Responding To The HarperCon$

Frankly, I think Ignatieff is dead right when he responds to the latest round of attack ads out of the HarperCon$:

"On a day when we've got record bankruptcies, (when) we've got unemployment skyrocketing, all this government can think of doing is running attack ads on me," he said. "This is the old style of politics. We are in the middle of a serious economic crisis. This government needs to grow up and do its job properly."

Kind of says it all, doesn't it?

When You Have Nothing To Contribute ...

engage in character assassination - or at least that seems to be the HarperCon$ typical strategy.

A day after launching attack ads against Michael Ignatieff on the Internet, the Harper Conservatives are bringing out the big guns for a sustained and broad negative campaign against the Liberal Leader — launching six spots to run on national TV.

The Conservatives are stepping up their attacks on Mr. Ignatieff in order to end what they suggest has been a “free ride” for the Liberal Leader in the Canadian media.

... because nothing says "Good Government" like the governing party slagging their opponents, does it?

Bishop Henry Speaks - Apparently Stelmach Didn't Listen

So, Bishop Henry has broken his silence on Bill 44.

Apparently, it doesn't go far enough to suit him:

Many of us, especially those who have been charged under the current Alberta human rights legislation, have been advocating for significant legislative reforms, i. e. to incorporate amendments to preclude anti-religious actions.

Why yes, of course - because anyone who would dare challenge Bishop Henry must be anti-religious. The fact that we might just be opposed to religiously inspired bigotry is lost on the Bishop.

Oh yes, and you were never "charged", Bishop. A complaint was filed. As far as I know, the crown (the only body that can lay "charges" in court) never filed any such accusations in the courts.

Bill 44 includes "sexual orientation" as an added protected area. Since there is a tendency to further extend this protection to mean promotion of a lifestyle, many parents requested that this kind of initiative be balanced by explicit confirmation of parental rights regarding the education of their children. A similar provision already exists in the School Act at Section 50 (2).

Uh huh. "Promotion of a lifestyle" - got it. I've heard the meme of the "gay lifestyle" for so many years that it's beyond meaningless. Bishop Henry, and the rest of the religious right wing keep using this phrase, as if to imply it means all sorts of darkness without even bothering to actually pay attention to the mundane reality.

Furthermore, all education is faith-based to some extent. It's time to ask why the opinions of the majority of the citizens in Alberta are being ignored, i. e., "why should the faith of the atheist and agnostic be the only and the governing paradigm in public education?"

Coming from a man whose faith has had its own unique school district arrangements in Alberta since day one, I find this bit of whining particularly ironic. Of course, the good bishop is utterly ignoring not only the existence of the Roman Catholic school boards in this province, but also the plethora of religiously centered Charter Schools and private schools in this province.

It is painfully obvious that the majority of the caucus didn't read Ezra Levant's recently released book, Shakedown. Pity. D+might even be too generous a mark!

Well, we all know how cozy Henry has become with Levant in recent years. Levant's claims in "Shakedown" have been called into question on numerous fronts. It is a sad commentary that the Bishop hasn't apparently even attempted to think through the implications of this bill, and has instead chosen to parrot the dubious wisdom of Levant.

Like Levant, Bishop Henry unhappy because Bill 44 doesn't go as far as he would like.

Bill 44 is deeply flawed, but not for the reasons Bishop Henry raises.

Fingerprinting The Homeless

It's taken me a few days to absorb the implications of Calgary's DropIn Center scanning client fingerprints.

Superficially, the motives are all fine and reasonable - increased safety for the clients and staff of the center, and so on. But, something about it kept on niggling away at me as troublesome.

First, I'll raise the obvious problems of any organization having this kind of data.

The security of the data itself is an enormous problem. The DropIn Center is not an organization that is going to have a great deal of experience with data security. We don't know what steps they have taken to ensure that the actual data is not accessible to unauthorized users; nor do we have any sense if they have taken steps to ensure that the machines hosting the physical data are not readily accessible to anyone. (It takes about five minutes with a screwdriver to yank a hard drive out of most machines these days). What is the DropIn Center's plan for handling backups, for securing that backup media, and eventually for disposing of data? Perhaps they have dealt with these issues adequately, perhaps not.

This is a very real concern that we have to think about. Of all our personal information, our fingerprints, next to DNA, are among the most absolute markers of identity. To date, we have only allowed government organizations to have that data, and we routinely castigate them when someone makes an error in handling our personal data. (How many times have we heard of a computer with the records of thousands of citizens being stolen or lost? - plenty) In today's era of identity theft, this is a huge risk, and having databases of biometric data floating out there that are unsecured, or only minimally secured should give all of us pause for concern.

The second concern we have to think about is the isolation of that data. To the best of my knowledge, there are no mechanisms in law which would prevent the DropIn Center from sharing that data with various law enforcement agencies. While such sharing of data would no doubt be a gross violation of trust, I doubt that there is much to prevent the Center from granting law enforcement requests for access. I'm sure that the DropIn Center has good intentions of not doing this, but all it will take is one "emergency" where the Police apply to the courts for access to that data, and suddenly they have access to a large body of fingerprints that were gathered outside of legitimate law enforcement activity.

Now, you might look at that and say "well, if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear". With the capriciousness with which governments can act (especially here in Alberta where the governing party has minimal opposition), it takes very little for something that wasn't criminal before to suddenly become a criminal act. It wasn't so long ago in this country that we jailed people on the basis of falling in love with someone of the same gender, and there are those who would quite happily recriminalize that. For that matter, some of Calgary's Aldermen have essentially tried to criminalize being homeless.

Lastly, we should not lose sight of the fact that fingerprints are generally seen by the public as something used as part of criminal investigation and law enforcement. The clients of the DropIn Center would rightly be upset at being treated like criminals, even though they may have done absolutely nothing illegal.

Loose Cannon About To Embarrass Canada ... Again

I see that Harper has sent sent Lawrence Cannon to China to lecture them on human rights issues.

Harper has done more damage to Canada-China relationships since 2006 than any of us could suspect. Sending Cannon over there is, in many respects, going to be seen by Beijing as another snub.

Given Canada's appalling treatment of its citizens held abroad in dubious circumstances, its not like the Harper government is in any position to lecture anybody on human rights - and Beijing knows this. They also know that they are in control at this point in time.

I'm putting better than even odds that Cannon will continue Harper's blowhard patterns and he will make already chilly relations with China positively Arctic. (Why do you think Canadian students were quarantined last week? This is typical of how China expresses its displeasure, and I expect that the Harper approach to things will continue to make a bad situation worse.

The Clerk of the Privy Council

Darryl Raymaker has it perfectly summarized.

... and if you want a taste of what is to come if his prognostications are correct, just take a look at what Alberta is doing to its health care program and human rights legislation.

No Big Surprise Here

The HarperCon$ continue to dodge their duty to Omar Khadr - this time by appealing the court verdict of a few weeks ago.

“The Government of Canada has consistently stated that Omar Khadr faces serious charges,” said a statement from the department of Foreign Affairs.

“After careful consideration of the legal merits of the ruling from the Canadian Federal Court issued on April 23, the Government of Canada has decided to appeal the decision.

“As the matter is currently under litigation, we will provide no further comment at this time.”

Ummm...no Khadr is not facing serious charges. At most he is facing a bunch of "charges" that only stand up in a faux court concocted by the Bush II government to get political convictions.

You couldn't put Khadr into a criminal court in either Canada or the United States and have the charges stand up for more than about thirty five seconds - you know, about the length of time it takes to point out that he was underage at the time and that most of the "corroborating" evidence was extracted under torture. (Oh wait - they didn't "torture", did they? It was "enhanced interrogation" - by means of such helpful techniques as near drowning people)

If Khadr is in fact chargeable with "serious crimes", then repatriate him, and try him in Canada's courts. But then, I'm pretty sure that any sentence he might receive has been more than made up by his incarceration in Guantanamo Bay.

And then there's the latest bunch of idiocy to be tabled regarding Mr. Abdelrazik:

He should get himself off the United Nations's 1267 list, Elizabeth Richards, a Justice Department lawyer, replied, referring to the Security Council's list of terrorist suspects, named after UN Resolution 1267, which created it.

“But how are you supposed to respond [to the secret allegations] when you don't know why you are on the list?” the judge asked.

There was no answer from Ms. Richards.

...
Mr. Abdelrazik, the only Canadian on the UN blacklist, was added by the Bush administration in 2006. But no reason or evidence has ever been made public. He has denied any links with al-Qaeda and, before the Harper government agreed to ask the UN to delist him in 2007, he was cleared of criminal and terrorist links by both the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Last month, two hours before he was to fly home – 200 Canadian chipped in to buy him a ticket – Mr. Cannon rescinded previous promises of a one-way travel document and designated him, without giving reasons, a national security risk.

“The refusal of a passport on national-security grounds does not violate the Charter,” Ms. Richards told the court yesterday.

Ms. Richards and her Justice Department colleague, Anne Turley, insisted that the whole long litany of promised one-way travel documents that were never delivered – because the government kept changing what Mr. Abdelrazik had to do to get them – was no longer an issue that they need to consider.

Canada's Conservative government has apparently become a bunch of apologists for the worst aspects of the Bush II regime. Still more evidence that Canadians should be embarrassed by Harper and Co.