Searching for Nuclear Waste Solutions

"The whole purpose of WIPP [Waste Isolation Pilot Plant] is to isolate this long-lived radioactive, hazardous waste from the accessible environment, from people and the things people need in order to live life on Earth."
J.R. Stroble, head, business operations, Department of Energy Carlsbad Field Office

The Nation's only deep depository of nuclear waste -- photo: Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

"It's 80 percent through its lifetime, and it has disposed of less than 40 percent of the waste and has cost more than twice as much as it was supposed to."
"How great of a success is that?" 
"[The problem is that besides the Cold War-era waste that has yet to be dealt with, more keeps being generated by nuclear power plants and the federal government.]"
"We need to decide what our capacities are actually going to be -- how much nuclear power waste are we going to create, how much nuclear weapons waste are we going to create -- so that we can then put our arms around the problem."
Don Hancock, Southwest Research and Information Center

"It was exciting to be working on what was then going to be the world's first deep-geologic repository for that class of waste."
"Nothing that radioactive had been put that deep underground before. And that's still true twenty years later."
Peter Swift, senior scientist, Sandia National Laboratories

Nuclear waste shipments en route to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in 2011

Los Alamos National Laboratory/Flickr

The issue of storing radioactive waste resulted in heated debates about delivering the waste to the state of New Mexico in the 1980s. There was the argument that New Mexico had a moral obligation to receive the waste and agree to the building of the depository in view of its legacy of uranium mining, along with its role in the development of the atomic bomb, recalled Toney Anaya, New Mexico governor at the time.

And so it was that in a remote stretch of the New Mexico desert the American government set out an experiment to prove that radioactive waste could be disposed of safely, deep underground. It would then be rendered less of an environmental threat. That underground safety deposit site has been in operation for twenty years and has received over 12,380 shipments, representing tons of Cold War-period waste of decades resulting from producing bombs and ongoing nuclear research across the U.S.

The deep depositories in salt caverns of the underground facility receive several shipments of boxes and barrels packed tight with lab coats, rubber gloves, tools and debris contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive elements, every week. In 2014 there was a radiation leak, forcing a three-year shut-down of the site, delaying the cleanup program and bringing about policy changes at national laboratories and defence sites across the country.

Drums of highly toxic radioactive transuranic wastes inside a salt cavern at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico, March 2006  Brian Vander Brug/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy set out to investigate reports that workers at the site might have been exposed to hazardous chemicals last year. Decommissioned nuclear weapons production in Washington state, a top nuclear research lab in Idaho and other locations in South Carolina and elsewhere in the country have been able to truck their radioactive elements to the site. Without the existence of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, plutonium-contaminated waste would simply be left outside exposed to the elements.

J.R. Stroble, head of operations at the Department of Energy's Carlsbad Field Office, considers the site a success, pointing to 22 sites around the country that have been cleared of waste because there has been somewhere to take it all to. He cites Rocky Flats, a former nuclear weapons plant outside Denver with a history of leaks, spills and other safety and environmental violations which the facility has relieved of its waste. The WIPP was originally slated to operate for around 25 years, but recently it was decided to timeline the site to the year 2050.

In the 1950s, the National Academy of Sciences had recommended disposing of atomic waste in deep geological formations, leading scientists to consider the New Mexico site two decades on, convincing themselves and then federal regulators of its safety. They had first to determine that ancient sea water trapped between salt crystals and bound up in thin bands of clay inside the salt deposit would thousands of years later pose no threats to stability of the waste.

Trucking nuclear waste to the Carlsbad, New Mexico, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

A Civil Servant's Interpretation of Canadian Law

"So while I typed out notes during the phone call, I took the extraordinary and otherwise inappropriate step of making an audio recording of the conversation without so advising the Clerk."
"This is something that I have never done before this phone call and have not done since."
"It does not matter how I would look in doing that -- I would be a mockery, and that is not the problem -- [in acceding to the persistent and frequent urging of principals in the PMO and the Clerk of the Privy Council to shelve her moral principles and go astride the law to satisfy the wish for the Prime Minister to shield SNC Lavalin from criminal prosecution], the bigger problem is what it would look like down the road for the government."
"One, it has never been done before, but two, this is going to look like nothing but political interference by the prime minister, by you, by everyone else that has been involved in politically pressuring me to do this."
"This conversation, previous conversations I’ve had with the PM and people around him are entirely inappropriate. It is political interference."
Jody Wilson-Raybould, former Minister of Justice

"You are not just the attorney general, you are the minister of justice in a cabinet. I am not seeing anything inappropriate here."
"That is not my recollection of the conversation [above]. I do not have an independent recollection of the event. I did not wear a wire, record the conversation or take extemporaneous notes."
Michael Wernick, former Clerk of the Privy Council

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould take part in the grand entrance as the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation commission is released on Dec. 15, 2015. (The Canadian Press)

"[The clerk of the Privy Council Office (PCO) never briefed Justin Trudeau on his talk with ex-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould."
"[The Prime Minister was] unaware of the full contents of this recording before today."
"[The prime minister] should have spoken directly with the former justice minister and attorney general about this matter — and wishes that she had come to him."
"[There was] clearly an erosion of trust over the past few months between PMO, the clerk of the Privy Council, and the former justice minister and attorney general."
Statement from the Prime Minister's Office

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau professed to being confused over his former Attorney-General's claims of having been relentlessly harassed by his executive assistants and advisers. They, evidently, took it upon themselves with no guidance whatever from him, much less orders, to press Jody Wilson-Rayboult to reconsider her decision not to intervene when the prosecutorial services decided not to extend a DPA agreement to SNC Lavalin over its criminal bribery (under Canadian law) of Libyan officials to secure contracts.

A Delayed Prosecution Agreement which would have resulted in the construction and engineering firm paying a fine, pledging to reform, and getting on with business rather than facing a criminal trial and being restricted from government contracts for a ten-year penalty period. The prosecution service, held to be immune from political interference had determined that SNC did not qualify under the provisions that might exempt it from a criminal trial, and the former Minister of Justice agreed. And she was not amenable to being badgered by anyone to reverse her judgement.

When Michael Wernick returned again to the subject with Wilson-Raybould he made it clear that he was intervening on the direct orders of the prime minister: "Alright...um...well I am going to have to report back before he leaves...he is in a pretty firm frame of mind about this so...I am a bit worried..." It takes no genius mind to infer from that statement that direct and immediate contact took place between himself and the prime minister and what the subject was. And the threat implicit in "Well...it is not a good idea for the Prime Minister and his Attorney General to be at loggerheads" speaks volumes of the reason for Wilson-Raybould's removal as Minister of Justice.

And certainly while Clerk of the Privy Council snapped at the Justice Committee interviewing him about the matter that he wasn't wearing a wire, that he hadn't made a recording, that he simply did not recall the type of details that in her testimony before the committee Jody Wilson-Raybould made it quite clear just how she was being pressured by all and sundry to change her judgement in favour of following the prime minister's line because "jobs were at stake", his recalcitrance to recall was laid bare by the simple reality that someone else recorded a critical conversation revealing absolute proof of malfeasance and false testimony.

And, as Wilson Raybould admitted when she realized that the fix was in and she was about to suffer the consequences: "I am waiting for big...the other shoe to drop, so I am not under any illusion how the Prime Minister has and gets things that he wants...I am just stuck doing the best job that I can..." presaging her dismissal and how wise she was in retrospect to record that damning conversation for posterity and an unfortunate legacy for this dismal failure of a Liberal government headed by a pretentious and unprepared-to-govern, egotistical dilettante.

"The prime minister stated publicly when issues about the propriety of the government's conduct in relation to the SNC matter arose that my ongoing presence in cabinet spoke for itself."
"I resigned the next day and I trust my resignation also speaks for itself."
Jody Wilson-Raybould

Antivax Validation -- In Canada?

"Choosing not to vaccinate is not illegal, negligent nor immoral. It is a personal choice."
"I am unable to find any risk to [the children] if they remain unvaccinated."
"Further, I am satisfied on the evidence the vaccines may pose additional risk to them."
"[The] most compelling [part of Bark’s -- alternative medicines practitioner -- testimony was her suggestion that the mother had a genetic mutation that made it more difficult to clear the] toxins [in vaccines, and that her sons may have inherited that mutation]."
Herschel Fogelman, family law arbitrator

An unnamed Canadian boy being vaccinated in 1959.   Library and Archives Canada/National Film Board

"[Much of what the arbitrator wrote] doesn’t make sense."
"[While it’s technically accurate that when everyone else around a child is well-vaccinated — creating herd immunity — the minimal risk posed by vaccines outweighs the extra benefit for that individual. However], we’d be in big trouble [if all Canadians thought that way and chose not to get immunized]."
"It’s everybody’s responsibility to be vaccinated."
Dr. Caroline Quach, pediatric infectious-disease specialist, past president of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Canada

A divorced couple with joint custody of two school-age children was unable to agree on vaccination for their children. The mother vehemently opposed it, their father was strongly in favour of vaccinating the children. Their disagreement ended up in arbitration, leading lawyer and family law arbitrator Herschel Fogelman to rule in the mother's favour against vaccinating the children. The father was directed by the arbitrator to pay the mother's legal bills of $35,000.

Even as the case was being heard, both of the children contracted pertussis (whooping cough) because they missed the standard child vaccination, to protect against measles, mumps and whooping cough. The father's new partner, pregnant at the time, had to submit to a pertussis booster in recognition of the potentially deadly effect on newborns that whooping cough represents. This is happening at a time of old diseases returning to plague society, reflecting the rise of parents refusing to vaccinate their children.

In this Toronto case, the father, Arnaud Presti, plans a challenge of the ruling in court, refusing to allow a lawyer acting as a family arbitrator to have the last word, arguing that "the system is broken". "I really feel a sense of injustice. It doesn't seem normal that the government is not helping my child get vaccinated." Granted joint custody of the two boys, aged 12 and eight, in a 2015 divorce settlement, a process to resolve disputes was included. Evidently that process failed in this instance.

The mother of the two boys had two witnesses called by the lawyer she had retained. One of the witnesses was a Dr. Toni Bark, a medical doctor who decided to abandon general practise to focus on homeopathy, and who regularly appears at anti-vaccination events in the U.S. The arbitrator allowed her testimony as a vaccination expert. In several recent cases in the States judges there withheld that kind of expert recognition from her, referencing her as a general medicine authority.

"Reported measles cases spiked in 2017, as multiple countries experienced severe and protracted outbreaks of the disease. This is according to a new report published today by leading health organizations."
"Because of gaps in vaccination coverage, measles outbreaks occurred in all regions, while there were an estimated 110 000 deaths related to the disease."
"Using updated disease modelling data, the report provides the most comprehensive estimates of measles trends over the last 17 years. It shows that since 2000, over 21 million lives have been saved through measles immunizations. However, reported cases increased by more than 30 percent worldwide from 2016."
"The Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean Region, and Europe experienced the greatest upsurges in cases in 2017, with the Western Pacific the only World Health Organization (WHO) region where measles incidence fell."
World Health Organization report   29 November 2018

"There is very little grounds to see her as an expert on vaccine or even on medicine", commented law professor Dorit Weiss of the University of California Hastings, whose studies focus on legal aspects of immunization. Yet Mr. Fogelman heard out Dr. Bark's outline on perils she saw related to vaccination, despite studies pointing to vaccination being the cause of only minor side effects in exchange for its prevention of many serious illnesses.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 53 confirmed reports of deaths were received after 110 million doses of HPV vaccine were administered; no evidence being found that any of those deaths which occurred some time after the vaccinations, were caused by the inoculations. Dr. Bark's testimony earned her $11,000 which was to come out of the $35,000 for legal defence awarded to the boys' mother which the father was ordered to pay.

Venezuela's Political Medical Services

"There was oxygen, but they didn't let me use it [on elderly patients with heart failure urgently requiring oxygen]."
"I argued with my colleagues over and over. Yes, of course there was oxygen, but they didn't let me use it [to save a life if it was the life of an opposition supporter]."
"The theme was chronic illnesses, the ones where you would die if patients didn't get medicine, and that's how they [the Maduro administration] controlled people." 
"When the elections came, everything appeared: medicine, gas, dressings for bandages, injection serums."
Dr. Yansnier Arias, Cuban doctor working in Venezuela

"You arrived with vitamins and some pills for blood pressure [or the like]."
"And when you started to gain their [patients'] trust, you started the questions: 'Do you know where your voting place is?"
"Are you going to vote'?"
Dr. Carlos Ramirez, Cuban doctor assigned to work in Venezuela

"The Cuban government wants to make sure the Venezuelan regime survives and is willing to do anything in their power to support Maduro."
"It is unspeakable."
Jose Miguel Vivanco, director, Human Rights Watch Americas program

"They come to your house they ask you a series of questions, and you start to think, if I answer 'no', they can cut me from health care."
"It just leaves you overwhelmed."
Unidentified Venezuelan patient

A Cuban doctor treats a patient in Venezuela.

(Fernando Llano/AP)

Cuban doctors who were dispatched under Cuba's program of humanitarian aid to undeveloped and struggling countries to provide them with Cuba's famous 'barefoot doctors' program, set out at their country's behest to help the medically vulnerable, and many, with exposure to the corruption in Venezuela, have found it impossible to carry out their mission of providing optimum, unbiased and expert medical expertise to patients. Venezuela uses the cudgel of withholding care to any of its health-impaired citizens who fail to commit to supporting the Maduro administration.

For Dr. Hansnier Arias who had worked initially in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, sent there by the government of Cuba, one of thousands of doctors the socialist country routinely deploys in ties between other countries, knew his medical skills could help Venezuelans at a time that its medical system was beginning to collapse. It soon became obvious to him, however, that President Nicolas Maduro's intention was that not everyone would be treated.

When last May's national election was on the cusp, orders were that Maduro must win the vote, whatever the cost. And that cost meant that Maduro needed to ensure votes would come his way, so a dwindling food and medicine, and treatment supply was awarded supporters and denied opponents supporting the opposition. And that determination embroiled Cuba's international medical corps. The system so offended 16 members of the Cuban medical mission to Venezuela that they abandoned their positions.

Cuban doctors at the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, Cuba on November 23, 2018. REUTERS/Fernando Medina

Ordered to a door-to-door mission throughout impoverished neighbourhoods, the Cuban doctors were instructed to offer medicine to people and at the same time warn their patients that medical services would be cut should they choose not to vote for Mr. Maduro and his candidates. "These are the kinds of things you should never do in your life" a former Cuban supervisor stated under the condition of anonymity.

Dr. Ramirez, a dental surgeon, treated Venezuelans who had never had dental services ever before and revelled in his work in the country. And then came the order to spend weekends along with other medical workers handing out medicine and enlisting voters for the Socialist Party of Venezuela. Because of their abhorrence of this practise in manipulating people's human rights, those 16 Cuban medical personnel publicly revealed the Maduro practise of mixing medicine and politics.

Voters register with members of the ruling United Socialist Party before proceeding to a polling post to vote in presidential elections in Valencia, Venezuela, Sunday, May 20, 2018. (AP)

Health care in Venezuela, according to a new Constitution dated 1999, is considered a universal right. And with that recognition Venezuela turned to Cuba to launch medical missions in their country. Those missions to over 60 countries represent a proud tradition for Cuba and also a very remunerative one, gaining it an estimated $8 billion in cash over time. In Venezuela's case, their medical mission from Cuba was paid for with oil.

The doctors described an identification system named the "homeland card" which the Socialist Party used for entitlements to food subsidies and for voting id. Doctors were instructed to register people for the cards. The cards became a symbol to people of the government's heavy-handed control. That the use of the cards would enable the government to determine how they had voted and then restrict their food as retaliation.

One epileptic patient in the hospital who required treatment refused the homeland card, to Dr. Arias's recollection. She was then sent away without medication "Because she was from the opposition". Dr. Arias left Venezuela for Chile, where he plans to remain. He works now cleaning floors in a hospital since professional work as a doctor has eluded him. "If I can't be a doctor, I at least want to be a person", he declared.

"With [late President Hugo] Chavez it had been hard, but with Maduro, starting in 2013, it was worse."
"It became a form of blackmail: ‘You’re not going to have medicine. You’re not going to have free health care. You’re not going to have prenatal care if you’re a pregnant woman'."
Cuban doctor

Two weeks after 3-year-old Ashley Pacheco scraped her knee, she was fighting for her life as her family scoured the city for rare antibiotics.

(Ariana Cubillos/AP) 

 

Defying Islamist Control : Saudi Women Activists

"She wanted to go back and kind of pay back to the women in Saudi Arabia because she had been able to come to Canada, travel, live abroad, gain a new understanding of the world."
"I've kind of been ... in awe."
"She's been charged on a bunch of, in our opinion, bogus charges. And we're obviously getting more and more worried."
Urooba Jamal, freelance journalist, British Columbia

Vancouver-based friends of UBC graduate Loujain al-Hathloul held a photo shoot last fall to show their support for her and other detained women’s rights activists in Saudi Arabia. Pictured in the foreground from left to right are Ayendri Ishani Riddell, Narissa Diwan and Rauza Khan. In the back are Urooba Jamal and Atiya Jaffar. Doaa Jamal

"We know that some of the women [activists] were charged with promoting women's rights and calling for the end of the male guardianship system."
"The women were also charged with contacting international organizations, foreign media and other activists, including their contact with Amnesty International."
Jacqueline Hansen, spokeswoman, Amnesty International Canada

"Loujain told us she has been beaten, electrocuted and sexually harassed."
"During a recent visit, we learned from Loujain that her captors had taken her to a psychologist to help her recover from torture she had endured. But she fainted from the trauma of reliving her experiences."
"On her second visit to the psychologist she says she was blindfolded and duct taped to a wheelchair."
Walid al-Hathloul, Toronto, brother 

"Even today, I am torn about writing about Loujain, scared that speaking about her ordeal might harm her."
"But these long months and absence of hope have only increased my desperation to see the travel bans on my parents, who are in Saudi Arabia, revoked and to see my brave sister freed."
Alia al-Hathloul, sister

"We are concerned by the detention of women rights activists, including Loujain al-Hathloul."
"Canada remains committed to advocating for the detained activists in their struggle for gender equality and human rights. We have raised this situation with Saudi officials and will continue to do so, alongside our international partners."
"Canada will never hesitate to defend human rights and we believe that this dialogue is critical to international diplomacy."
Global Affairs Canada

Rights campaigner Loujain al-Hathloul is on trial for unspecified charges in Riyadh. Photograph: Reuters

Saudi national Loujain al-Hathloul was permitted to leave Saudi Arabia to attend university in Canada, at the University of British Columbia, where she studied several years ago and made fast friends with other foreign students. Urooba Jamal, who became her friend, was an executive of the Pakistani Students' Association at the university and Loujain al-Hathloul had become active in the group, one year helping to organize relief efforts when Pakistan was struggling with dreadful flooding conditions.

Loujain al-Hathloul (centre, next to the woman in the pink hijab) is pictured with other members of the UBC Pakistani Students’ Association in 2012. She graduated from UBC in 2014. Hiba Rajpar

After graduating in 2014, al-Hathloul returned to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and quickly made headlines after she videotaped herself defying the country's ban on women drivers, which resulted in imprisonment for 70 days. A year later, she was among the first women in Saudi Arabia to run for elected office in municipal elections, the only level of government newly-open to women to compete in.

Screen capture from a Nov. 30 2014 video made by Loujain al-Hathloul as she drove towards the Saudi border from the United Arab Emirates. AP Photo/Loujain al-Hathloul, File

However, things have not gone well for al-Hathloul, 28. Since early 2018 she has been in detention together with a number of other Saudi women's rights activists cast as "traitors" in Saudi media. Friends, family and human rights groups are demanding that Western nations make more of an effort to persuade Saudi authorities to release the women as they prepare for a hearing in criminal court today. On March 13 al-Hathloul and another ten women appeared for their first court hearing in Riyadh.

Demonstrators from Amnesty protest outside the Saudi Arabian embassy in Paris to release the jailed female activists. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters

None of the women were given access to legal representation, leading human rights groups to call for international monitors to enter the country in the wake of accusations that Saudi interrogators have tortured some of the women, denied by Saudi officials. Held incommunicado, al-Hathloul was finally permitted a visit from her family. Al-Hathloul was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by foreign affairs critic Helene Laverdiere, Member of Parliament, quoted as saying: The Trudeau government needs to "walk the talk"; to halt a $15-billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

On a previous occasion, Saudi Arabia reacted in an unexpectedly ferociously-explosive manner to posts by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland calling for Saudi Arabia to release Samar Badawi, activist sister of imprisoned and flogged Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, along with other women activists, from prison leading the Kingdom to expel Canada's ambassador, suspend trade and investments, and call home thousands of Saudi students studying at Canadian universities.

According to Rex Brynen, professor of political science at McGill University: "There's always the risk that it [public condemnation of Saudi Arabia] has the opposite effect [of that intended]; that is, that Riyadh doubles down on repression to prove it can't and won't be pressured. On the one hand, it might make Global Affairs Canada more cautious. On the other hand, given that Saudi Arabia has already retaliated for past criticism of their human rights record, maybe there isn’t all that much more they can do to us."

International rights groups and governments have called for the activists to be released [File: Benoit Tessier/Reuters]

Transitioning from Prison to Communities : A Sex Predator In Transition from Male to Female

"For years, Harks was well aware of his uncontrollable urges and desires to touch little girls in a sexual manner, yet he told police he could not afford counselling."
"Regardless of cost, he should have sought treatment long before he molested our children."
Community petition, former victims, B.C.

"The fact that Ms. Harks is in a halfway house instead of jail is a clear example of our justice system is broken."
"[The city of Brampton, Ontario] is livid [at having Harks] dumped [on them]."
"I am asking for your [Ontario Corrections Minister] immediate assistance in our community’s desire to reverse the decision by Correctional Service Canada to ‘dump’ Madilyn Harks (formerly Matthew Harks) in downtown Brampton."
Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown

"As a mother of three, I understand and share your concerns."
"I take this matter seriously and am working diligently to ensure Brampton is a safe place for us all."
Sonia Sidhu, Member of Parliament

Matthew Harks on the left, Madilyn Harks on the right.   Calgary Police/Peel Regional Police handout

Matthew Harks is a criminal sex predator. A man who preys on young girls, preferably below the age of nine. He is a serial predator and should have been declared such. He has been recognized as a high risk to re-offend ... and re-offend ... and re-offend, and should be kept in prison permanently. "Given your progress, it is reasonable and necessary to facilitate your successful reintegration into the community", read a Parole Board of Canada 2014 decision.

What progress they could be referring to is absent from the file of public knowledge. The man's victims, mostly girls under age eight, will likely live out their lives forever blighted by this man's appetite for sex with children. He has admitted to having victimized sixty children, retaining their underwear as "trophies" of his exploits targeting children. He is also a proud possessor of child pornography.

Matthew Harks began his career as a conscienceless child exploiter and sexual predator in British Columbia where he was found guilty of several assaults against preschool girls for which he served several months of house arrest. Once paroled, he attacked another young girl. He was imprisoned and free again in three years. He was diagnosed in 2006 by a psychiatrist with an "all encompassing preoccupation with interest in sexually abusing young girls".

He was first convicted in 2004 in his long career as a serial sexual attacker, beginning in British Columbia's Lower Mainland. Out of prison, he moved to Calgary, where local authorities there expressed dismay that he had decided to move there. "He does have the option to determine where he wants to be released and he chose Calgary. I'm not sure why", said Rich Veldhoen with the Calgary Police.

In 2014, Matthew Harks began presenting himself as a woman and the Parole Board of Canada loosened conditions of supervision designed to curb risks of sexual recidivism, and that included psychiatric treatment. Released into the community, he kept committing a string of parole violations, one involving an errand of running money for a still-incarcerated boyfriend landed him back in prison for 330 days where he/she violently attacked other inmates who happened to have "childlike appearance".

Succeeding his/her latest release from prison the now-named Madilyn Rebecca Harks decided to move to Brampton, Ontario. "The residents of Brampton will not tolerate this repeat sex offender living amongst them" Brampton Regional Coun.Gurpreet Singh Dhillon wrote in a letter to the federal Public Safety Minister.

There is no information public relating to the transition from male to female, whether hormone therapy or sexual reassignment surgery has been involved. Several provinces including Ontario require no physical change for residents to be recognized as having transitioned; an application for legal recognition simply requires a note from a doctor affirming that the patient identifies as different than their gender at birth.

As for the Correction Service of Canada, it deems transition procedures for gender dysphoric inmates to be an "essential medical service" one for which they are prepared to pay for hormone therapy and even surgery. Before an inmate born male is permitted to be transferred to a women's prison Canada requires evidence of genital surgery.

Yet imprisonment for an unspecified length of time to ensure public safety from the predations of a serial sexual offender targeting children is an obvious and necessary solution to sexual deviance of such a seriously malevolent nature. Hamstrung by the current social climate of empathetic 'understanding' of the 'illness' of gender confusion.

Peel Regional Police‏Verified account @PeelPoliceMedia

Community Safety Advisory - Offender Being Released to Brampton Area - https://www.peelpolice.ca    22 March 2019

The Thin[ner] Blue Line

"It was a bit of checkmate [trying to figure out which emergency calls to respond to]. We need to support these people in crisis, but the police are not the right ones to be dealing with them."
"It was all right, the police being the jack-of-all-trades, when there was a necessary amount of funding for the police. But if you've got 20,000 less police officers, less funding, then somebody needs to make the decision about what they want us to do."
"When the criminals realize that their gang is bigger than our gang, they start exploiting that."
Constable Richard Chant, West Midlands Police Department, Birmingham, England

Prioritisation programmes are aiming to ease pressure on officers while dealing properly with the most serious crime 

PA

"We have got a budget to work to, we have demand to meet, and have to make decisions about what we prioritize."
"All incidents of crime are of the utmost importance, but of course I would much rather our detectives are investigating stabbings and diverting gang members rather than dealing with some of the work which was possible to do when numbers were not so tight."
"We have to admit there are going to be crimes that we are responding differently to than we would have in the past."
"I know this may cause concern to members of the public and perhaps lead to fears that fewer offences will be prosecuted, but I must stress that detection rates for crimes being investigated by the TDIU have not fallen. We cannot do everything in the way we could before, crime is continually changing and adapting, and our numbers are fewer. We have had to realign our resources and invest more in different areas to meet the challenges we are facing. I want to reassure the public that we are here and will do everything in our power to help."
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Mark Simmons, London Metropolitan Police

Photo: Andrew Testa / The New York Times   Investigating a burglary at a supermarket in Birmingham, England, in November. Crime is rising, but Conservative-led austerity measures have led to cutbacks in police services.

In an eight-hour period the West Midlands Police Department took 1,452 emergency calls. A number that posed too great a challenge for the force to respond to, with fewer police at their disposal as a result of lost funding due to Britain's austerity situation over fears to extending itself too greatly financially given the uncertainty of the Brexit climate and what will ensue eventually. For some of those cases hours and days transpired before the callers saw a responding officer.

Take Birmingham as an example of the new reality in law and order during this strained state of responsiveness surrendering to austerity. While the range of emergency calls and their numbers has skyrocketed both in Birmingham and in most other British cities, far fewer officers are available to respond adequately. Britain's withdrawal from the EU and the budget pressures that have been exerted are nowhere near over as far as concerns and consequences are concerned.

Since the initiation in 2010 of the Conservative government's austerity program, the West Midlands Police Department alone has had its budget cut by $220 million, while across England and Wales police staffing has been reduced by roughly 20,000 police officers, leaving questions about whether the cuts themselves are major contributors to a notable spike in violent crime. In England and Wales murders and robberies have risen to their highest levels in the past ten years.

Social services have also been pared back under austerity, creating metastasizing problems that often fall to the police.   CreditAndrew Testa for The New York Times

Parallel cuts to social services where addiction services, housing benefits, gang mediation programs and social services for adults and children have all seen severe funding restrictions has only added to the chaos of social and security responsiveness. Police are forced to speed between emergency calls and to handle them all as best they can, so they are left with little time to patrol streets, making themselves visible to reduce the likelihood of crime.

Increasingly, police hours on health and welfare calls have left little space to collect evidence and solve crimes and as a result victims not in immediate danger must accustom themselves to waiting days for a police response, leading to a situation where the investigation of property crimes has become a vanishing low priority simply not pursued because of other, more critical areas requiring attention.

The site of a break-in attempt in Birmingham. Robberies or assaults in which the offender has left are supposed to get attention within an hour, but frequently wait days, one officer said. CreditAndrew Testa for The New York Times

This, in lock-step with recent decades of increasing diagnoses of severe mental illness, at the very time when services for these people have been reduced. As a result, officers in England and Wales have taken to detaining 60 percent more people in need of psychiatric services in 2015-16 than what pertained a decade ago -- while London police receive mental illness related calls once every four minutes.

The solution would appear simple enough; hire and train more officers. Taxi robberies and home break-in patterns are not being pursued simply because cases are shelved, with not even a cursory investigation, leading to a sense of hopelessness among victims who simply stop calling police. A situation very much appreciated by criminals for whom the situation is quite agreeable to their future and ongoing prospects.

Prime Minister Theresa May, in her previous incarnation as home secretary, was the original architect of the cuts. She also cracked down on corruption in police associations and stop-and-frisk tactics, and was responsible for the cutbacks in police personnel. The solution as some see it is to restore funding to social services, instead of expanding police force personnel, relieving them of the onerous task for which they are not professionally designed, of responding to mental health crises.

The British government has announced additional funding for the police forces, but public health budgets are expected to keep shrinking through 2021.   CreditAndrew Testa for The New York Times

Israel, Claiming Its Own

"The Six-Day War involved three distinct battlefronts, tied together by a shared desire on the part of the surrounding Arab states to eliminate Israel and erase the shame of their defeat 19 years earlier when they failed to destroy the nascent Jewish state."

"Egypt, the largest Arab state with a population of 31 million, massed troops on its border with Israel and imposed a naval blockade of Israel’s southern port, an act of war. Confronted with these aggressive moves, and the Arab leaders' promises to destroy the Jewish state, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against the Egyptian army and airforce. Egypt’s air force was quickly crippled, and a well-executed Israeli ground offensive routed the Egyptian forces in Gaza and the Sinai peninsula in four days."

"Buoyed by false reports of Egyptian success, Jordan initiated offensive actions against Israel from the eastern portion of Jerusalem and from lands it occupied west of the Jordan river (the West Bank). Israeli forces responded by attacking Jordanian military positions. After a three days of fierce fighting, especially in and around Jerusalem, Israeli forces defeated the Jordanians and gained control of all of Jerusalem as well as the West Bank, the historical heartland of the Jewish people known to Israelis as Judea and Samaria."

"Following an air attack by the Syrians on the first day of the war, Israel dealt a shattering blow to the Syrian air force. Hostilities continued in the days that followed, and on fifth day of the war, the Israelis mustered enough forces to remove the Syrian threat from the Golan Heights. This difficult operation was completed the following day, bringing the active phase of the war to a close."

An Israeli soldier in the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur of 1973 © Getty

One attempt after another by massed and co-ordinated Arab armies failed to dislodge Israel from the Middle East. The 1967 war imposed upon Israel by Egypt, Syria and Jordan selecting the most holy day in the Judaic religious calendar when the Jewish population would be observing the traditional High Holiday Day of Atonement took Israel by surprise, as it was meant to do. But the country had a goal of its own, to survive by any means, and survive it did, the memory of the Holocaust still fresh in the collective memory of its fighting troops.

Post-war Israel finally surrendered the Sinai, releasing it back to Egypt, despite the massive infrastructure funding it had expended in the peninsula, in exchange for something infinitely more precious to Israel; peace with its largest neighbour. To Jordan it extended the courtesy of control over the Muslim religious sites in east Jerusalem, despite that Israel's most sacred areas of its religious heritage are also located there. Mindful of Syria's penchant for bombing Israel from the Golan Heights, Israel's possession of the heights gained it an obvious protective advantage.

"After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability."
U.S. President Donald Trump

"If we’re going to talk about Syria, I think it’s important for me to thank President Trump for recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights."
"It’s so significant in historical terms because 52 years ago we acquired that territory in a defensive war. There’s one thing to achieve a military victory, which our brave soldiers did. It’s another thing to translate that military victory into a diplomatic victory. It took us 52 years to do that, and I think it will formally be declared, that diplomatic victory, tomorrow at the White House, and the people of Israel are very grateful to President Trump."
Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer

Israeli tanks in action on the Golan Heights during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war © AFP

Time and again Syria threatened to take back the Golan Heights from Israel. Israel has stated its willingness to return the Heights to Syria, in exchange for a peace agreement. That, despite settlement on the Heights, massive investment and pride in having taken it from an avowed enemy who, along with Egyptian and Jordanian cohorts intended to destroy Israel. Of the three, two decided post-war to sign peace agreements with Israel. Syria remained the holdout. Imagine now, signing a peace agreement with a tyrannical murderer with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Syrians on his hands.

How could trust and neighbourly reliance ever be established with such a vicious monster? Just as well that even its remotest contemplation would never become a reality. Arab states may be prepared to relent and re-admit Syria to the Arab League, shrugging off Bashar al-Assad's Shiite Alawite legacy of slaughter and destruction in a sectarian war with the help of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its subordinate Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist militias, but it's a stretch too far for a democratic nation to confer legitimacy on such a monstrous tyrant.

FILE Photo: An Israeli soldiers stands guard at an outpost in the Golan Heights.   AFP

The 500-square-mile territory that Israel controls is Israel's by right of defence of its tiny territory against violently invading armies who despite their numbers and the conviction of their hatred against Jews were unable to dislodge the Jewish nation from its heritage landscape. While Syria spent the half-century since Israel's successful defence of its Middle East presence and subsequent annexation of the Golan Heights, demanding its return, Israel made its own demands in exchange; a peace agreement.

In the final analysis, the Golan Heights is Israel's, and Israelis in general hold it to be so. The Knesset annexed the territory by law in 1981 and still negotiations continued; overtures to Syria to exchange the Heights for peace. Until the Syrian civil war intervened and the Syrian Assad regime demonstrated convincingly that no 'agreements' with such a regime could be tolerated. Iran now co-rules Syria, the regime becoming as much a proxy as Hezbollah and Iranian-linked Shiite militias.

As far as the international community is concerned, nothing has changed. They contend that the Golan Heights must be returned to Syria, in reflection of 1967 'borders' the international community approves of as the demarcation line between Israel and its neighbourly neighbours. They might believe in the simple utility of "land for peace", but Israel has some very notable examples of how well that works; Gaza an outstanding example of a unilateral effort that went nowhere.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967   Getty Images

China's Devious Displeasure

"…at the urging of intelligence officials, Five Eyes countries are leading the way when it comes to reducing ­dependence on Chinese firms in critical areas of the economy. For example, Australia has formally banned Huawei from its 5G rollout while Washington announced it will file criminal charges against Huawei for violating US sanctions against Iran and stealing trade secrets. This ­increases the likelihood of a total ban on equipment made by these firms such as Huawei. Britain and Canada have not made any decision but have expressed security concerns with Chinese firms."
"Of course, credible intelligence pointing to what is at stake is just one element behind any policy decision. The decisive factor is adequate political will to ­absorb diplomatic and possibly economic costs of Chinese displeasure. Washington and Canberra have been the most forward leaning. But the three other Five Eyes governments have been far more reluctant to explicitly ­accept that China is already working against their interests."
"This is why Beijing is shooting itself in the foot. Its exercise of ­arbitrary power over foreign citizens in China is causing the Communist Party to lose the battle for political hearts and minds. Previously the Trudeau government was accused by conservative ­opponents of being too lax in dealings with China. This even included accusations that Ottawa had become naive when it came to national security matters and technological co-operation with China. Last year Trudeau was ­reportedly briefed twice by intelligence officials about the dangers of allowing Huawei to help build the 5G network. Given recent events, it becomes politically difficult for Trudeau to make any ­argument for a softer approach towards China. Indeed, the Canadian leader took the dramatic step of sacking his ambassador to China, John McCallum, after McCallum said the arrest of Huawei’s Meng was unwarranted."                                                                                                                   John Lee, The Australian

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: BRYAN GEE. SOURCE IMAGES: REUTERS

Actually it was the too-public stench that led Prime Minister Trudeau to release old Liberal warhorse John McCallum from the China desk's mission. Like the Canadian prime minister whom he served before this one, Jean Chretien, McCallum believed that all (Canadian economic roads of the future) lead to China. Currying favour and supplication were big on Mr. Chretien's agenda. The solution Mr. McCallum proffered in fact, might have benefited his newer PM had it, or a version thereof been envisioned before arresting Meng Wanzhou, but Trudeau lacked the nimbleness to negotiate his position between the U.S. and China.

A word to the wise might have been all it would take; for McCallum as Canadian ambassador to China, to whisper in the knowingly receptive ear of Huawei's founder that his daughter might do well to rethink transiting Canada in a stopover, despite her comfortable familiarity with Vancouver as the owner of two luxury properties and her former status, pre-warrant as a permanent resident of the city. Once the die was cast, it was a clear expectation never fully realized by the government of Canada that China would respond, but never quite in the ferocious manner it did and does.

Canadian and Chinese flags stand at attention prior to a meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and China' President Xi Jinping in Beijing in December 2017. FRED DUFOUR / AFP/Getty Images files

The freezing of diplomatic niceties where China's ambassador to Canada felt free to accuse Canada of 'racism' in a rambling rant, the considerable cooling of a free trade agreement in the works (though to be perfectly fair, Prime Minister Trudeau by his incessant prattling about 'feminism' and women's rights in trade deals as in every and any metric of international exchange put the brakes on a free trade deal pre-Huawei), and the immediate arrest of two Canadians denied legal counsel, held virtually incommunicado, and ultimately charged with 'espionage'; the death sentence of a third for drug smuggling.

But China, as a powerful, influential, assertive and prickly leader (to perceived slights) in world trade and technology, the former through the mediums of undercutting world prices and thus sabotaging international production, along with its many probing successes in military and industrial espionage reflecting the latter, also has a very volatile and vehemently inflatable temper where its tantrums can strike with deadly effect in the most unexpected ways.

About 40 per cent of Canadian canola seed exports normally go to China, but the country has stopped buying  (CBC)

"While there was some initial optimism that Chinese concerns with canola trade could be resolved quickly, technical discussions to date have not indicated an immediate resolution is possible." 
"Canola seed exporters report that Chinese importers are unwilling to purchase Canadian canola seed at this time."
Canola Council of Canada (CCC)

Canada has been warned with dire consequences should it decide, as part of the Five Eyes intelligence community, to emulate three of its partners, the United States, Australia and New Zealand in shutting China's telecommunications industry giant Huawei out of its 5G development plans. That China was enraged with the arrest of Meng Wanzhou at the behest of U.S. justice where she will face charges of misleading American banking officials in the issue of business conducted with Iran despite U.S. sanctions is an understatement. But adding insult to injury by shutting out Huawei will bring the full thrust of the Chinese Communist Party's malignant reaction into force.

And so, though the Chinese population has taken to the use of Canada-specific canola products and China has been the importer of 40% of Canada's huge production of Canola products, that comfortable agricultural success story may be no more. For starters, China has 'identified' quite specific quality issues, refusing to accept shipments that it claims are infested. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has given those same products a clean bill of health, free from any and all impurities but China is adamant; it will no longer accept the product.

China's intimidating, wide-ranging plans for its future as the globe's most influential, important source of everything imaginable from consumer products to AI technology in every consumable sphere may inspire fear and trepidation in the minds of alert world leaders, but in the economies of struggling countries China's willingness to invest and to build critical infrastructure to nominally benefit those countries and hugely benefit China has resonance. To those countries who exhibit a healthy dose of caution in dealing with China it has a message: beware the consequences.

But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a message of his own to China, in response to its decision to discontinue importing Canadian canola: "We're going to roll up our sleeves and work with the Chinese officials to demonstrate that canola should continue to flow safely from Canada to China."
Great plan, Mr. Prime Minister.