Jean Chretien is ordering out his RCMP hit squad as I write. Guite is getting ready to rat:

In his response to the $30-million suit, Guite alleges that even when he questioned or recommended that certain contracts not be awarded, he was told "it is the prime minister's budget and we decide on the events, how much to allocate in funds and what agency will manage the event.

"In many cases," the statement says, "sponsorships were refused at the bureaucratic level but reversed at the political level."

Guite lays the blame for the scandal directly on his higher-ups -- former minister of public works Alfonso Gagliano and former prime minister Jean Chretien. He says the suit against him should be dropped and those in power at the time should be sued instead.

Of course Mr Guite could join Chretien and Gagliano to the suit if he feels so strongly and he must certainly regret his decision not to cut a deal and roll on his political masters back in the time of Gomery.

While the law & order junkies are screaming blue murder about the deal that Peter Whitmore received for his violent sexual offences...essentailly he was not tagged a dangerous offender pursuant to Part XXIV of The Criminal Code.... the reality of the situation is that the Dangerous Offender tag does not change Whitmore's parole eligibility at all.

The Dangerous Offender tag,the arguement goes, is a red flag for the parole board, however, Whitmore's record is pretty much a red flag as is his life sentence without anyone being killed.

The arguement that he will be forgotten and will slip through the system without the police, the family or the press being any the wiser is, sorry to say, nonsense. When this dude comes up for parole we are all going to know about it and there will be plenty of people to remind the board why he should stay in prison.

The deal is worth it to save the victims the displeasure of testifying. His guilty plea and agreed life imprisonment are worth the sacrifice of the dangerous offender label. The plea bargain system actually worked in this case and, frankly, those who cannot see it are blinded by outrage that they are projecting onto the system.

Update: The commentators at Small Dead Animals are none too pleased. Also this post on bail gone wrong... I note that there are never any stories on bail that goes right, which is almost all bail cases... however, the real story is about a guy fighting back and I'm pleased that it worked ou for him. If we need some outrage it should be about the removal of property rights and the ability of property owners to protect their property. That too would cut down on repeat crime.

Last week in Kitchener a mother killed one of her children and drugged the other. The dead child was a mere three months of age. Instead of the normal cry of monster, the reaction has been one of saddness, that this woman did not get the help she needed when suffering from a clear a mental disorder of the post-partum psychosis kind. At least one talk radio show had a public heath nurse on to talk about recognizing post-partum depression. Note that the depressed rarely if ever hurt their children. It is the psychosis that causes the action and is a complete break from reality:

Post-partum psychosis or PPP, (also called Post-natal Psychosis or PNP and puerperal psychosis (PP) in the UK) is a mental illness, which involves a complete break with reality. Although correctly termed as a postnatal stress disorder or postpartum depressive reaction, Post-partum psychosis is different from Post-partum depression. The majority of PPP occurs within the first two weeks after childbirth with a classic 10-14 day meltdown, likely caused by the radical hormonal changes combined with neurotransmitter overactivity. When correctly diagnosed at the earliest signs and immediately treated with anti-psychotic medication, the illness is recoverable within a few weeks. If undiagnosed, even for just a few days, it can take the woman months to recover. In cases of PPP, the sufferer is often unaware that she is unwell.

Psychosis can also take place in combination with an underlying psychiatric disorder, such as bipolar affective disorder, schizophrenia, or undiagnosed depression. In some women, a part-partum psychosis is the only psychotic episode they will ever experience, but, for others, it is just the first indication of a psychiatric disorder. Only 1 to 2 women per 1,000 births develop post-partum psychosis. It is a rare condition, and often treatable. However, much media coverage of post-partum depression has focused on psychosis, especially following the Andrea Yates case. Whilst postpartum/puerperal psychosis is a serious psychiatric illness, the risks of a mother suffering this illness harming her baby are low: infanticide rates are estimated at 4%, and suicide rates in postpartum/puerperal psychosis are estimated at 5%. )

The mother has been charged with first degree murder and is currently residing in prison while the matter gets investigated and works its way through the court system. The Criminal Code Of Canada recognizes post-partum psychosis and/or other mental disorder related to birth Section 233, the infanticide provision, which reads:

A female person commits infanticide when by a wilful act or omission she causes the death of her newly-born child, if at the time of the act or omission she is not fully recovered from the effects of giving birth to the child and by reason thereof or of the effect of lactation consequent on the birth of the child her mind is then disturbed.

"Newly born child" is defined in section 2 of the Criminal Code as "a person under the age of one year".

Why the First Degree Murder Charge? I suspect it's because of the ongoing investigation to ensure that the elemnets of the offence are met. A Section 233 charge calls for the proof of certain  elements including:

1. the mother is not fully recovered from the effects of the child birth; and
2. the mother's mind is disturbed as a result thereof.

Thus, the mental defect must rise from the child birth (or the effect of lactation consquent on the birth) and cannot have another cause, though pre-existng conditions do not take away from the element and may be indicators in a diagnosis.

An investigation and some medical opinion will be necessary before the infanticide charge may be brought. There is a significance to this charge as opposed to a murder charge in that Infanticide, unlike murder or manslaughter, does not have a minimum sentence.

In light of this..

Canada tokes at 4 times world average: UN

... isn't it about time that we looked at pot as having a broad acceptance in society and take the necessary steps to decriminalize its usage? 16.8% of Canadians admit to using... so if were to throw in another 5% who simply do not admit ( and i expect that this is low) we have as many people smoking pot as tobacco. If the cops were to charge them all we would have some 6 million tied up in the court system. That would cause quite the backlog.

Free Speech to criticize our federal politicians was removed by the Canadian Liberal Party and the Supreme Court of Canada upheld it ... not so much in the good old USA:

Justice Scalia began his concurrence by writing:

"A Moroccan cartoonist once defended his criticism of the Moroccan monarch (lese majesteé being a serious crime in Morocco) as follows: ‘I'm not a revolutionary, I'm just defending freedom of speech . . . I never said we had to change the king -- no, no, no, no! But I said that some things the king is doing, I do not like. Is that a crime?'

"Well, in the United States (making due allowance for the fact that we have elected representatives instead of a king) it is a crime, at least if the speaker is a union or a corporation (including not-for-profit public-interest corporations) and if the representative is identified by name within a certain period before a primary or congressional election in which he is running."

Ouch.

I agree ... Ouch.

Of course the  Supreme Court of the United States need not look so far a Moroco, Canada is right next door. We made speech by individuals illegal for the full run of a Federal election campaign. Worse, the Supreme Court of Canada said that the law was a necessary infringement to our freedom of expression, thus turning our freedom of expression into a privilege and not a right. However, as with McCain Feingold in the USA, the Canadian Election Spending Legislation probably will not hold up to judicial scrutiny once someone is actually charged under the act.

(Via Instapundit ... cross-posted at The London Fog)

.. I however admire a judge doing what is right. The National Post reports that the Crown has been ordered to pay legal costs for those arrested in the gang sweep last week that apparently destroyed the Driftwood Crips. While the arrests may have been in order they took place on June 13th. They should have been able to get bail hearings in 3 days. it is fundamental in this country that the detained get to appear before a judge without delay so that their cntinued detention may be justified.  The Crown has not done so. If i was the crown I would be hoping that the police did not get any confessions or admissions during this time of whta may be construed as illegal dentention.

The Ontario Ministry of the Attorney-General has been ordered to pay a total of $27,000 in legal costs to nine men arrested in the Project Kryptic raids because of a failure to hold timely bail hearings.

It is rare for the Crown to be ordered to pay costs in a criminal proceeding, but Superior Court Justice Ian Nordheimer issued a sharply worded ruling yesterday and indicated he would not allow basic rights to be violated because a large number of people were arrested at once.

The judge also suggested he would consider further measures, such as the release of the defendants, if they do not receive bail hearings by July 3.

"What has occurred to date in this case is improper and unacceptable," Judge Nordheimer said.

The nine men, who face a number of drugs and weapons charges and some of whom are alleged to be part of the Driftwood Crips street gang, were among the nearly 100 people taken into custody by Toronto police on June 13.

In another isolated incident, the police have another concern with the raid:

Cop tip-off alleged:Possibility officer warned family about raid 'could shatter the foundations of trust on the force'

Canada's top doctor singled out New Democrat leader Jack Layton yesterday for "hypocrisy" for undergoing hernia treatment at a private Toronto medical clinic.

But Brian Day, president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association, was quick to note Layton is in good company.

Former prime ministers Paul Martin, Jean Chretien and Joe Clark also have been treated at private medical clinics, Day told the annual meeting of the Canadian Science Writers' Association.

And he said union leader Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Autoworkers, proved a master at "queue jumping" when he got in for an MRI within 24 hours of injuring his leg.

Read the rest

This is the way the CBC remebers Adscam ... not as a corrupt Liberal Party but as a Liberal Party painted corrupt by the opposition:

The sponsorship program, now defunct, was designed to raise the federal government's profile in the wake of the 1995 sovereignty referendum in Quebec. Over its life, Liberal-friendly ad firms in that province took in millions of taxpayers' dollars.

Some of the money ended up in the pockets of high-ranking Liberal organizers in Quebec, allowing the opposition to paint the government of former prime minister Jean Chrétien as corrupt.

Poor Jean Chretien... he was treated so unfairly... why everyone knows that he and his buddies never got a dime. And Paul Martn knew nothing about it .... nor did Dion or Tobin or Copps....

Yesterday, driving home from the office i hear on the radio that some two-thirds of Canadians want Canadian troops out of Afghanistan by 2009 even if the mission is not completed. The poll was conducted by Decima Research. Here is an excerpt from the 570 News website:

The vast majority of Canadians want this country's military mission in Afghanistan to end as scheduled in 2009, according to a new poll.

The survey by Decima Research, released Monday to The Canadian Press, found that two-thirds of respondents want Canadian troops to come home when the current mandate from Parliament expires in February 2009. Only 26 per cent of respondents believed the military mission should be extended "if that is necessary to complete our goals there."

What the???? Why not pull the troops out now and save the lives of our soldiers if the point is to show some token committment rather than to remove the Taliban and dampen islamic fundamentalism in the region ? Why wouldn't the Taliban simply go to ground and wait til 2009 to make a comeback if our committment is a political time line? Why stay at all? If we have a purpose in being there, and I for one (or one third) believe we do, then we must see it through. Otherwise, get the troops out now and we can contnue whistling past the graveyard, attempting to green the nation, while the struggle of our time washes us up on whatever shore it may.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper went a long way to winning my vote..

With so much accepted truth out there in the media and in the legislatures of Canada, we need to look south of the border to find a debate that would be worth watching:

The Editors’ Challenge This should be an offer that the Wall Street Journal can’t refuse — debate the editors of National Review on the immigration bill. ...

It shouldn’t be a problem for the Journal’s editors to take up this challenge, since opponents of the bill aren’t “rational” on the question, have no arguments, and are “foaming at the mouth,” as they explained in a videotaped session of one of their editorial meetings last week. Click here to watch — you have to see it to believe it. We urge them to come out of the shadows, and hope defending the bill in this forum is not another one of those jobs that no American will do. (We would challenge President Bush himself to a debate on behalf of the conservatives he has maligned, but we fear he hasn’t read the bill.)

Where can I tune in?

I just finished examinations for discovery of a Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) auditor (I was on my best behaviour). My client had a lot of income attributed to him for tax purposes, the evidence of which is almost nil. What was most interesting is CRA attributing to my client the money to pay taxes in the total income. In other words, if CRA says that you have $50,000 in hidden income, they say that you must pay taxes on the income and they increase the amount of the income by the taxes you should have paid and readjust the tax figure upward. Or at least that's what I think they did because the auditor, to his credit, honestly stated that she could not tell me the logic of the policy or the calculator, simply that it was the policy of CRA.

Also interesting was the requirement to show a negative. Say my client does not smoke or drink but Statistics Canada says that the average Canadian spends a certain amount on tobacco and alcohol, the CRA attributes the Stats Canada amount to my client as expenditures which require the income to make the purchase. How my client can show no receipts for no cigarette purchases from no store is hard to understand, but what the hell. The same goes for life insurance. My client does not have life insurance but has an income amount attributed based on the Stats Canada numbers. You cannot show a contract that does not exist.

It was an eye-opener.

 I think I should be able to get a decent result in this particular case despite the reverse onus that is almost impossible to meet  simply becayuse the onus is almost impossible to meet.

(crosspost at The London Fog)

Justin Trudeau...now there's a deep thinker ... Speaking to "adoring" high school students, he offered this:

Trudeau suggested to the students the capitalist "machine" that sustains modern existence may also become modern civilization's downfall.

The system promotes exploitation of natural resources without accounting for future consequences of consumption, he said.

"Our capitalist model has given us tremendous things," Trudeau said. "But the time has come for us to look at it critically and try to improve on it, given the accelerated pace of change and the fact that we have limited space."

Trudeau said Canada's environmental and social justice record have deteriorated.

"We consume more water per capita than anyone else on the planet. We produce more solid waste than just about anyone else on the planet. In terms of social justice, our treatment of our aboriginal communities are an absolute disgrace."

Tinkering with capitaism by placing state controls on the market have failed worldwide. Sure the civil servants make out like bandits, but the rest of us are left beholden to the state to maintain some sort of passable standard of living. Still, the juvenile question, why can't we all just get along, makes the idea of tinkering for the greater good desirable.

Trudeau seems able to spout his old man's conclusions, but I doubt he's given it much thought. For his information, we have more water than anyone else, per capita or in volume. Are we supposed to stop consuming water just because there is less water in Arizona? Stop Consuming out of guilt? Where is the water going if we don't consume it? I'm not talking about draining the rivers or anything, but water consumption is not exactly a priority for Canadains is it?  More solid waste? Huh? We are 30 million people with, in case you haven't noticed,  plenty of places to put it and the natural resources of Canada are found in alomst all of them. I guess we are going to run out of trees soon ...wait...the tree cover in North America is increasing .... never mind. The Liberal policy of throwing money at aborignals until they are all dead is something that Mr Trudeau can address with his party if and when he gets elected.

Cash Money. It is the legal tender of the country and you can buy whatever you want with it from anyone but the Candadian government:

Cash no longer accepted for paying taxes

Ottawa will no longer accept cash payments from people paying their taxes at service counters across the country.

The Canada Revenue Agency says it will still accept cash payments made through banks, however. Service counters will continue to accept cheque and debit payments.

Apparently it's too inconvenient....

The agency says it made the change because the amount of people who pay by cash is so small.

Of the seven per cent of taxpayers who make payments at the service counters, less than one per cent pay by cash, said Revenue Canada spokesperson Heather Cameron.

"It comes down to the fact … that there's so few people that are actually making their payments in cash now," said Cameron.

And here I was thinking that it was legal tender and if you tendered it on the government in payment, the government is to accept the same. A refusal to accept would certainly give rise to the question of whether penalties or interest would accrue.

(also at The London Fog)

I had a call from a client all concerned about her Charter rights being violated by her employer. While it was dubious that her contractual rights, let alone her rights under provincial human rights legislation, had been violated in any regard, the simple rule is that the Charter applies to state actions. Still, we have people always going on about their rights, not realizing that the rights they clam are mere privileges bestowed by the applicable legislature.

Racial profiling is an issue for the police. Some racial profiling is apparently acceptable when you are running an affirmative action program.Other racial profiling is not good,as in  when the police stop a driver simply because he is black. Now racial profiling has taken on  a whole new realm, that of international hockey, according to Gilles Duceppe:

Doan says all he did was make a sarcastic remark to a teammate, Curtis Joseph, who was infuriated by a penalty call in a game against the Montreal Canadiens.

He says he told Joseph: ''Four French referees in Montreal, Cuje, figure it out.'' And Joseph has backed up his story.

But Duceppe called even that comment unacceptable. He said his party is right to demand answers from Hockey Canada.

''That's what you call racial profiling,'' Duceppe said.

Now that Doan had the ethnic profile of these homer refs, what was he going to do about it? Nothing. Why? Because there was nothing he could do. He's the citizen on the ice and the refs are the cops.

Noticing someone is from Newfoundland because of their accent is not "racial profiling" it's being alive and not deaf. Same thing with someone from Quebec. It would only be possession the power to affect the identified and then the actual taking of action  that would make this observation racial profiling.  This has gotten beyond ridiculous.

The issue dominating Canada's Parliament is the naming of the Captain of Team Canada at the hockey world championships? The Bloc are offended. The NDP are offended. The Liberals are offended. The Tories are offended. Why?

The Bloc Québécois is demanding Shane Doan be removed as captain of Canada's world championship hockey team, in light of the disparaging comments he allegedly made about French Canadians in 2005.

Doan's French Canadian buddies think he's a good choice:

"In the heat of the battle things get said sometimes, a lot worse than being called a French frog or whatever," said Alain Vigneault, coach of the Vancouver Canucks.

"[Doan] says he didn't say it. Even if he did, come on. If our politicians, French or English, if that's the only thing right now they have to worry about....

"There's a lot more important things going on right now in society," Vigneault said. "It is utterly, utterly stupid, not to say embarrassing."

New Jersey goaltender Martin Brodeur had a similar reaction.

"I know Shane really [well] and I don't see him saying that," he said. "All these years in the league I never had a problem with it, so for me to hear that other people had a problem, I have a hard time understanding it."

What were the offending words:

Doan said he was complaining to teammate Curtis Joseph about the officiating, telling the goaltender, "'Four French referees in Montreal, Cuje, figure it out.'

"I would have done the same thing if we were in Los Angeles and it was four officials from California," Doan said Wednesday. "Or if we were in Calgary and it was four westerners."

Oh Dear! Call a Royal Commission:

The Bloc introduced the motion, supported by the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP, demanding that Hockey Canada explain itself to the parliamentary committee.

The NHL cleared Doan of any wrongdoing and the official who made the decision has this to say:

Colin Campbell, the NHL's executive vice-president and director of hockey operations, blasted the politicians for meddling, calling the intrusion "ridiculous.  

"I stand by my original comments after our investigation," Campbell told the Canadian Press. "But I would add to it at this point in time, it's rather embarrassing to all Canadian hockey fans we're rehashing this again, particularly when Hockey Canada and Shane Doan are representing and working hard in Moscow right now, competing for our country. It's ridiculous."

Ridiculous? To call this parliamentary behaviour ridiculous would be an insult to the ridiculous. It reminds me of the uproar over Triumph: The Insult Comic Dog insulting people.

I am offended by Parliament's offence.

(also at The london Fog)

UPDATE: Check out our elected representatives "explaining" their position ... what a pack of clowns. (H/T Small Dead Animals....via Mike at The London Fog)

Via Tim Blair: A John Howard speech:

AS A government, no doubt we've made our mistakes. All governments do.

But we have never lost sight of the big things that affect people's lives – jobs, decent healthcare, choice in education and a good social safety net.

We've also never lost sight of the need to strike a balance. That's not the same as always seeking consensus and always looking to please.

Hard choices imply trade-offs. When these are ignored, that's when costly mistakes are made.

Why do I dwell on this? Because my opponent pretends to have discovered a different brand of politics – a politics without hard choices.

Kevin Rudd argues that in this world Australians face one overriding moral challenge: climate change.

Now this is a major priority of the Government. At the same time, we know independent action will not materially affect our climate.

No one – not the IPCC, not Sir Nicholas Stern, not even Al Gore – makes this argument. Australia emits less greenhouse gases in a year than the US or China emit a month.

Do we need to lower carbon emissions over time? Of course we do. But to say climate change is the overwhelming moral challenge for this generation of Australians is misguided at best – misleading at worst.

It de-legitimises other challenges over which we do have significant control, other challenges with moral dimensions just as real and pressing.

Of course, Australia already has an emissions target through to 2012. And unlike many of the European countries that regularly lecture us on this issue, we are on track to meet it.

Any decision on a post-2012 long-term target will be the most important economic decision Australia takes in the next decade. It will affect every industry and every household.

I want to ensure any decision is made in a way that takes full account of jobs and investment in Australia, of climate change action by others and of technology developments.

Australia fully accepts its responsibility. We have committed more than $2 billion to climate change action involving regulation, economic incentives and voluntary measures.

But I will not subcontract our climate policy to the European Union.

Indeed, I worry about the consequences of Mr Rudd's policy of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent from 1990 levels.

Mr Rudd panders to the gesture politics of anti-capitalism. His environment spokesman Peter Garrett once said economic growth "almost always" leads to a worse environment.

Both are wrong. History shows economic growth and technological change have given mankind not just greater material wealth, but also cleaner air and water.

CBC Reports: MPs to vote on motion to take troops from Afghanistan by 2009

A Liberal motion that would ensure Canada end its combat operations in southern Afghanistan by February 2009 is slated to be voted on in the House of Commons Tuesday, but it is not expected to pass.

The NDP is expected to join the Conservatives in defeating the motion, which was introduced by Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre on April 19.

The motion calls on the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to serve notice immediately to NATO that Canada will withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in February 2009

Shame on the Liberal Party for their motion to remove Canadian troops by 2009. Playing politics in this realm is dangerous. What will the Taliban take from the vote? If they hang on for a couple of years they will have another run at contoling the country. My question for Dion is what information does he have that the situation will be such as to allow for the safe withdrawl of the troops in 2009. How does he know that the allied forces will not be on the cusp of victory and that a withdrawl will be a set back? How does he know that the troops won't be in the middle of an offensive, from one side or the other and leaving will put our allies in greater danger. How does he know that there will be someone their to take our place ( of course the evil Americans will be there and we know that regardless of the President that they will jump in to pick up our slack)? This cowardice for political gain is sickening.

The Defence of necessity had been attempted in imparied driving cases in Canada on numerous occassions. I say "had" because of the abject failure of the defence to that particular charge. I'm not saying that it has never been successful, but the elements of the defence are so stringent -that you believe your life or the life of another to be in danger - that the defence virtually never works. It just did. The Globe and Mail reports on a case from Sudbury:

A Sudbury man was cleared yesterday of drunk-driving charges after admitting he drove while impaired to seek mental-health assistance after a failed suicide attempt.

....

Mr. Desrosiers testified that he told the police he had attempted to kill himself with carbon-monoxide poisoning inside his garage.

The officer on the scene told court he became so concerned over the man's uncontrollable sobbing in the back of his cruiser that he wanted to transport Mr. Desrosiers to hospital, believing he was a risk to himself and others.

...

Judge Keast said he found Mr. Desrosiers "to have been a reliable and credible witness."

"He was expecting to die," he said.

He believed Mr. Desrosiers chose to drive while intoxicated rather than stay inside his home, where he was considering a second suicide attempt.

....

At trial, it was revealed Mr. Desrosiers spent two weeks in hospital under psychiatric care, was put under different medication and remained under psychiatric care almost one year after his arrest.

It is clear Mr. Desrosiers' mental health had deteriorated badly in the hours before his suicide attempt and his decision to drive after consuming alcohol was made by a man with serious mental-health issues at the time, the judge said.

Hating Bush is not a Foreign Policy

(Canadian electorate take note.)