give hon. members an idea of some of the commitments that we have made, the investments in Canada's national police force, recently we have invested an additional $112 million to fight organized crime, $100 million to update criminal record and fingerprint analysis technology, $42 million to address the criminal use of guns, $34 million to address the criminal exploitation of--[. . . . ]

Whistleblower Protection

Mr. Joe Preston (Elgin—Middlesex—London, CPC): Mr. Speaker, yesterday the president of PSAC, the largest union of government employees, informed us that the Liberals failed to consult the union when it drafted and tabled the whistleblower legislation.

In failing to work with Canada's public servants, the Treasury Board minister has clearly chosen to alienate a key stakeholder. Ironically, it has been public servants who have come forward to reveal the government's most serious wrongdoings.

Will the minister finally admit that his bill is in fact designed not only to discourage whistleblowers, but also to cover up on his government's past wrongdoings? [Ed's emphasis]

Hon. Reg Alcock (President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, there were lengthy consultations on the creation of this bill. We believe it is an excellent response to the concerns identified by whistleblowers.

We looked very carefully at surveys and interviews that were done with people who had actually experienced it and we produced a very fine piece of legislation. If the committee would get on with approving it, we could actually implement it.

[. . . . ] Several players have unveiled hefty expansions. Vancouver port recently announced $1.4-billion in upgrades to its container terminal facilities, aimed at tripling capacity by 2020. Canadian Pacific Railway says it's considering a $500-million investment to its rail infrastructure, though it cautions the final decision hinges on talks it's having with Ottawa.

Meanwhile, CN says it has rolled out a series of deals with rival CP that will allow the two companies to share track, thereby significantly increasing their capacity.
Another key piece of the puzzle is the Port of Prince Rupert, about 770 kilometres north of Vancouver. The facility has fallen into disuse in recent years, but many in the transportation industry see it as an important alternative.

VANCOUVER - The Port of Vancouver has become so congested with freight from China that importers -- including major retailers -- are bypassing the West Coast and docking in Halifax.

The journey from Asia takes at least twice as long but shippers and their customers are trying to avoid the traffic snarls on Vancouver's docks and rail lines that can tie up goods for up to two weeks.

"A lot of the major importers have been lobbying carriers to provide East Coast service," said Bernie Dumas, general manager of sales and marketing in Canada for China Shipping Co., one of the biggest global transport companies. [. . . . ]

Tony Blair and the Europeans are focusing their attention on the creation of a Palestinian state as the magic formula for peace in the Middle East. At the same time, they are turning a blind eye to the growing propaganda and fundraising campaign on websites and TV stations in their own countries.

The Europeans’ behavior is not surprising. Their top foreign policy official, Javier Solana, the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, expressed a “deep sadness” over the death of Yasser Arafat, the failed Palestinian leader who initiated the culture of death and destruction. Solana further suggested that the best way to commemorate him is to follow in his footsteps. In fact, he outdid Arafat by negotiating with HAMAS, which the EU itself has designated as a terrorist organization.

The most active HAMAS front organization worldwide is the London-based Interpal, which publishes anti-American and anti-Israeli propaganda, and which in 2003 alone sent more than $20 million to different HAMAS organizations in the Palestinian territories. In addition to fundraising in England in Pounds Sterling, Interpal lists on its website four different bank accounts to which contributors can send money. All the accounts are with Nat West Bank, and the international scope of the organization is evident by dedicated dollar and euro accounts. [. . . . ]

Bank of Canada governor David Dodge is wading into the debate about letting Canada's chartered banks merge.

He's also calling for Canada to establish a single securities regulator, dismissing current attempts by the provinces to co-ordinate their operations more effectively.

[. . . . ] Instead, Dodge spent about 45 minutes questioning the efficiency of the country's banking system, warning that Canada risks falling behind the rest of the world.

He drew a round of applause following not-so-veiled comments endorsing the idea of bank mergers.

[. . . . ] "So the evidence of the world out there is that scale does matter, and it is important that we look at that issue of scale and scope here in Canada with a view to just how efficient is our system." [. . . . ]

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge said the notion that the country is a ``wild west'' of lax securities regulation is common among international investors, making it harder for Canadian companies to raise money abroad [. . . . ]

While the U.S. passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, requiring among other things that chief executive officers certify financial statements, Canada's provincial regulators have dickered over the formation of a national body to police securities violations. [. . . . ]

A former executive of the securities custody firm co-owned by Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is under RCMP investigation over his alleged involvement in a penny stock scam police allege is linked to the Hell's Angels biker gang.

Alnoor Jiwan, former manager of CIBC Mellon Global Securities Services Co.'s Vancouver office, is under investigation for allegedly taking bribes in 1999 to issue bogus stock certificates and pocketing ill-gotten gains in a so-called pump-and-dump scheme involving defunct telecom firm Pay Pop Inc.

Bill Majcher, head of the RCMP's Integrated Market Enforcement Team in Vancouver, said his office has recommended to Crown prosecutors that charges be laid in connection with the scam. He also said individuals behind the scam have ties to organized crime.

"We have found some definitive links between the entire Pay Pop scam and the Hell's Angels criminal organization," he said. [. . . . ]

In its civil complaint, the SEC alleged that Mr. Jiwan accepted bribes, consisting of Pay Pop shares, in exchange for having CIBC Mellon serve as the firm's transfer agent and issue stock certificates for 75 million shares that created the false impression the stock complied with U.S securities laws. [. . . . ]

"Miracle begets yawn" has been the American reaction to the inauguration of Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan. Before our astonishing success in Afghanistan goes completely down the memory hole, let's recall some very recent history.

For almost a decade before Sept. 11, we did absolutely nothing about Afghanistan. A few cruise missiles hurled into empty tents, followed by expressions of satisfaction about the "message" we had sent. It was, in fact, a message of utter passivity and unseriousness.

Then comes our Pearl Harbor, and the sleeping giant awakens. Within 100 days, al Qaeda is routed and the Taliban overthrown. Then the first election in Afghanistan's history. Now the inauguration of a deeply respected democrat who, upon being sworn in as the legitimate president of his country, thanks America for its liberation.

This in Afghanistan, which only three years ago was not just hostile but untouchable. What do liberals have to say about this singular achievement by the Bush administration? That Afghanistan is growing poppies.

Good grief. This is news? "Afghanistan grows poppies" is the sun rising in the east. "Afghanistan inaugurates democratically elected president" is the sun rising in the west. Afghanistan has always grown poppies. What is President Bush supposed to do? Send 100,000 GIs to eradicate the crop and incite a popular rebellion? [. . . . ]

The Russian government's harsh treatment of Yukos Oil Co. stands to deliver a major blow to foreign investment in that country, says former prime minister Jean Chretien.

"Yukos is now a large and daily warning to the rest of the world that Russia is a precarious place to do business, where the rule of law and property rights of individual investors, both domestic and international, are summarily dismissed, if they are even considered at all," Mr. Chretien told a conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Wednesday.

Following the imprisonment of Yukos chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky last October, the Russian government accused the company of not paying appropriate taxes over four years, to the tune of more than US$25-billion, including interest and penalties. Critics around the world have called the assessments grossly excessive.
While his company teeters on the brink of bankruptcy, Mr. Khodorkovsky, who has criticized Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, has been on trial for tax evasion and fraud. His arrest was widely seen as punishment for speaking out against Mr. Putin and for his rumoured political ambitions.

Speaking at the conference, which was sponsored by the Kazakh Senate, Mr. Chretien said the Russian government's actions could imperil foreign investors' trust in the country.

"The level of arbitrary tax assessments and the [Russian] Minister of Justice's disinclination to respond to any settlement offers leaves the international community with only one conclusion," he said. "The Ministry of Justice is intent on expropriating Yukos without compensation." [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] "Any technological remedy that would come out of the Australian jurisdiction [affects] the whole of the world."

The Australian music industry has spent the past two years preparing a legal battle against Sharman Networks Ltd., the company that operates Kazaa. The trial started last month and may end next week.

Sharman is based in the tax haven of Vanuatu, an island north of Fiji featured in a season of the hit television show Survivor.

Among other things, the music industry is trying to prove that Sharman's real headquarters is in Australia. If the industry wins its case, it would subject Sharman to Australian copyright laws, which could ruin the company.

"This case is not about shutting down the Internet," music industry lawyers have argued. "It is not about shutting down peer-to-peer networks. It is about responsibility for copyright infringement."

[. . . . ] Kazaa uses a so-called "decentralized network." That means computers all over the world, running independently of one another, power Kazaa's network.
That technology could make Kazaa difficult to stop, regardless of the trial's outcome.

Kazaa's owners have argued in court that the decentralized network means the system is out of their control. The company says it sees itself as simply a facilitator, allowing computer users around the world to communicate with each other. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] 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. [. . . . ]

OTTAWA -- The RCMP has warned its investigators to be on the lookout for cleverly disguised messages embedded by al-Qaida in digital files police seize from terror suspects. An internal report obtained by CP gives credence to the long-rumoured possibility that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and other extremist groups are using a technique known as steganography to hide the existence of sensitive communications.

Steganography, from the Greek word stegos, meaning covered, and graphie, or writing, involves concealing a secret message or image within an apparently innocuous one.
For example, a seemingly innocent digital photo of a dog could be doctored to contain a picture of an explosive device or hidden wording.

[. . . . ] "There now exist nearly 200 software packages which perform digital steganography," the report says.

Improving air transport security was a major objective

3.135 One of the major objectives of the 2001 Budget was to improve security at Canada's airports. According to the Budget document, "Rigorous new national standards for security in airports and on board flights are essential to protecting people. This budget will therefore provide Transport Canada with funds to strengthen its capacity to set regulations, review standards, and monitor and inspect all air security services." [. . . . ]

3.137 The Budget did not specifically allocate funds to improve the security screening of airport workers with "air side" access—that is, those working in controlled-access areas of the airport where baggage and freight are handled and aircraft are serviced. If workers in secure zones are unreliable, many of the other improvements will be ineffective.

3.138 Over 110,000 workers in Canada's airports have access to the "air side." Transport Canada screens each worker to eliminate persons who are known or suspected to be involved in threats of violence against persons or property, who are known or suspected to be members of an organization involved in violence or "closely associated" with such a person, or who the Minister of Transport reasonably believes might be prone to interfering with civil aviation.

[. . . . ] Criminal associations are a significant threat to air transport security

3.143 Increasing level of criminality. Transport Canada exercises considerable discretion in the granting of clearances to restricted areas at airports. A criminal record may be the outcome of some offence unlikely to reoccur or to pose a threat to air transport. Individuals with a record of such an offence may be given a security clearance.

3.144 We examined persons holding clearances at five Canadian [. . . based on our analysis about 5.5 percent of clearance holders hired between January 2001 and May 2003 had criminal records.] Airports—Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, Halifax, and Winnipeg—and found that about 3.5 percent have criminal records. In the general population, 9 percent of Canadians have criminal records. While this is still lower than the Canadian average, the upward trend over the last two years is of concern.

3.145 Transport Canada officials told us that the clearance program focussed on a relatively narrow concept of "unlawful interference with civil aviation," which concentrated on the risks of hijacking and sabotage. This concept has been derived from international conventions. The risks of drug smuggling and other criminal activity were not necessarily regarded as grounds for denial of a clearance.

3.146 Number of active investigations. The Canada Customs and Revenue Agency and the RCMP both investigate criminal conspiracies at Canadian airports; generally these involve drug smuggling. We reviewed the investigation files at the five airports we visited. Police and Customs had identified 247 individuals with clearances to restricted areas who were involved in criminal conspiracies, almost all of them in Toronto and Montréal with a few in Vancouver (no such individuals were identified at the airports in Halifax and Calgary). Customs and police officials consider that even a small percentage of clearance holders with criminal intent poses a serious threat. A single criminal may bribe or coerce entire work teams to facilitate smuggling. Those involved rarely know what is being smuggled.

3.147 The RCMP's assessment of clearance holders indicates a greater problem than is indicated in the criminal conspiracy investigation files at airports. At the two airports where police and Customs had no active investigations, clearance holders included individuals who may have significant criminal associations.

3.148 Extent of criminal association. Each of the 405 individuals in our sample was assessed for criminal association by the RCMP's Criminal Intelligence Directorate, based on its information in three databases—the Canadian Police Information Centre, the Police Information Retrieval System, and the National Criminal Databank. We asked the RCMP if its intelligence files indicated any associations that might preclude the issuing of a clearance to a restricted area. Such associations would include, for example, membership in a biker gang, a spouse or close relative involved in organized crime, or an address associated with criminal activity. It is important to note that such individuals would not necessarily have a criminal record themselves or be active in organized crime; we also note that none of the 405 clearance holders in our sample had been assessed by Transport Canada for criminal association.

3.149 Based on the results of the RCMP's database search on the 405 persons in our sample (generalized to the total number of people holding clearances to restricted areas at the five airports), we estimate that about 4,500 persons or 5.5 percent have possible criminal associations that warrant further investigation and possibly withdrawal of some security clearances. This represents a serious threat to security at airports.

3.150 In addition to identifying individuals with criminal associations, the RCMP identified 16 businesses operating at airports that were linked to criminal activity such as providing travel arrangements for organized crime, facilitating identity fraud, and selling stolen passes. The firms were associated with biker gangs, organized crime, and drug trafficking. No firms with terrorist associations were discovered. At the two airports where Customs and the RCMP had no active criminal conspiracy investigations, nine companies with criminal links were operating. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] There are many telling parallels between the Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia. First, the USSR led, and Saudi Arabia now leads, an ideological movement with global reach.

[. . . . ] Second, both are weakened by hypocrisy. Both Soviet and Saudi ideological claims amount to pretense at odds with social reality.

[. . . . ] Saudi Arabia faces the same dilemma. It claims to uphold and exemplify the harsh, purified, stripped-down form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism, which is the state religion. Wahhabis are forbidden to mix with other Muslims, and are indoctrinated to hate Shia Muslims as apostates, to angrily despise Christians, Jews, and Hindus, to eschew the pleasures of normal life--from picking flowers to listening to music to smiling. In the phrase so often heard among Wahhabi terrorists from Gaza to Falluja, they "love death by martyrdom more than life."

Yet the House of Saud, the rulers of the kingdom, do not live by stern Wahhabi strictures. If anything, they flout them, with porno videos for entertainment inside their compounds, sex orgies in hotel suites when they go on vacation, and chilled vodka handed out by Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan in Washington and Aspen. Above all, the Saudi Wahhabis who preach the destruction of the Judeo-Christian West and who incite Islamic youths to die in jihad in Iraq and elsewhere depend on the United States for their military and economic security.

Hypocrisy kills the soul and poisons the common identity that binds normal societies. Hypocrisy sapped the intellectual strength of the Soviet Union, just as it is undermining the Saudi way of life.

Third, and perhaps most important, totalitarian systems are weakened by the discontent of those forced to live under them. . . .

[. . . . ] Saudi Arabia, with its commitment to promoting Islamic extremism worldwide, remains the key to defeating the terrorists we face. It is also a society in crisis. President Bush can choose to deal piecemeal with Islamist terrorism. Or, like Ronald Reagan confronting the Soviet Union, he can take on the problem itself, directly, carefully, calmly, but firmly, by dealing with its Saudi source. With Condoleezza Rice at his side, the president can apply the lessons of experience to the core challenge of his new term.

On October 5, France expelled Algerian-born Imam Abdel Qader Bouziane for telling a French magazine that Muslim husbands may beat their wives. This follows the sentencing on January 14 of the Egyptian-born Sheik Muhammad Kamal Mustafa, the imam of the mosque of the Spanish city of Fuengirola, Costa del Sol, for publishing a book that explains that wife-beating is in accordance with Shariah law.

Sheik Yousuf Qaradhawi, one of the most influential clerics in Sunni Islam and head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research and the International Council of Muslim Clerics, has also advocated wife-beating on multiple occasions in his 1984 book "The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam," and on his weekly Al Jazeera program, which is popular among the surging number of European Muslims who increasingly look to religious leaders from the Middle East for religious guidance. This is particularly true with the growth of viewers watching Arab TV stations, available on satellite TV in Europe, which frequently airs shows dedicated to teaching a husband how to beat his wife. The following examples on this subject can be viewed at www.memritv.org .

[. . . . ] Speaking on Syrian TV on July 26, Sheik Abd Al-Hamid Al-Muhajir explained that the Koran stipulates when a husband can beat his wife: "The Koranic verse refers only to a disobedient wife...First you must admonish...Then comes the stage of sending her to a separate bed...If this does not help either...it is said, 'and beat them'... What's better, that she gets slapped, or that she ruins her family, herself, and society?" [. . . . ]

VIGNEUX-SUR-SEINE, France The boys were patient, standing in line and waiting their turn to rape.

Their two victims, girls of 13, were patient as well, never crying out, at least that is what the neighbors said, and enduring the violence and abuse not once, but repeatedly over five months.

That was three years ago. Late last month, 10 young men, now ranging in age from 18 to 21, were convicted of rape in a closed courtroom in nearby Evry and sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to five years. Seven others will go on trial in November. The fact that they are being brought to justice at all is highly unusual.

The phenomenon of gang rape in France has become banal. It occurs - how often is unknown - in the concrete wastelands built as cheap housing for immigrants on the outskirts of France's big cities. Here, according to sociologists and prosecutors, teenage boys, many of them loosely organized into gangs, prey on neighborhood girls.

Many of the boys are raised in closed, traditional families and are hopelessly confused or ignorant about sex; others are simply street toughs. In this world, women enjoy little respect; often girls who appear weak, or who wear tight-fitting clothing or go out unaccompanied by their fathers or brothers are considered fair game.

[. . . . ] "In the boys' minds, if a girl's virginity is respected, then nothing bad has happened."

The girls' story seeped out months after the events, according to Laurent Le Mehaute, the lawyer for one of the girls. After rumors circulated at their high school, the director referred the matter to the police. At first, the girls denied the story, but eventually identified 18 boys as their rapists.

All but one of the boys confessed to having sex with the girls, even acknowledging that it was not consensual. The one who claimed his innocence was acquitted. [. . . . ]

DAYS before she was due to be married, Ghofrane Haddaoui, 23, refused the advances of a teenage boy and paid with her life. Lured to waste ground near her home in Marseilles, the Tunisian-born Frenchwoman was stoned to death, her skull smashed by rocks hurled by at least two young men, according to police.

Although the circumstances of the murder are not clear, the horrific “lapidation” of the young Muslim stoked a French belief that the country can no longer tolerate the excesses of an alien culture in its midst.

A few days ago, pop celebrities joined 2,000 people in a march through Marseilles denouncing violence against women, particularly in the immigrant-dominated housing estates. The protest against Islamic “obscurantism” and the “fundamentalism that imprisons women” was led by a group of Muslim women who call themselves Ni Putes ni Soumises (Neither Whores nor Submissive).

The movement, which emerged three years ago to defend Muslim women, is spawning similar groups across Europe, supported by a mainstream opinion that has recently abandoned political correctness and wants to halt the inroads of Islam.

From Norway to Sicily, governments, politicians and the media are laying aside their doctrines of diversity and insisting that “Islamism”, as the French call the fundamentalist form that pervades the housing estates, is incompatible with Europe’s liberal values. [. . . . ]

In Germany, with its three million — mainly Turkish — Muslims, and France, with its five million of mainly North African descent, television viewers were shocked when local young Muslims approved of Van Gogh’s murder. “If you insult Islam, you have to pay,” was a typical response.

“The notion of multiculturalism has fallen apart,” said Angela Merkel, leader of Germany’s Christian Democrat opposition. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] Wise Madam Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin would claim to have restored judicial-parliamentary equilibrium, routing those who've been screaming against judicial activism.

Well, somewhere in Quebec, the retired Madam Justice Claire L'Heureux Dube must be chuckling with satisfaction. Make no mistake about it: This court ruling and Justice Minister Irwin Cotler's pending legislation have been driven by the social activism of provincial appeals courts, rubber stamped by the Supreme Court and the Liberal government. Now that Justice L'Heureux Dube has been replaced on the Supreme bench by Rosalie Abella, a no less eager advocate of the same liberal causes, the others can be expected to proceed apace.

Conrad Black may not be the guy to quote these days, but since Pierre Trudeau's Charter of Rights and Freedoms made the Supreme Court the real governing body of the land, nobody has put it better: The effect of the Charter, he told us, was "to unleash on this country swarms of mad judicial tinkerers, social worker judges ignoring the law and carrying out what they took to be the moral imperative of remaking society along faddish and idiosyncratic lines." [. . . . ]

[. . . . University of Western Ontario law professor Rob Martin, in his book, The Most Dangerous Branch] " . . . the judges behave as if they possess unlimited power and are not subject to any legal constraints. They amend the constitution at will, rewriting it or inventing new principles, as if the constitution were their private possession or plaything. The judges have also seriously undermined Canadian democracy. They often reach conclusions based not on law, but on personal preferences. It becomes increasingly difficult to accept that Canada has a legal system, so much has the court abandoned or subverted fundamental notions of law."

Critics say institution hijacked; gay marriage advocates see 'green light' -- It is not "marriage" nor "civil union" that bothers many; it is the idea that this opens the doors to adoption to homosexuals whose couplings--whatever they're called--are relatively short-lived, compared to heterosexual marriage, according to an article in the National Post today.

Of course, the state does not seem to care what is best for children nor what the majority might want. They want votes and now, along with the immigrants, the gays will vote Liberal. [. . . . ]

EDMONTON (CP) - Alberta, the province most vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage, set the stage for more legal battles Thursday following the Supreme Court's landmark ruling on the issue.

Justice Minister Ron Stevens acknowledged the province can't use the Constitution's notwithstanding clause to stop the federal government from redefining marriage. But he said for now, Alberta will not issue licences to same-sex couples - a position that is expected to spark court challenges by gays and lesbians. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] Reaffirming that the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society, as declared in Article 16(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

Noting that 2004 marks the 10th Anniversary of the United Nations’ 1994 International Year of the Family and that the Doha International Conference for the Family was welcomed by UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/58/15 (December 15, 2003); [. . . . ]

WE THE PEOPLE from various nations, cultures, and faiths around the world join together in this urgent worldwide call to defend marriage and the family.

REMEMBERING that throughout history the family has been the essential foundation of every successful society, and is recognized as “the natural and fundamental group unit of society . . . entitled to protection by society and the State”; and

RECOGNIZING that marriage between husband and wife, entered into with the free consent of both, continues to be the best foundation for strong and effective families and the best environment to prepare each new generation for productive lives and responsible citizenship; and

NOTING that marriage and families throughout the world are now being severely undermined by a variety of social, cultural, political, legal and economic forces, including insufficient protection of life before as well as after birth, resulting in widespread harm to individuals, families, communities, and nations;

NOW THEREFORE, we call upon all responsible citizens, community leaders and government officials throughout the world to take all necessary measures to defend marriage as the exclusive union of male and female, to protect life from conception until natural death and to promote and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] Being a single-income family is not a luxury; it is a sacrifice. Unfortunately, this is a concept that is lost on our consumer-mad culture. I would rather have one of us at home with the kids and do without some extras than be dropping our kids off at daycare and both of us rushing to our jobs so that we can pay off a house that nobody has time to live in.
Mr. Dryden, you can keep your $5-billion. Or better yet, use it to pay down our national debt. Just like many families who find themselves on the treadmill of consumerism, Canada has already spent too much money on things it cannot afford.

Bill Wylie, Mississauga, Ont.

[. . . . ] In Ontario, low-income families are eligible for government child care subsidies; both public and private centres are reimbursed for every low-income child enrolled. Fully 90% of children are subsidized at Discovery Place.
But it's not nearly enough, Mr. Goldsmith says. He receives about $26 per day from the province for each subsidized child, while his costs are $33.

The difference is made up by charging unsubsidized parents more and not raising daycare workers' pay, he says.

"It's our staff and parents that are subsidizing the system."

Structurally, Ontario and Quebec deliver services almost identically. The major difference is that all Quebec children qualify for much larger subsidies.

[. . . . ] The reason, he says, is that Ontario has made it too difficult for the families served by the centre to qualify for subsidies. Receiving student loans, for example, makes parents ineligible.

A man claiming to be member of an Islamic group who was arrested in India for planning a bomb attack today won a High Court case against Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone.

The High Court ruled a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) did not allow the man, known as Naff, procedural fairness.

It quashed the RRT's decision to refuse Naff refugee status and ordered it to redetermine his application for a review of the case.

Naff is a Muslim Tamil who said he was an active member of the Indian Union Muslim League and of a committee of the Jihad Movement.

He was president of an organisation in his village associated with a movement led by a benevolent Muslim industrialist, Dawood Ibrahim, whom he said he met in Bombay. [. . . . ]