[. . . . ] During testimony at a refugee hearing, Fred Bowen, then an RCMP sergeant and Tamil Tigers expert, said "a lot" of the money raised by the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) in Canada was sent to the guerrilla group.

The TRO, he added, "is controlled by the Tigers." The Tamil Tigers is an armed separatist faction responsible for conscripting child soldiers, killing two world leaders and carrying out more suicide bombings than any other terrorist group.

[. . . . Brown] testified that his information came from his contacts with current and former members of the LTTE in Canada as well as Tamil community members who oppose the Tigers, but he would not name his informants.

He also said that coded information about the TRO was found on a laptop computer seized during a police search at the home of Muralitharan Nadarajah, an alleged LTTE activist who is being deported from Canada.

The Tamil Tigers also raise money by smuggling migrants to Canada, he testified. One smuggler alone had brought "thousands" of Tamils illegally to Canada over the previous 15 years, he said.

"The smugglers only operate with the blessing of the Tigers. There's several of the smugglers I know in Toronto, one has bragged that he's given over $7-million to the cause for the Tigers."

The Post revealed this week that a migrant smuggling ring run by the Tamil Tigers, which tried to bring suspected members of the armed group to Toronto through Mexico and California, had been shut down following a joint U.S.-Canadian investigation. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] claiming to be a persecuted refugee from India while secretly travelling back to his homeland. . . . massive counterfeit credit card operation.

[. . . . ] found numerous passports, immigration stamps and "stolen IMM 1000 forms" that "directly related back" to Mr. Singh, according to Sergeant Braden Baron's affidavit.

[. . . . ] Mr. Singh's daughter, for example, was pictured on three of the passports, Sgt. Baron wrote.

. . . testified he had never been back to India since arriving in Canada in 1988. But . . . person carrying that passport was arrested by Indian authorities in August, 1995, for trying to smuggle a four-year-old boy out of the country. His fingerprints were identical to Mr. Singh's. [. . . . ]

Watch next week's issue of the Standard for Kevin Steel's excellent story about the anti-slavery groups that are digging up all kinds of dirt on the Liberals' complicity with international organized criminals. Gangsters have been using the stripper visa exemption to smuggle underage girls into Canada and force them into prostitution and pornography.

[. . . . ] Volpe, the HR minister, was actually the main advocate of closing the exotic dancer loophole after he woke up to the fact that it was being worked by traffickers. But, as Bob Fife noted in the Post in December:

"Human Resources Minister Joe Volpe killed the stripper program on Dec. 15, but sources say he had to fight his own officials, who claimed intimidation by organized crime led to its creation."

[. . . . ] El-Merhebi, 19, crafted a bomb from kerosene canisters to torch the United Talmud Torahs elementary school last April 5, leaving behind a letter denouncing ''Israelis and Zionists'' and threatening to strike harder ''the next time.'' The fire caused more than $600,000 in damage and traumatized Montreal's Jewish community.

Judge Jean Sirois of Quebec Court said the attack was not mere vandalism, as suggested by a psychiatrist who assessed El-Merhebi on the defence's behalf.
''The tract left on the scene is unequivocal; it aims to spread terror by threatening to strike harder next time,'' Judge Sirois said.

''There is a distinction to be drawn between vandalism and terrorism: One seeks to destroy stupidly, the other to intimidate, to sow terror for a political goal. Terrorism is much more dangerous to a society; it attacks its foundations.'' [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] I hope I will not be accused of prejudging the guilt or innocence of Ms. Sgro if I point out that the present mess is one in a long line of similar Liberal scandals, all of which turn on a much narrower, and simpler issue: the discretion we allow Cabinet ministers to intervene in the decisions of their departments.

[. . . . ] We have at last got our minds around the idea of banning large corporate contributions to political parties. But we have yet to wake up to the strange latitude we afford ministers of the Crown, not to say ordinary members of Parliament, to interfere in matters that are properly none of their business. If a minister were to intervene with a judge, after all, it is -- still -- regarded as an abuse of office, and a resigning offence. The same restriction applies, somewhat hazily, with regard to quasi-judicial tribunals.

But it was only under extreme duress that the previous Prime Minister was persuaded that ministers should be required to keep their hands off of Crown corporations (you will recall his ethics counsellor had earlier absolved him of breaking any rules in the matter of the Business Development Bank, on the grounds that there were no rules in place), and when it comes to their own departments, it's pretty much open season.

The immigration minister, in particular, has almost unbridled discretion to issue "special ministerial permits," allowing people to immigrate to Canada who would not be admitted under normal rules and procedures. [. . . . ]

MONTREAL (CP) -- The destruction of interview notes by Canada's spy agency doesn't justify throwing out the case against alleged terrorist Adil Charkaoui, Federal Court Justice Simon Noel ruled on Tuesday.

"The court rejects the cancellation of the certificate and as a consequence the release of Mr. Charkaoui,'' he said as the detained Moroccan shook his head in frustration.

[. . . . ] Charkaoui has been in detention since May 2003 on a national security certificate and is alleged to be a sleeper agent who can be activated at any time by al-Qaida.

More than 20 people have offered bail for Charkaoui, including former Liberal solicitor general Warren Allmand, former Conservative cabinet minister Flora MacDonald and documentary filmmaker Brian McKenna. Together, they offered more than $50,000 in bail. [Who would you believe -- Charkaoui or CSIS?]

[. . . . ] The government says Charkaoui knew terrorists and that his photo was recognized by prominent al-Qaida members, including jailed millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam. The defence would like to question these witnesses but must petition the court since the government refuses to provide access.

[. . . . ] CSIS officials have said the destruction of interview notes is standard procedure, since the agency is not a police force.

Government lawyer Daniel Roussy said the action doesn't violate Charkaoui's Charter rights and wasn't done in bad faith.

"We are not in a criminal matter here,'' he told Noel. "We are in an immigration matter.''

[. . . .] Jerome Kennedy, a prominent St. John's criminal lawyer, faces a rare disciplinary hearing today by the Law Society of Newfoundland for publicly stating that some trial judges are biased or incompetent, partly because they owe their jobs to political patronage.

[. . . . ] A director of the Ottawa-based Association In Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, Mr. Kennedy has been a major figure in an ongoing Newfoundland inquiry into the wrongful murder convictions of three men between 1989 and 1995.

[. . . . ] "Why is it that every other factor in the wrongful conviction problem can be examined, but not the judiciary?"

Mr. Russell said the federally run appointment process for trial judges in senior Canadian courts remains flawed, despite a set of largely ignored, 20-year-old recommendations of the Canadian Bar Association to rid the system of patronage.

Because the federal Cabinet still controls the appointment of trial judges in senior courts, he says, poorly qualified people are sometimes elevated to the bench.

[. . . . ] "We, as lawyers, have a duty to point out to the public the failings in the system. Why should we be afraid to say these things?" [from another lawyer. . . . ]

More than one whistleblower presented the Prime Minister Paul Martin's office with "firm evidence" of improprieties in immigration cases the Toronto Star reported Wednesday.

An unknown source said several people went to the Prime Minister's Office as early as August with evidence of scandal in former federal Immigration Minister Judy Sgro's election campaign and office.

[. . . . ] According to the source, Sgro's top advisor at the time, Ihor Wons, was asked to explain what was going on, and even asked to sign a letter stating that "everything is above board," said the Star.

"What Conservatives have been hearing from a number of Liberals is that the reason that this man Ihor Wons was not fired last November or earlier is because the Prime Minister's office was directing this entire affair going back as far as last summer," CTV's Mike Duffy said on Canada AM.[. . . . ]

NEW DELHI - Prime Minister Paul Martin's push to legalize same sex marriage ran into stiff opposition in India yesterday when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and India's high priest of the Sikh faith spoke out in defence of traditional marriage between a man and a woman. [. . . . ]

TransCanada obtained a letter a year ago from former prime minister Jean Chretien supporting its position

CALGARY - John Efford, Canada's Natural Resources Minister, said the government doesn't want to stand in the way of the US$20-billion Alaska natural gas pipeline and promised to make key decisions on regulatory issues by the end of the month.

Oil companies with large natural gas reserves in Alaska, Canadian pipeline giants TransCanada Corp. and Enbridge Inc., and the U.S. and Alaska governments, have asked Ottawa to clarify how the line would be permitted so planning can move forward.

[. . . . ] TransCanada claims it obtained rights to build the line under the NPA when a first pipeline was proposed 26 years ago.

However, Enbridge and Alaska producers want the line to be regulated as a new project under the National Energy Board. [Check my posts from the last week or so to see their networks. NJC]

"The NPA remains in full force and effect and will be the mechanism under which the project is constructed through Canada," said Hejdi Feick, spokeswoman for TransCanada. TransCanada obtained a letter a year ago from former prime minister Jean Chretien supporting its position.

But Ken MacDonald, BP PLC's vice-president in Canada for the pipeline, said the NPA in its current form poses unacceptable risks.

"It would be difficult to proceed," he said. "The fundamental risk is that the NPA's certificate is for a project that is different than the project that we are proposing to build today, so there is a risk that people would challenge the use of those certificates for a different project."

[. . . . ] Meanwhile, Mr. Efford announced awards totalling $10.8-million to four oil companies -- U.S. independents Apache Corp. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp., and Canadian producers Penn West Petroleum Ltd. and Suncor Energy Inc. -- to help fund projects using new technology to capture carbon dioxide that is then used to enhance the recovery of oil and gas. [. . . . ]

Liberal governments in Ottawa don't seem to have much luck with public inquiries. Or do they? The current predicament of Mr. Justice John Gomery of the sponsorship inquiry raises the question.

The last high-profile inquiry to run afoul of the government was the Somalia probe of 1995-97. The inquiry was created, in the usual fashion, to cool down a scandal that was embarrassing the government and some of its friends in the bureaucracy - the criminal misbehaviour of some Canadian soldiers during a peace- enforcement mission in Somalia. The inquiry bought time for the government but at the expense of having to face eventual exposure and condemnation at the hands of the inquiry.

[. . . . ] I can't help wondering how the Prime Minister and his government are reacting to all this. Quite well, I would think. Nothing would please the government more, I imagine, than having the inquiry disrupted by lengthy proceedings to challenge its continuation under Judge Gomery. Conceivably, this could take the inquiry right out of the public eye for some time, perhaps even past the date of the next election. In the unlikely event that Judge Gomery is forced to resign, the inquiry would have to start over again, creating an even longer hiatus.

How would Canadians react to that? With their usual docility, if the Somalia inquiry was any indication.[. . . . ]

Five months after Osama bin Laden's propaganda network, Al-Jazeera, was approved for viewing in Canada, Fox News was given the green light. [. . . . ]

Despite the fact that the CBC receives nearly a billion dollars in taxpayers' money to fund programs that are totally ignored by 93 percent of Canadians, they're still transparently petrified of any competition edging in on their "turf."

[. . . . ] The CBC is freaking out with the arrival of Fox. So much so that they're frantically working on a documentary about the Fox News Canadian invasion, in which they will tell Canadians what to think. Given that Fox News is now in direct competition with the CBC for whatever remnants of an audience the CBC has left, this has about as much credibility as Ford doing a documentary about General Motors, telling you that GM cars suck.

The CBC will undoubtedly question Fox News' claim of "fairness and balance." It will be like Saddam Hussein complaining about naked pyramids at Abu Ghraib prison violating Iraqi human rights.

The CBC's idea of balance and fairness in journalism is airing a rabidly anti-Bush documentary entitled "The World Accoding to Bush" three times in the run-up to the last U.S. presidential election. The write-up on the CBC Web site looks as if it was crafted by Michael Moore: [. . . . ]

OTTAWA - A Canadian consortium's efforts to modernize Lebanon's derelict postal system between 1998 and 2001 had an "alarming" impact on the country's postal workers, even though Canada supplied a $288,000 grant to help retrain them.

Joey Ghaleb, a researcher at the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies in Beirut, studied the 12-year contract awarded in 1998 to a Canadian group led by SNC-Lavalin, Canada Post and Al-Qantara and its impact on Lebanese workers.

[. . . . ] He said studies on retraining programs such as those financed by CIDA "are not conclusive and show mixed results."

"The main criticism of retraining programs is that they are not 'market-oriented' and have been utilized to serve personal and political needs," he wrote. [. . . . ]

[. . . .] Many African countries, meanwhile, continue to argue the West "owes them," in part as compensation for the slave trade and colonial rule. Billions have already been sent to Africa, much of it disappearing into the sinkhole of corruption. For ambitious Africans, joining the kleptocrats and tyrants is a faster track to wealth than launching a legitimate business.

The result is a continent where incomes per head and life expectancy are actually falling. A recent study by the World Bank named only South Africa and Botswana as places where businesses can expect to operate with any level of normality.

[. . . . ] The report's title -- Investing in Development -- seems to suggest its authors have bought into the need for free enterprise to boost development. [. . . . ]

Although the report is being presented as part of an international "security bargain" for the West, it admits increasing cash flows to the governments of failed or failing states, or to highly corrupt countries, is a complete waste.

It names Belarus, Myanmar, North Korea and Zimbabwe as places where aid should be channelled only through charities that can ensure it reaches people in need. This essentially translates to emergency relief. [. . . . ]

[Conservative MP John Williams ] said although the Governor-General's attendance at the memorial service would have been largely symbolic, her absence could heighten tensions between the West and the rest of Canada.

"If it was a memorial service for the lieutenant-governor of Ontario or Quebec, you can be pretty sure she would break whatever personal engagement she has to be there," he said.