Free Republic

OTTAWA - The federal Conservative government got political cover Thursday from a senior Ontario Liberal cabinet minister and from a group representing the country's municipal leaders over allegations federal economic stimulus funding was being directed to ridings held by Tory MPs. For several days now, the opposition Liberals and several news organizations have been building the case that more money is going to Tory ridings than non-Conservative ridings. But George Smitherman, Ontario's deputy premier and his government's infrastructure minister, said statistical analyses that have made that case are based on incomplete data and that the Liberal government in his province...

The Quebec government has formed a special squad to investigate the link between the construction industry and organized crime. * * * The announcement of the news squad comes only hours after police handed in their findings after a two-year investigation into the Mafia's relationship with the construction industry. Reports claim that companies linked to the Italian Mafia have gotten into bed with political affairs and essentially created a construction cartel that works to drive up the cost of building projects by 35 per cent in the Montreal area. The unit, however, would not be Montreal-centric, and investigations would take...

Petersborough, Canada (LifeNews.com) -- The story of a pro-life student in Canada is generating concerns for the pro-life group that sponsored the recent Pro-Life Silent Day of Solidarity. Jennifer Rankin arrived at Peninsula Shores ready to participate in the event but found herself placed in isolation.Hundreds of thousands of pro-life advocates joined the silent day on Tuesday wearing red tape on their mouths or red armbands to protest the millions of abortions that take place in Canada and the United States.Rankin joined them by wearing red tape and preparing to pass out a flier to anyone who asked her...

MONTREAL — As George W. Bush joked with a business crowd inside a historic hotel ballroom Thursday, hundreds of people outside the room cheered while he was being burned in effigy. Police in riot gear and others on horseback held back a crowd of hundreds, including several people who tossed shoes at the Queen Elizabeth hotel in a demonstration of disdain for the man speaking inside. Two protesters tried forcing their way through the line of shield-and baton-carrying police, were wrestled to the ground, and arrested. Ironically, this anti-war protest took place outside the same hotel where the ultimate anti-war...

Police are negotiating with a gunman reported to be holding as many as nine hostages in the Workers' Compensation Board building in downtown Edmonton. Edmonton police spokesman Jeff Wuite said authorities received a report Wednesday of a man armed with a hunting rifle inside the building, which is close to the legislature for the western Canadian province. "Now that we have communication with the suspect, we feel good that we can move forward to resolving it," Wuite said. "We want to find out what this guy wants and what we can do to end this peacefully."

DALLAS — Canada’s trade minister said Monday that some progress is being made on a nagging trade issue with the United States, while U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said a tangled dispute with Mexico over cross-border trucking and California Christmas trees might resolve itself next year. Welcoming Cabinet-level Mexican and Canadian trade officials to the city where he served as mayor, Kirk said language that removed funding for the Mexican truck program has been restored in next year’s budget bill. "We won’t be handcuffed by prohibitory language," he said. When the border was closed to 500 U.S.-certified trucks in a...

PLATTSBURGH — High-speed rail service between Montreal and New York City is one key way to make North America's first green transportation corridor. Pierre Arcand, minister of international relations for the government of Quebec, said that was one of the topics of discussion when Quebec Premier Jean Charest and New York Gov. David Paterson met two weeks ago. Charest noted that former Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau called for high-speed rail in the 1970s. High-speed rail between Buffalo and Albany is almost a certainty, Arcand said at a lunch sponsored by the Plattsburgh-North Country Chamber of Commerce and the Center for...

Soldiers killed in service-related accidents or suicides will now qualify for a newly created medal intended for military casualties, the military announced Monday. The Sacrifice Medal was first unveiled in 2008 to recognize only those killed and wounded by hostile action. The Department of National Defence said Monday it expanded the criteria to include all service-related deaths after concluding a review this month, which was launched in response to criticisms from the families of slain soldiers and peacekeepers. Saskatchewan resident Ben Walsh, whose son died in Afghanistan, said he was pleased the military listened to the concerns from military families....

OTTAWA - Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Tuesday that his party will no longer seek to defeat the Harper government, suggesting the Conservatives will remain in power until at least next spring's federal budget. "We've said clearly we won't support the government but, at the same time, we won't try to defeat the government each time," Mr. Ignatieff told reporters Tuesday after making an appearance at a daycare in Ottawa. Earlier this month, the governing Conservatives survived a non-confidence motion introduced by the Liberals. On Tuesday, Mr. Ignatieff wouldn't commit to tabling another such motion the next time the Liberals...

Saturday, October 17, 2009 Presented by The teenage-ification of manhood Robert Fulford,  National Post  Parents often complain that kids grow up too fast these days. But many adults, it seems, aren't growing up at all. In an ongoing series, the National Post comment pages have been probing this annoying phenomenon. In today's final instalment, Robert Fulford explains the social construct we now call "the teenager."---The word "teenagers" appeared in the late 1940s, signalling the arrival of a new tribe of young people, the replacements for what were once called adolescents. These self-important newcomers were not just adults-in-training, as young people...

A friend the other day remarked that fewer and fewer people in the media these days know much about the military, so more and more errors are made which can be embarrassing. A recent obituary in the Globe and Mail proved his point -- the death at age 93 of John Rodger (unknown to me) whom the reporter glowingly described as a wartime "pilot in the Royal Air Force" who flew with the famed Dambusters 617 Squadron, and who'd survived five air crashes, including one in a Stirling bomber he'd piloted in a midair collision with a German aircraft. The...

ST. STEPHEN - The RCMP bomb squad stood by in St. Stephen Sunday night as American authorities questioned five people who attempted to enter the United States. The Canada Border Services Agency closed the Ferry Point Bridge from St. Stephen to Calais, Maine, shortly after 6 p.m. and asked the RCMP to divert traffic. Police at the Calais end of the bridge did the same. Not only did the police not allow traffic across the bridge but, at the St. Stephen end, they did not allow motorists to drive up Milltown Boulevard past the end of it. Traffic coming one...

It’s a good day to go cross border shopping as our Canadian Loonie is buying more in the US. The Loonie is almost on par withe the US dollar. Fueled by high oil prices and a declining US dollar the high loonie hurts employment in Canada. “Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday in remarks to reporters in Toronto that he shares Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney’sconcern that gains in the country’s currency could slow recovery. Carney said in a speech on June 4 that a persistently strong Canadian dollar would “work against” positive factors such as improved trade.”...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed tough new measures to reduce the health toll from air pollution around the Great Lakes by forcing lake freighters to stop burning dirty bunker fuel. But the plan has an unusual opponent: The Canadian embassy in Washington has quietly asked the EPA to weaken the measures, arguing that they could harm trade. It wants ships to be allowed to continue using the high-polluting fuel and to instead install smokestack scrubbers that would clean up their emissions. The Canadian recommendation, if accepted, could delay the clean-air measure for years, because the technology for the...

The Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) is right when it says wearing the burka "marginalizes women ... and has no place in Canada." But it may be wrong, or an error, to ban its wearing in Canada, as is being attempted in France, Italy, Denmark, Egypt and even Kuwait. As a "freedom of choice" issue it's pretty hard to deny or forbid women wearing the full head covering that disguises, or obliterates their identity. Proponents of the burka (and naqib) point out, that if it's legal to be topless in public, surely there's an equal right to be totally covered? Maybe,...

"The powerful online voice of jihad Shadowy cleric revered by disenchanted Muslim youths throughout West cited in Toronto 18 case" CAPTION: "A Facebook page for Anwar al Awlaki has 4,800 fans. He has been cited as an inspiration for extremist plots." FACEBOOK SNIPPET: "In a snowy field near Barrie, a group of young Muslim men listened intently to the eloquent voice emanating from the laptop. Anwar al Awlaki preached in perfect Arabic and flawless English about the need to fight in the name of religion, because the "world is united in fighting Islam." The time for jihad is now, no...

A man who performed an amateur circumcision on his four-year-old son on the floor of the family kitchen has been found guilty of criminal negligence. The man, identified only as D.J.W. in a written B.C. Supreme Court ruling released this week, was found not guilty of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. Justice Marion Allan said D.J.W. ought to have known better, partly because a circumcision he earlier performed on himself led to bleeding, sutures and infection. “The fact that the accused had previously ineptly circumcised himself exacerbates, rather than minimizes, his awareness of the risks of home circumcision...

Harper's inconvenient truth The prime minister knows cap-and-trade is wrong for Canada and bad for Canadians. He should say it By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN, ASSOCIATE EDITORPrime Minister Stephen Harper is too clever by half on global warming. Politically, he's taken the smart position -- Canada will match whatever U.S. President Barack Obama does. That's not only clever, but true. We have to match what the U.S. does because it's our major trading partner. The problem is with the centrepiece of Obama's plan -- creating a U.S. cap-and-trade market in carbon dioxide emissions into which Canada will be sucked, along with the...

With apologies to Kermit the frog, turns out it can also be sleazy being green. People who buy goods perceived to be morally good are more likely to go on to lie, cheat and steal, according to a study by researchers at University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, inspired by a shared interest in green living and an appreciation of how the human mind can justify bad behaviour, found that people who are simply exposed to green products behave more altruistically than people who purchase the products. Before any green-bashing begins, the authors stress...

Much has been made of President Obama’s being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The ground has been covered so many times by now that it looks like a CSI crime scene contaminated by too many eager cops. The various media are all agog, internet hits multiply by the hour, and the pundits keep weighing in as if there were no yesterday — as witness this very article. Yet, perhaps, there is still something to be said — and a little reiteration wouldn’t hurt either. According to the left-leaning Oslo committee, Obama deserves the award for creating “a new climate in...

Montreal, Quebec (LifeNews.com) -- A Canadian woman barely survived a botched legal second-trimester abortion that nearly killed her. Christelle Dupuis-Labelle, 19, was three months into her pregnancy when she went to the CLSC des Faubourgs abortion center in Quebec for an abortion that didn't go as expected. After a morning abortion, Dupuis-Labelle spent two hours recovering from the procedure before issuing complaints that she was bleeding heavily from it. Despite the problems, the young woman tells a Canadian newspaper that the abortion center let her leave. "There was lots of blood," she told the Le Journal de Montreal in an...

An opportunistic thief can recognize their state-of-the-art shock absorbers, rugged wheels, plush bucket seats and shiny chrome finishes from a city block, even a playground, away. As their price tags have climbed beyond $1,000, an increasing number of luxury baby-transporting apparatuses have been vanishing from the front porches of family homes. Police are cautioning parents to lock up or conceal their wheels, especially in 11 Division, the west end of the city, where six stroller thefts have been recorded so far this year. The geography of the thefts hints that there could be a more maternal version of Igor Kenk...

Speaking of free speech, Steyn speculates about what the Liberal leader can’t say now In Ottawa on Monday, I kept getting asked—including by three stray passersby on Wellington Street—what Beatles song Michael Ignatieff should sing. Oh, come on, you don’t really need a professional for this, do you? Help! Yesterday (All my troubles seemed so far away). The Fool On The Hill. Hello, Goodbye. Get Back (to Harvard and a little light BBC hosting) . . .

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada's Liberal Party said on Thursday it was launching an ethics complaint against the Conservative government, charging it was playing partisan politics with stimulus programs. The Liberals lodged the complaint against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and 47 other legislators for putting their signatures at the bottom of oversized publicity checks used in announcing federal grants for infrastructure programs and other economic stimulus measures. In the case of at least two members of Parliament, they said, the Conservative Party logo was also on the checks. The Liberals have asked Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson to rule that putting legislators'...

First, they banned that lunchtime favourite, the peanut butter sandwich, to take care of the allergic minority. Then our schools went after soft drinks to attack childhood obesity. There have been varying degrees of success. Next, bottled water became a political no-no. Bad for the environment, don't you know. And of course, all the fun playground equipment had to go too. Someone might get hurt. So is there any fun stuff left at school anymore at all, you may be wondering? Well, yes. It's still all right to hold a school bake sale in Ontario -- but likely not for...

MONTREAL – When it comes to euthanasia, Quebec medical specialists are in sync with the rest of society. In survey of its members released Tuesday, the Quebec Federation of Medical Specialists found that 84 per cent of responders are ready for a public debate on the issue and 74 per cent “would certainly favour or probably be favourable” to euthanasia within a legal framework. Federation president Gaétan Barrette likened the euthanasia controversy to the abortion debate of 20 years ago where society seemed several steps ahead of legislators. More to come.

SNIPPET: "MONTREAL -- Saïd Namouh thought his apartment in Trois-Rivières was an ideal location to plot jihad, far from the prying eyes of anti-terrorism investigators. But the Internet that allowed him to spread hatred from the boondocks also proved his undoing, and on Thursday — largely on the strength of his online activity — the 36-year-old Moroccan was convicted of four terrorism charges. Quebec Court Judge Claude Leblond ruled that far from simply exercising free speech, as the defence had argued, Namouh participated with “zeal and enthusiasm” in the planning of terrorist acts and the distribution of jihadist propaganda. The...

SNIPPET: “Mr. Amara’s paycheques were small. His day job was drudgery. But his schemes were big – very big.”

Tim Hortons' coffee is as good as gold. Now the Canadian coffee giant has a restaurant secured inside the fort famous for guarding America's gold bullion. The iconic doughnut chain announced today it had opened a restaurant at Fort Knox. Open 24-hours a day, the Kentucky army facility's Tims will serve the 30,000 soldiers, relatives and civilians who live and work on the base. U.S. civilians have already had a taste of Tim Hortons with 500 locations south of the border. “Tim Hortons is privileged to serve at Fort Knox, one of the world’s most respected military bases,” David Clanachan,...

As many Canadians spent Monday recovering from feasts of turkey, the loonie lifted a new high for the year against the American dollar, reaching nearly U.S. 97¢. Although trade in global currency markets was lacklustre with holidays in Canada, the United States and Japan, the Canadian dollar continued to get a boost from strong demand for oil and other commodities, as well as Canada's relatively robust economy compared to its still-ailing neighbour to the south. As long as U.S. policymakers keep interest rates near zero, the Canadian dollar and many other currencies such as the euro are likely to keep...

ORONTO (Reuters) – A Canadian truck driver has been fined for smoking in his vehicle because it is considered his workplace, a police spokeswoman said on Friday. A police officer saw the 48-year-old trucker driving on a highway in southwestern Ontario with a cigarette in his mouth on Wednesday, and gave him a C$305 ($290) ticket. The Smoke-Free Ontario Act, adopted in 2006, prohibits smoking in an enclosed workplace or enclosed public area, and that extends to work vehicles, said Constable Shawna Coulter of the Ontario Provincial Police in Essex County.

A man was lit on fire Saturday night after he fell asleep on a sidewalk couch, Vancouver police said. The man was sent to the hospital with minor burns to his chest and wrist. No one has been arrested. According to police, the 26-year-old New Westminster man had been drinking when he stumbled across a couch near Commercial Drive and East Fifth Avenue. He decided to take a nap. At 11:40 p.m., a witness saw three men spray some type of fluid on the sleeping man and light him on fire, police said. The witness ran to help and got...

Kidney patient must make three trips a week to Saint John for dialysis, while a unit sits idle 10 minutes from her home A1 By Jim Dumville Helping her mother travel more than 1,200 kilometres each week to secure life-saving medical procedure, while the necessary medical equipment sits only a few kilometres away, has become a major source of disbelief and frustration for a Woodstock businesswoman. In a detailed letter addressed to political and health-care officials and members of the media, Woodstock's Kelly Atherton outlined the lengths she and her family must go to ensure her mother receives dialysis treatment....

It's truly extraordinary how every left-of-centre journalist in the country has managed to become an instant expert on the arcane subjects of global warming and the science of climate change. Imagine, for example, if some average Canadian hack who had never studied the Middle East suddenly announced that he was an authority on Israel-Palestine, knew which side was right and knew how to solve all of the associated problems. This, however, is what we are told every day when it comes to the fashion of sounding green. The more sympathy we can exhibit for Al Gore's polar bear or David...

The theatrics of negotiation with Iran seen recently at the UN make dismally clear why history's most horrific war that started 70 years ago last month, and could have been prevented, became inevitable. Adolf Hitler likely did not want a "great" war as the English historian A.J.P. Taylor contended. Hitler wanted through guile, bluff and bluster restore Germany's great power status in Europe and achieve as much of the aims of his political movement, including forcibly driving out Jews. "Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a great war," wrote Taylor, "the only...

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned Canadians on Friday not to get too excited about a pickup in job growth, saying the uncertain prospects of the U.S. economy remain a "big concern." The Canadian economy added 30,600 jobs in September, pushing down the unemployment rate from 8.7% to 8.4%, Statistics Canada reported Friday. The surprisingly robust job numbers included 92,000 new full-time jobs, the biggest increase since May 2006. The prime minister called the figures "good news," but added the job market could see "a lot of up and down" in the coming months. "I don't think we're out...

OTTAWA - Workers received welcome news in time for Thanksgiving on Friday with solid and surprising evidence the economy has started creating jobs again - and good, full-time jobs at that - after a year of painful losses. Statistics Canada said the country's unemployment rate fell for the first time since the recession hit last October to 8.4 per cent last month, as the economy created 30,600 net new jobs. The job creation was five times stronger than many economists had forecast and leaves Canada in an enviable position compared to the U.S., which is still suffering massive job losses...

As the whole world is ROTFL at Oslo's lunacy, Michael Ignatieff puts on his sanctimonious face. It's sad because everyone realizes that Ignatieff knows better. Jean Chrétien could get away with saying dumb things about foreign affairs — we all just shrugged it off as well-intentioned bumbling from a small-town boy made good. But Ignatieff has been to the Balkans and the Middle East and who knows where else. He knows about war. And he knows about peace. And he knows that you don't go from one to the other by giving sugary speeches. He's written books on this theme...

As a displaced Northern Californian, one that's proud of our state's long leadership on matters of environment and science, I can't help but wonder at the lack of factual context and analysis in Mark Morford's piece on oil sands. The Canadian oil sands are a large industrial project, and they present environmental challenges. We do not deny that, like other energy production, the oil sands are greenhouse gas intensive. But Mr. Morford's characterizations are out of step with the facts. The oil sands account for five per cent of Canada's emissions, Canada accounts for two per cent of global emissions,...

Monarch butterflies have fascinated biologists for a long time. A 3,000-mile road trip in even the most comfortable car would prove daunting to many humans, but these beautiful insects can migrate that same distance every year from Canada to a specific grove of fir trees in Mexico each fall. The next generation of monarchs can then travel back to Canada in the spring. Scientists are investigating the tools that these tiny flying creatures use to achieve this feat. One leading monarch researcher has discovered an important reason why the butterflies’ antennae are vital for successful navigation...

Army News video: Soldiers try out, rate new load-bearing vests Thursday, October 08, 2009 Gatineau, QC – Three battle groups will test out the top four rated vests.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Conservatives have opened up such a large lead over their rivals that they would most likely win a majority government if an election were held now, according to a weekly poll released on Thursday. The Ekos survey for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp put the Conservatives at 39.7 percent support, up from 36.0 percent the week before. The main opposition Liberals were at 25.7 percent, down from 29.7 percent The two parties were almost tied in early September, at which point Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff announced he would try to bring down the minority Conservative government on...

The burning question about precisely where a person can smoke these days is flaring up again in Ontario, where a 48-year-old trucker faces a $305 fine for lighting up on the job: while driving his big rig along Canada's busiest highway. The man, who hails from London, Ont., a two-hour drive southwest of Toronto, was headed for the Ontario border city of Windsor when he was pulled over Wednesday along Highway 401 and given a ticket under the Smoke-Free Ontario Act. The law, considered a Canadian standard-setter when it was passed in 2006, forbids smoking in all workplaces and enclosed...

For Abdullah Khadr, attending a training camp in Afghanistan where he learned to use a rocket launcher and detonate explosive material at the age of 13 was simply part of the "Muslim culture" there. That's what Khadr, now 28, told an Ontario court Monday when he took the stand for the first time to testify in his effort to fight extradition to the U.S. on terrorism charges. The member of the Khadr clan, Canada's so-called Al Qaeda family, recounted in detail what he did during three months at Khalden camp, which he said was not combat training. "So a 13-year-old...

WASHINGTON - She's poised to become the best-selling author in the United States, has a devoted base of conservative supporters and is considered a front-runner to lead the Republicans into the next election in 2012 - and yet key party strategists are tormented by the popularity of Sarah Palin. The very notion of a Palin candidacy has been derided in recent days by some of the brightest minds in the Republican party even as the former governor of Alaska outlines her policies on Afghanistan, energy and other issues of national importance. "Were she to be the nominee, we could have...

A Canadian Muslim group is calling on Ottawa to ban the wearing of the burka in public, saying the argument that the right to wear it is protected by the Charter’s guarantee of freedom of religion is false. “The burka has absolutely no place in Canada,� said Farzana Hassan, of the Muslim Canadian Congress. “In Canada we recognize the equality of men and women. We want to recognize gender equality as an absolute. The burka marginalizes women.� She said many women who cover their face in public are being forced to by their husbands and family. As a result, she...

Commentary by Dave Bereit, National Coordinator, 40 Days for LifeOctober 7, 2009 (40DaysforLife.com) - Most 40 Days for Life prayer vigils are conducted outside abortion facilities that are either in stand-alone buildings or in medical office parks.There are, of course, some exceptions.One of those exceptions is in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where abortions are performed in a hospital. So it's hard to know who among the many hundreds of women entering the hospital are there for an abortion, and good news about lives changed through prayer is hard to come by.Still, local coordinator Julie Culshaw has always been convinced that prayer...

Some Tories want election now, but afraid to pull plug Other Conservative MPs say the next real election threat will happen in the spring of 2010.With the federal Liberals going through turmoil in Quebec and the Conservatives polling ahead of their principal opponents in public opinion polls, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Tories are tempted to trigger an election, but are also reluctant because of fears of a backlash from Canadians. "Our messaging has been for months that now is not the time, so it will be difficult to turn around and pull the plug," said one top Conservative in an...

The dollar dropped overnight Tuesday as the Reserve Bank of Australia hiked interest rates, the first G20 country to do so, putting added pressure on the low-yielding greenback. The rate hike comes at a time when U.S. interest rates are still ultra-low, making the dollar less attractive to investors. The RBA's move reinforces the impression the U.S. could lag behind other countries in raising rates as the world pulls out of the financial crisis. The RBA Tuesday raised interest rates for the first time since March 2008, becoming the first central bank from the Group of 20 to begin withdrawing...

Today, Mark Steyn and I testified before Parliament's Justice and Human Rights Committee, in support of their investigations into the Canadian Human Rights Commission and their discredited censorship powers. Later this week I'll share some of my views about how it went, including my assessment of the questions from the MPs. (In a word, I was quite encouraged.) In the meantime, here are YouTube videos of the whole hour, courtesy of SDA Matt. I'm curious how you thought it went: feel free to leave a comment not only about what Steyn and I said, but what the MPs said, too....