The (spectacularly failed) Government of Justin Trudeau

"The trust that previously existed between these two individuals and our team has been broken."
"Whether it's taping conversations without consent, or repeatedly expressing a lack of confidence in our government and in me personally as leader, it's become clear that Ms. Wilson-Raybould and Dr. Philpott can no longer remain part of our Liberal team."
"[Extending] patience and understanding [with the former Justice Minister's complaints and that of the former Treasury Board head failed, leaving no option but to eject them to avoid a] civil war."
"Civil wars within parties are incredibly damaging because they signal to Canadians that we care more about ourselves than we do about them."
"We've taken every effort to address their concerns, and ultimately, if they can't honestly say that they have confidence in this team ... then they cannot be part of this team."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

The Canadian Press

"What I can say is that I hold my head high and that I can look myself in the mirror knowing I did what I was required to do and what needed to be done based on principles and values that must always transcend party.
"[No regrets, I] spoke the truth as I will continue to do."
"Now I know many of you [members of Liberal caucus] are angry, hurt and frustrated. And frankly so am I, and I can only speak for myself."
"I am angry, hurt and frustrated because I feel and believe I was upholding the values that we all committed to."
"We committed to break old and cynical patterns of concentrating power in the hands of a few unelected staffers. I believed we were going to uphold the highest standards that support the public interest and not simply make choices to create partisan advantage."
"In giving the advice I did, and taking the steps I did, I was trying to help protect the prime minister and the government from a horrible mess. I am not the one who tried to interfere in sensitive proceedings. I am not the one who made it public, and I am not the one who publicly denied what happened. But I am not going to go over all of the details here again. Enough has been said."
Jody Wilson Raybould, former Minister of Justice

Dr. Jane Philpott (left), Jody Wilson-Raybould (right) still from video

Team players, according to the Liberal playbook, do not go out of their way out of an insignificant sense of moral outrage to bring calumny down on the party and the leader they must support as an integral part of caucus. When the government decides to err on the side of caution in preserving Canadian jobs -- a critical issue with this government -- and to achieve that end, chooses to intervene in a prosecution's decision to proceed with criminal proceedings on charges of corruption against a signal Canadian industry, the government reserves the right to step in.

The justice system must not be taken lightly, certainly that's true, but the higher calling of this prime minister motivated him to preserve the opportunities available to SNC-Lavalin to continue to provide employment for 9,000 Canadians by helping the engineering-construction firm avoid a criminal conviction. There cannot possibly be anything amiss in the effort to preserve jobs, now can there? A Quebec corporation that has funneled altruistically over a hundred thousand dollars to the federal Liberals....?

There are not enough words to express how grateful Canadians should be to this prime minister for shunting away scruples over political interference in the justice system of the country in the far greater interests of preserving jobs for ordinary Canadians. That would be the ordinary Canadians who now lament the hundreds of thousands of energy industry jobs that have disappeared resulting from this same government's intention to cap the industry in the interests of the prime minister's environmental portfolio, costing Canada's export potential billions in trade profits.

But you've got to look at the matter from the perspective of the prime minister: "If a politician secretly records a conversation with anyone, it's wrong. When that politician is a cabinet minister secretly recording a public servant, it's wrong. And when that cabinet minister is the attorney general of Canada, secretly recording the clerk of the Privy Council, it's unconscionable". So there you have it, the cabinet minister subjected to a barrage of interfering objections for her failure to instruct the public prosecutor to offer a remediation agreement to SNC-Lavalin to spare it from a criminal trial where defending her decision represents a reprehensible gambit.

The prime minister who instructed his lapdogs from the Minister of Finance on down to the elite staff at the PMO to harass the Minister of Justice to subvert justice is blameless. We know that to be so because the prime minister insists it to be. Just as he insisted that Jody Wilson-Raybould failed to communicate to him her unease at the constant interference, when she did just that repeatedly. The cabal around the prime minister set out on a none-too-subtle defamation campaign to undermine the credibility of the former Minister of Justice, but that's just politics, Liberal-style.

The audio recording which Wilson-Rayboult released to the Justice Committee revealed nothing that her previous testimony before the committee did not detail precisely. This was her back-up when the Clerk of the Privy Council chose to leave the impression that what the former Minister of Justice recounted between them; content, attitude, warning, might not have been as her description implied. He spoke with the authority vested in him by the prime minister not only to broach the subject, continue pressuring her, and warning her there would be consequences, and then denying it.

These are the consequences, a leader revealed for what he truly is, a mendacious egotist incapable of governing, and a political party for which such unscrupulous conduct reflects its values. The failure that is Justin Trudeau heaping fault on everyone, evading his responsibility like the hollow man that he truly is; inept, demanding, vainglorious and unremittingly vengeful when crossed.

#DaughtersoftheVote2019 PM Trudeau addresses DOTV Assembly as several young women turn their backs to him. He speaks about the need to listen to each other to understand POV. Nothing black and white in situations like JWR

Obama Makes Up Facts - Again by Douglas Murray February 9, 2015 at 5:00 am http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5200/obama-crusades The Crusades -- gruesome as they were -- were not some early outbreak of "Islamophobia." They were an effort, by Christian nations in Europe, to defend Christians in the Middle East who were being slaughtered by Muslim tribes, and specifically to take back the city of Jerusalem from the Muslim armies who had invaded it. It is a very strange interpretation of history to put the blame for slavery on Christians, but to ignore William Wilberforce, Abraham Lincoln and other Christians who led the world in fighting to abolish it. Slavery is still practiced by Muslims in Mauritania and, as recently seen, by Boko Haram. Barack Obama is the President of the United States, but to judge from his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday morning, one might get the impression that he thinks himself far more than that. He and his speechwriters presumably realised with the news in America, as in the rest of the world, dominated day in and day out with atrocious news stories from Muslim communities in the Middle East, the President would probably have to make a reference to Islamic violence. President Obama described ISIS as "a brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism." That "religion." rather than "Islam," was a notable nicety. Elsewhere, when he got into specifics, he indulged in a line of spread-the-blame-around-a-bit. He went on to say: "We see sectarian war in Syria, the murder of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, religious war in the Central African Republic, a rising tide of anti-Semitism and hate crimes in Europe, so often perpetrated in the name of religion." President Barack Obama, speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, 2015. (Image source: White House video screenshot) The Nigeria point is a neat one, suggesting that the religious conflict there is very much a "six of one and half a dozen of the other" problem, rather than a problem of Muslims slaughtering Christians. And who is to cast blame if both sides are doing it? But the point on rising anti-Semitism in Europe is avoidance and avoidance-blaming at its very best. They are not, it is important to state, just "often perpetrated in the name of religion." Because although people may be shocked to hear it, Europe is not going through a "rising tide of anti-Semitism and hate crime" because we have all become a bit too Christian, Jewish or secular in recent years . It has happened because post-war immigration into Europe has brought very large Muslim communities amongst whom anti-Semitism is, in the words of British Muslim journalist Mehdi Hasan, "routine and commonplace... our dirty little secret." It is from these communities that the upsurge in anti-Semitic hate-crimes -- which were at an all-time high in the UK last year -- has come. As eminent historians are so famous for doing, President Obama also chose to lecture on religious history, and do so as glibly and inaccurately as possible. As many another aspirant historian does, President Obama went in by way of the Crusades. He hadn't actually singled out Islamic extremism as a particular problem at the moment -- because he will not even name it -- but he did decide to say that everybody else could be just as guilty as the religion that must not be named: "Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ." Since it was President Obama who brought these up, you might have thought he would have had the information to know a little about the background. In particular that the Crusades -- gruesome as they were -- were not some early outbreak of "Islamophobia." They were an effort, by Christian nations in Europe, to defend Christians in the Middle East who were being slaughtered by Muslim tribes, and specifically to take back the city of Jerusalem from the Muslim armies who had conquered it. The question of whom Jerusalem ought to have belonged to is a long and interesting one, but unless you think that Muslim armies should have been allowed to conquer Jerusalem and wipe out Christians across the Middle East a millennium ago, it is hard to see why the Crusades should be regarded as a particular sin of Christians. And Christian Americans in particular might rightly wonder what guilt they are meant to feel for a religious war that took place centuries before America as a country even existed. As for slavery, do we really need to keep going around this one? Because while it is true that you can find religious people who endorsed slavery -- in the Bible and elsewhere -- any historian would find it hard to deny that the movement to abolish slavery was also led by Christians. Slavery is still practiced by Muslims in Mauritania and, as recently seen, by Boko Haram. It is a very strange interpretation of history that is willing to put the blame for slavery (a worldwide practice at most times in history) on Christians, but to ignore William Wilberforce, Abraham Lincoln (a Republican) and other Christians who led the world in fighting to abolish it. Only someone ignorant would claim that Islam is the only religion in whose name bad things have been done. But only a historian with an agenda would try to kick over the actual complexities to invent his own set of facts. In Britain, this effort to manipulate the facts in order to come to a pre-ordained conclusion is known as the "Whig interpretation of history." Perhaps Americans might rename it the "Obama interpretation of history." But in all of that -- these roles that show President Obama seems to think the office of President of the United States may not be quite good enough for him -- there was one further role that Obama also sought. That was the role of moralizer-in-chief. Because it remains fairly shocking to some of us that President Obama -- not least in a speech in which he talked about the importance of upholding "the distinction between our faiths and our government" -- should endeavor not only to lead the American people, but to tell them how to think and what to think. Never mind that in his present-day analysis in the Prayer Breakfast Speech, the President was unable even to name what it was he was trying to analyse. And never mind that the historical references in the speech were based on misreporting history. Most shocking is what the President obviously intended his audience to take away and learn from the speech. That lesson can be boiled down to: "Who are we to judge?" The answer, I trust, is obvious to readers, even if it is not obvious to President Obama. We are able to judge ISIS because there is every difference in the world between the United States and ISIS. The American people should of course be aware -- as everybody should be -- that nobody has a monopoly on virtue, just as nobody has a monopoly on vice. But if you look at the current global playing field, we do have the right to judge ISIS because we are not like them. What President Obama gave last week was not just a wrong analysis of the past and present. It was a justification for the argument that America does not have the legitimacy for doing anything meaningful against the great evil of our time, because we have "all been evil." It is probably not ahistorical to point out that the great men who have inhabited the President's job would, to a man, have been ashamed of him. Related Topics:  Douglas Murray

Telling All Of What?

The headline on the newspaper serving Canada's capital read: PM's ex-aide tells all. There's a gloating, misleading headline if ever there was one. Another one of those advisers within the inner circle of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's executive office. Another one upon whom the spotlight of malfeasance has shone. Another one who appears to relish his insight and the huge anticipation of political detractors to hear from him from his once privileged perspective what had 'gone wrong' in the PMO.

The minor headline read: Carson book says Harper wanted to shuffle Flaherty in 2007 ... as though this is some startling new revelation. Newspaper readers with a decent memory can recall that at the time something of that nature had been revealed. Prime Ministers do, after all, shuffle their Cabinet responsibilities from time to time, in the hope of giving a new impetus, appearing to do something of substance in moving a Minister from one portfolio to another.

In the hope, doubtless, that a better match will be achieved, that the Minister assigned to a new responsibility will jell better there than he/she had in the old one, distinguishing themselves, and in the process providing an improved performance, advancing the interests of the government and the country. Suddenly this is startling new news; profound enough in its implications to have been plucked out of a newly-published tell-all, to give it front-page prominence.

Somewhat like the cherry picking that was done with the publication of former Conservative organizer and confidant to Stephen Harper, academic Tom Flanagan. Whose own (temporary) fall from grace within conservative circles resulted from his having stated a personal position incongruent in its exculpation of viewers of child pornography with fundamental decency.

Bristling with resentment at the distancing of the Prime Minister with the publication of Mr. Flanagan's first unauthorized exploration of the politics and personality of Stephen Harper, this was Mr. Flanagan's obvious opportunity to strike back. And he did just that, to the best of his puerile ability. The Prime Minister of Canada has an authoritarian streak, and goodness gracious that is quite intolerable.

What he does not do, as the hugely respected (within Canada) American President Barack Obama states constantly is to remind the electorate during sober pronouncements, is that he is the Commander-in-Chief, and the President of the United States of America. Mr. Harper assumes that Canadians know who he is and what he represents; their best interests.

Now happens to be the turn of a formerly trusted adviser within the Prime Minister's inner circle. Yet another individual whom the Prime Minister trusted, former senior aide Bruce Carson. Mr. Harper does not abide being close to people whose actions betray justice and decency, and Mr. Carson qualified for the distancing that arrived when it was divulged that he had engaged in extracurricular corruption to benefit a mistress.

His revelation from his close personal recollection would have no relevance whatever had it not been for the recent death of former Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty. The esteem with which Mr. Flaherty was held by those of his colleagues who knew him well, and in particular by the Prime Minister belies any hint of malice on the part of Mr. Harper, but does point out his administrative concerns for the portfolios that are of such importance to the country.

India PM Singh in 'terror' warning to Pakistan ahead of talks

BBC News online -- 29 September 2013

Manmohan Singh stressed that Kashmir was "an integral part of India"

Indian PM Manmohan Singh has said Pakistan must stop being "the epicentre of terrorism", ahead of talks with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.

Mr Singh also stressed that he shared Mr Sharif's hopes for better relations between the two Asian rivals.

Ahead of their meeting in New York, Mr Sharif called for a "new beginning" with Delhi.
The bilateral ties have been strained over continuing deadly clashes in the disputed region of Kashmir.

On Thursday, at least 10 people were killed when militants stormed a police station and an army camp in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Delhi has also blamed Pakistan-based militants for the deadly attacks in Mumbai in 2008, urging Islamabad to punish the perpetrators.

Indian soldiers said they shot dead three gunmen in this week's attack

 

"For progress to be made, it is imperative that the territory of Pakistan and the areas under its control are not utilised for aiding or abetting terrorism," Mr Singh said in a speech at the UN General Assembly on Saturday.

"It is equally important that the terrorist machinery that draws its sustenance from Pakistan be shut down."

Mr Singh also said he reciprocated Mr Sharif's hopes for better relations, but stressed that Delhi viewed Kashmir as "an integral part of India".

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan by the Line of Control.
India in the past has expressed concern over Mr Sharif's perceived ties to radical Islamic groups operating in Pakistan, correspondents say.

In his speech at the UN, Mr Sharif said he was looking for a "purposeful dialogue" with Mr Singh during their Sunday's meeting on the sidelines of the General Assembly.

"Our two countries have wasted massive resources in an arms race. We could have used those resources for the economic well-being of our people," he said.

Despite tense relations between the two countries, they may be an opening, the BBC's Nick Bryant in New York reports.

Mr Singh, 81, is not expected to contest next year's elections, and this could be his last chance to revive the stalled peace process, our correspondent says.

Mr Sharif swept to power in May with pledges to improve ties with India.

Turkey's "Marginal Groups"

"We will open the square when everything normalizes in the area, and our security forces completely control the area. Our children who stay at Gezi Park are at risk, because we will clean the area of the marginal groups. We won't allow our government to be seen as weak."
Huseyin Avni Mutlu, Governor, Istanbul

Back in 2010 when a handful of Syrian Sunni protesters called upon the Alawite Baathist President Bashar al Assad to extend the same courtesies of full citizenship rights to them as the privileged Shia minority population, President Assad informed international leaders that the protests represented a minor occurrence that would shortly peter out. And it might have, had the military not taken steps to arrest a handful of Sunni schoolboys who had scrawled impertinent texts criticizing the regime on their school walls.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan fairly early on was appalled and disgusted at the reaction of the Syrian regime and his erstwhile chum Bashar al-Assad's reaction to the Syrian people's just search for democracy and fairness. He was openly critical of President al-Assad's swift and brutal reaction in attempting to swiftly quell the protests that he felt were getting out of hand, and were most certainly inconvenient. Particularly since he had assured interlocutors on U.S. networks that his people loved him and would never revolt.

Since then the enmity between the two leaders has deepened, with Prime Minister Erdogan voicing his disdain for the violence that had overtaken Syria, and President al-Assad threatening his neighbour if he continued to shelter and support the Syrian Opposition. When the two-week-old protests began in Turkey against the government's decision to raze a park in Istanbul and build a replica of an Ottoman-era barracks, alongside a mosque and a shopping centre, President al-Assad chided President Erdogan for his uncompromising stance, delighted he could return the compliment.

There was, in fact, little difference in the reaction of the two when civil unrest rose in their respective countries; Prime Minister Erdogan characterized his critics as criminals, where al-Assad had characterized the Syrian protesters as terrorists.


A protester throws a petrol bomb towards riot policemen during clashes in Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey, Tuesday, June 11, 2013. Kostas Tsironis  / AP Photo

There is an eerie similarity to the two uprisings; both began as peaceful demonstrations, with protesters simply asking for reconsideration of prevailing situations felt to be inimical to their well-being. In both instances the official responses were harsh and violent, leading to the protests themselves becoming more demanding. The government of Prime Minister Erdogan has responded with tear gas, water bombers, rubber bullets, endearing themselves to the public to a huge degree.


A police vehicle fires a water cannon to extinguish a fire of another vehicle after protesters threw a petrol bomb during a police operation to evacuate Taksim Square in Istanbul Tuesday, June 11, 2013. Thanassis Stavrakis / AP Photo

Four people have died, and thousands have been wounded. The Gezi Park redevelopment scheme protests are testing Erdogan's authoritarianism. His kind of democracy of which he is so proud, is one where protests are not permitted. The outraged reaction to his insistence that construction will proceed as scheduled, to transform the rare green space in the city centre to a commercial establishment has served to grow the original peaceful protest into a heavily supported mass call for the Prime Minister to retract his decision.

Protesters in their thousands camp out at the park and at Taksim Square, determined not to leave until their protests have been heard, digested and acted upon. The countervailing action remains rounds of tear gas, running battles with protesters who hurl fireworks, bottles, rocks and firebombs. When police do manage to clear the square it is quickly re-occupied. The protest has no intention of dissolving itself. The "marginal groups" in fact represent a wide spectrum of Turkish society, including many of its lawyers.

The protest has spread and has support in over 70 Turkish cities. Prime Minister Erdogan rails against the misfits who are contesting his rule, blaming them for spoiling the vision the world has of Turkey as a serene, well-managed, economically-fit democracy. But of course it is not the protesters who have besmirched Turkey's reputation on the international scene, but rather the decisions that the Prime Minister has made, in violently confronting the protesters who are, after all, only demonstrating their democratic rights of assembly and speech and protest.

Condemnation has been directed against this once-respected leader of a now-disrupted country, from its one-time allies; the United States, Canada, the European Union and elsewhere. The situation has got out of hand, and is deteriorating rapidly. Prime Minister Erdogan's true character is not one that many other democratic leaders admire. Where formerly they closed their eyes to the government's arrest of journalists, they have opened their eyes to the indelible vision of a country whose democratic underpinning has gone amok.


Police launch tear gas during an operation to evacuate the Taksim Square in Istanbul Tuesday, June 11, 2013. Thanassis Stavrakis / AP Photo

Under an Islamist government that has incrementally overturned all the social, political and religious conventions that the country has lived with since Kemal Ataturk separated Mosque and State.

Who's A Gangster?

"Where were our watchdogs? One politician was arrested this morning, it's true, but where were his colleagues on city council, where were the provincial politicians who should have acted as watchdogs? Where was the chief returning officer? Where was the minister of municipal affairs?"
MNA Jacques Duchesneau, Coalition Avenir Quebec

It's logical enough that he would ask. He was formerly head of a provincial anti-collusion task force. And considers the arrests just announced of former Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt along with 36 others alleged to have operated the third-largest municipality of the Province of Quebec as an entitled gangster-empire, as representing "a bright day for justice but a sad day for democracy."

There were always rumours of broad corruption in Laval. And he couldn't understand what has taken so long for an investigation to be initiated. The current charges date the charged infractions to have dated from 1996. Federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair knew all about those allegations of corruption. But explained why he too accepted the status quo as provincial environment minister under the Liberal government of Premier Jean Charest.

"Charest told me that he could not do that (block development of Laval wetlands). We needed him too much for the elections", he explained during an interview that took place with L'actualite, in 2011. Excuse me? This is the man currently the official Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, the Parliament of Canada. This is a man aspiring to become Prime Minister of Canada, and who feels he has the knowledge and the experience to do just that.

As provincial minister of the environment what kept him back from insisting that wetlands are meant to be protected, not exploited and destroyed on the corrupt whim of a tyrannical and corrupt local politician. If Mr. Mulcair was incapable of exerting his authority and evidencing his adherence to ethics in his post, how is the voting public to believe that he is to be trusted with the much larger stewardship of the country itself?

Gilles Vaillancourt ran the City of Laval for 23 years, finally resigning because of the scandal related to the stark and stunning revelations of corruption brought before a provincial enquiry into corruption, headed by Justice France Charbonneau. Former city manager Claude Asselin, former director of engineering Claude Deguise now also face charges, including gangsterism.

And Mr. Vaillancourt himself is alleged to have been the head of an "organized and structured network" of corrupt collusion. "These are extremely serious accusations", added Robert Lafreniere, commissioner of the provincial anti-corruption police squad UPAC. The search warrant executed last fall at Mr. Vaillancourt's residence, at banks with his rented safety deposit boxes, at city hall and his political party offices, ensured evidence was retrieved.

And it was, after all, the Liberal government of then-Premier Jean Charest that had finally appointed the Charbonneau Commission to look into the far-flung corruption of Quebec's construction industry and its ties to municipal governments. Crimes were committed "for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organization", according to the charges, with Mr. Vaillancourt singled out as having instructed others to commit offences as ringleader of a criminal organization.

Construction magnate Tony Accurso facing other criminal charges, was also charged with corruption in this regard, along with Rosaire Sauriol, former vice-president of engineering company Dessau, and Francois Perrault, former vice-president of engineering company Genivar. All face charges including fraud, conspiracy, breach of trust and corruption.

A massive clean-up of the province is finally underway.

And the Prize Goes to....

The Teddy awards have been distributed. Named in honour of Ted Weatherill, formerly with the Canada Labour Relations Board as chairman, fired in 1999 after a scandalous submission of questionable expense, the Teddy awards annually give recognition to the waste of Canadian tax dollars. By highlighting the activities and/or behaviour of individuals or groups who exemplify scandal and waste.

And this year, the outstanding champion of waste and entitlement of the 15th annual national Teddy award -- Roger Redman, chief of Standing Buffalo First Nation! Will Roger Redman please stand and acknowledge his honoured position as chief-in-greed-plenipotentiary!

Mr. Redman is the Saskatchewan First Nations chief presiding over a reserve of 443 people who has a take-home income in excess of that of the Prime Minister of Canada. But Mr. Redman is not a greedy man on his own; his councillors at the Standing Buffalo First Nation reserve each take home salaries in excess of the premier of their province.

Mr. Redman has a salary for his onerous and responsible position of $194,737, and it should be emphasized that this is an untaxed salary, since Mr. Redman lives on a First Nations reserve. Its value, therefore is far more than merely $194,737. Strangely enough, the financial situation of the Standing Buffalo First Nation reserve is one of fiscal restraint.

The reserve is struggling to maintain social services; it's broke.

In January band members decided to impeach the chief. He took the precaution of padlocking the band office and community centre. And also confiscated the band's chequebook. A legal battle is also underway over elections called for March 16. Because locks had been changed on the band's community centre, elders were forced to hold nominations out in the cold.

Chief Redman insists that the elections are illegal. The band elders insist otherwise, determined to hold elections and to get their community back in working order, able to pay for the necessities that the residents now lack, for they cannot afford both those necessities and the munificent salaries paid out to Chief Redman and band councillors.

More Dysfunction From Attawapiskat

De Beers Attawapiskat Impact Benefit Agreement report: "...since the start of construction, over $360-million in contracts have been awarded to solely owned or joint venture companies run by [Attawapiskat]. In 2012, contracts awarded to the community were over $40-million. To build capacity within the community, two training facilities have been constructed in the community at a combined cost of almost $2-million. We currently employ over 60 full-time employees from the community, and over 100 from other First Nations."

This is a report issued from the De Beers Victor Mine, 99 km west of the James Bay Cree community of Attawapiskat. The giant international diamond mining company has invested $1-billion in the creation of this mine, and this on the basis of expectations, for nothing has yet been extracted as a proven extraction potential to maintain the mine in operation over its proposed life-time span.

Because of preliminary studies and the expectation that mining will ultimately produce a robust return on natural mineral resources in the area, four local communities including Attawapiskat were awarded impact benefit agreements, to ensure that diamonds extracted from their traditional heritage lands will end up benefiting the people of the lands.

This is precisely the kind of business venture that Native communities hope to benefit from; their natural resources mined and the corporate interests investing the infrastructure and expertise taking the time and the interest in training them to make employment opportunities open to them. And in the same process, using band auspices through the provision of needed services to augment the joint benefits to be accrued.

The company additionally undertook to be responsible for maintaining the 250 km ice road from the town of Moosonee at the southern tip of James Bay up to Attawapiskat, to provide three months of vehicular access to communities approachable otherwise only by fly-ins. When the Attawapiskat reserve was short of housing units, De Beers volunteered to provide some additional units to serve the community.

De Beers, in attempting to operate the Victor Mine in a corporately responsible manner answerable to the needs of local communities has every right to expect co-operation from those who benefit from its presence. It might even be said that this relationship presents as a test case; whether outside corporate interests can make such investments and trust that locals whom they will employ can become reliable partners.

The same report, however, sets out a disagreement with four local families who have been staging a blockade of the ice road spur leading from the main Moosonee-Attawapiskat ice road to the mine. With access impeded because of the wildcat blockades, mine operations have been compromised. The narrow window due to seasonal weather concerns where the ice road may remain viable, makes the situation even more untenable.

A month earlier when the situation was first revealed, the Attawapiskat band council arranged an urgent  meeting to try to get to the heart of the matter. Nothing appears to have been resolved, and it is not clear from communication that appears less than forthcoming, whether the band is in support of the blockades or simply incapable of doing anything to relieve the situation, or alternately, disinterested. Speaking of more dysfunction on an already-dysfunctional reserve.

The diamond company is losing timely business opportunities to proceed with its plans. The band council is losing the opportunity to provide needed services to the company. And those band members who value their jobs with De Beers are being held back from their employment with the company. The standoff is to no one's advantage, yet it continues.

Where a court order has been issued and the opinion of the presiding judge is that "individuals with private interests are holding a multinational to ransom ... it smells of coercion", it is clear that legal action should be taken. But while the judge is of the opinion that the OPP should lay charges against the demonstrators, the police force is demonstrating no interest in becoming involved.

Just as anywhere else that First Nations feel they have a right to impose their dissatisfactions in any given situation upon others, inconveniencing and sometimes threatening and worse, security agents of the state feel disinclined to act, and they are supported by the provincial government, as happened at Caledonia, and more latterly at the road and bridge blockades mounted by the "Idle No More" protests.

"What is the message being sent to the world, when five or six disgruntled ex-employees ... can shut down a business of 500 people at a cost of millions? That there is no law in Northern Ontario", pointed out Neil Smitheman, a lawyer representing De Beers. 

What will inspire other corporate interests to invest in projects on Indian land, offering benefits to bands and their members with this kind of business-adverse atmosphere prevailing?

Round Two

Last year it was the Quebec Liberal Party that formed the government of the province and it was Premier Jean Charest who was the target of the college and university student unions who sent their members out on numerous vociferous protests against the outrage of raised tuition fees. The very idea that Quebec's university and college student population might be expected to pay a bit more of what it costs to attain higher education was offensive and unsupportable.

So, though there were court-ordered restraining orders, nothing sufficed to restrain the fury of the students. By no means all the students; the vast majority made a considered choice to continue their classes, only to discover that the militant belligerents among them sought to deny them that opportunity, despite court orders. The protesting union members chanted their disgust at the government, behaving in so undemocratic a manner.

They themselves, democratically engaged in civil disorder by disrupting classes, destroying furniture and electronics and threatening students determined not to lose their academic year, behaved impeccably. They marched on bridges and blocked their access, tied up traffic on major arteries, and insisted that the population that pays the taxes, honour their prerogative as students to chafe under the heavy hand of government, and support the protests.

The Parti Quebecois was more than empathetic. Their leader, Pauline Marois, joined the rampaging students, herself banging pots to draw attention to their plight. It was a dreadful imposition; the lowest tuition fees in the entire country, a modest increase in the offing, and middle-class students who lavish more of their money on updating their electronics scandalized that they be expected to aid the provincial deficit in this unfair manner.

This disaffection and public disorder helped unseat the Liberals from power in the following provincial election and hand it over to the Parti Quebecois whose leader had promised the students that she, personally, would support their cause. Accordingly, upon assuming the premiership, the tuition increase was reversed. And the universities discovered that funding allocated to them for operations was markedly decreased.

And Ms. Marois set about soothing the gulf that had resulted between the young and their elders through that "brutal" imposition of higher tuition fees embarked upon by her predecessors. Time marches on and in government one learns one must occasionally make hard decisions. "The universities are forced to make an impossible choice; either cut services significantly or mortgage their future by borrowing", lamented university administrators.

And oops, once again, my goodness, the Association pour une Solidarite Syndicale Etudiante plans to take its members to Montreal streets in protest. Government is failing to entertain the possibility of eliminating tuition fees altogether. "Our vision of education is an education that is accessible to all, without private-sector influence and above all free", it posts on its website.

Quebec premier Pauline Marois who once praised student groups she so wholeheartedly supported in their rage against tuition fees, calling them audacious and intelligent, now faces those same student groups issuing ultimatums to her new government, and to her, personally, their staunch ally.

Prithee, Judge Thyself

"This contract was made for cash payments in contravention of tax law, with an ultimate goal of depriving the community of taxes. Just as surprisingly, the parties do not even seem to want to hide it!"
"In this particular case, there is no written contract. All it does is give certain details concerning the work to be done and the price of $5,092, without any taxes."
The agreement "unduly and illegally deprives the community, [amounting to a] "fraud of collective rights."
Quebec Court Judge Jimmy Vallee, December 3 ruling

Also in Quebec, Quebec Court Judge Marc Grimard has been assigned no new cases to adjudicate. His name surfaced in a major drug investigation. As someone who was a purchaser himself of cocaine. He shares that distinction with Superior Court Justice Michel Girouard. A major drug investigation has revealed the two judges' inconvenient-for-judges activities that dated before their judicial appointments.

But Quebec Court Judge Jimmy Vallee was referring to something entirely other. He was responding to a decision by Quebec Court Judge Ellen Pare to seek compensation for a personal domestic installation of a granite countertop in her home by a company which she claimed had provided her with a damaged granite countertop.

She and her husband, disappointed in the quality of the product and the installation workmanship, decided to take the company, Atelier Granite Nature, to small-claims court in an effort to have their money refunded.  They had paid $5,092 for the installation of a new kitchen countertop and were offended by what they deemed to be inferior installation.

Judge Vallee came to the conclusion that the contract agreement between the two parties - Judge Pare, her husband and the contractor, was missing the formality of a contract ; he was given a sheet of paper. No identifying company name, no sales-tax registration numbers. And obviously, no taxes paid; the purchasers had connived with the contractor to evade paying taxes.

Clearly an illegal transaction. Yet a sitting judge had the gall to feel nothing was amiss, that the transaction was above reproach. and Judge Vallee, noting the criminal irregularity involved, ruled the contract null and void, as a result. Despite which he also ruled that Atelier Granite Nature was to pay a partial refund of $1,500.

A spokeswoman for the chief judge of Quebec Court noted officials have received notice of what had transpired, having been contacted by a Radio-Canada reporter. Judge Pare continues to hear cases. While court administrators have initiated "a reflection on actions to take".  Imagine anticipating justice to be done, appearing before Judge Pare, who metes out justice for others, but prefers illegal action on her own part to avoid paying a required tax.

Where does she think the salary she earns comes from other than from taxes collected for state-run activities? How does she square her sociopathic private life with the fact that she sits as a judge representing the law in Quebec, foisting on others her questionable interpretation of ethics and morals?