Free Republic

Child welfare officials have no duty to parents: top court CBC News - Last Updated: Friday, July 27, 2007 | 12:07 PM ET Child welfare authorities don't owe parents a duty of care, Canada's top court ruled Friday, saying such an obligation would put the treatment of children at risk by creating a conflict of duties. The unanimous Supreme Court of Canada ruling marks the end of a lengthy battle by a southwestern Ontario family for millions of dollars in damages. They claimed a treatment centre and social worker owed them a responsibility and had been negligent by depriving...

Deals from the Dark Ages George Jonas, National Post Published: Saturday, July 28, 2007 On Wednesday, the bullet-riddled body of 42-year-old Bae Hyung-kyu was discovered in the Qarabagh district of Afghanistan, the region where 23 South Korean Christian aid workers had been abducted on July 19 by the Taliban. The initial response of Baek Jong-chun, South Korea's chief presidential secretary for security affairs, was to sound a stern warning. The kidnappers "will be held accountable for taking the life of a Korean citizen," he said in a statement before leaving Seoul for Afghanistan. There was a trace of bewilderment...

Guess who's running your city CUPE's Power Handcuffs Mayors Terence Corcoran, National Post, Published: Saturday, July 28, 2007, Page A-1 The taxpayers of Vancouver held hostage. The City of Toronto forced into budget crisis. Calgary teetering on the brink of municipal labour unrest. Montreal headed for a major metro-wide service-destroying city workers' strike later this year. For all this and more we can thank the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the all-powerful radical labour group that uses strike threats and political power to hold real control over most government services across the country. All reform of city services is...

Missing the target on gun crime By Lorrie Goldstein Toronto Sun, Wednesday, July 25, 2007 Last week, Statistics Canada reported the national crime rate last year dipped to its lowest level in more than a quarter century. Apparently, no one told the gun-toting thugs who murdered an 11-year-old boy in Toronto last weekend along with three other people, fatally shot a 37-year-old man in broad daylight on a Halifax residential street and wounded four others inside a Winnipeg nightclub. By the way, that drop in the crime rate? Actually, as StatsCan noted, that was "driven by a decline in...

Don't get deafened by the noise - do something By Christie Blatchford Toronto Globe and Mail Wednesday, July 25, 2007 – Page A16 In the CTV News footage taken from the Saturday night - early Sunday morning, actually - that Ephraim Brown was killed, there is one particularly significant bit. In several frames, six or seven tiny children, who look to be between 4 and 8, are walking down a darkened street. There are enough of them that they take up almost the entire road. They hold hands, and are being led to the safety of a city bus...

The God that whined Barbara Kay, National Post Published: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 Back in the day, the many atheists I knew went about their unbelieving lives in a quietly sardonic, but non-combative way: They'd abandoned organized religion, but sought no quarrel with those who stayed. They explained their non-belief to their children, but let them join the boy scouts. Everything old is new again, but ? different. Yesterday's live-and-let-live atheism has morphed into today's truculent "atheism with attitude," where God is not only dead, but --postmodern glee having replaced Nietszchean gloom regarding His demise -- with good riddance...

Foreign aid swipe at U.S. belies reality Private Charity, And Remittances Far From 'Stingy'; At The United Nations Steven Edwards, National Post Published: Thursday, July 19, 2007 The United Nations has been calling the United States "stingy" again. Although it didn't actually repeat that word -- used by its disaster relief chief after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami -- its argument remains the same: As the only superpower, Washington should be handing over a lot more cash to the world's poor. In a milestone progress report on international development, the UN says only Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and...

Canada's sole surviving WWI vet celebrates 107th birthday By: James Stevenson 570 News (Kitchener, Ontario) July 18, 2007 - 17:52 SPOKANE, Wash. (CP) - Canada's last known surviving veteran of the First World War is celebrating his 107th birthday with a slice of cake and plenty of humble pie. John (Jack) Babcock says the reason he's getting so much attention is not for what he accomplished in the war, but because he is the last one standing. Still, he says, he doesn't mind the visitors - particularly the female ones. Surrounded by family and reporters at his home in...

Managing Islam's civil war Jonathan Kay, National Post Published: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 Less than six years after 9/11, the great Clash of Civilizations has fizzled out. It's been replaced by a civil war within a single civilization. Consider these news events from recent weeks, and the pattern becomes clear: - In Pakistan, government troops laid bloody siege to the Red Mosque in the centre of Islamabad, precipitating a string of retaliatory suicide bombings in other parts of the country. On Wednesday, Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda's second-in-command, urged revenge against Pakistan's government. ("This crime can only be washed by repentance...

U.S. voters open minds By Paul Jackson Calgary Sun, Tuesday, July 17, 2007 PHOENIX -- The Arizona sun scorches down as I realize the past 10 elected U.S. presidents have all been white males and with the exception of John F. Kennedy, have all been Protestants. Even the one president since Democrat Harry Truman who remains the only president never to be elected, Gerald Ford, was a white male and Protestant. Until now, with the advent of Barack Obama, no black American has even come close to being elected president, and neither has a woman, until today with Hillary...

One sick flick Peter Foster, Financial Post Published: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 "There's no doubt that a documentary by someone of Michael Moore's stature will help the world see the deeply humane principles of Cuban society." -- Jose Ramon Balaguer, Cuban Health Minister Michael Moore has said he wants to make movies from which people emerge saying, "I don't believe what I just saw." He has certainly hit the mark with Sicko. His latest attack on the American way of life is, literally, incredible -- a typical combination of bent facts and leftist grandstanding. It's not that health-care policy...

Live Earth? How about live irony? By Rex Murphy Toronto Globe and Mail Saturday, July 14, 2007 – Page A23 The reviews are in concerning last weekend's eco-sanctimony staged by global warming's Nostradamus, Al Gore, and most of them aren't pretty. It was, according to the advance hype - and the hype for this event matched anything Hollywood roars up for Johnny Depp in a bandana, or a new Jessica Simpson big-screen onslaught - going to command an audience in excess of two billion. There is nothing original in rounding up a beaker full of rock stars and movie...

China ignores real problem By Ezra Levant Calgary Sun, Monday, July 16, 2007 China's main diplomatic characteristic -- saving face -- is in overdrive these days in the lead up to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. So recent widespread problems with Chinese food and drug manufacturing are more embarrassing than usual. "Made in China" is now synonymous with "buyer beware". First it was poisoned pet food exported to the West that killed dogs and cats, then it was toxic fish from Chinese fish farms, toothpaste sweetened with antifreeze, juice with unsafe colour dyes and children's toys painted with lead...

Lucky it's not 1942 In another era, Layton's conduct would've been called treason By Peter Worthington Toronto Sun, Monday, July 16, 2007 These days when people such as the NDP's Jack Layton urge, in the normal course of their ideology, that Canada should quit Afghanistan, it is an acceptable political viewpoint. But when they do so the moment Canadian troops suffer casualties, and insist their motivation is concern for the soldiers in harm's way, they are indulging in crass political opportunism. In another era, we would have called it treason. My guess is Layton, for one, doesn't give all...

Chertoff should take a deep breath The Montreal Gazette: Editorial Published: Friday, July 13, 2007 Perhaps Michael Chertoff should take an antacid. Certainly he should be careful what he says before he causes Canadians to need a Tylenol. The U.S. Homeland Security chief has been popping off about his suspicions, hunches and worries, but if he has facts to back up any of this, he's keeping those to himself. Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune this week that he has a "gut feeling" that the U.S. faces an increased risk of terror attack this summer. The next day, he said...

Conrad Black found guilty on 3 charges CBC News Last Updated: Friday, July 13, 2007 | 11:35 AM ET Businessman Conrad Black has been found guilty on two mail fraud charges and one obstruction of justice charge, a Chicago courtroom was told Friday morning. On the other changes, Black was found not guilty. The jury's verdict came after 12 days of deliberation. There is no word of verdicts in the cases of three Hollinger executives who were being tried alongside the Canadian media baron. More to come.

Tories still shy of majority, poll suggests CanWest News Service, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 MONTREAL -- As Canadians began to head off for summer vacation, they were still in no mood to grant Prime Minister Stephen Harper the kind of support that would translate into a majority government in another election, a new opinion poll suggested. In the Environics Research Group poll, the Conservatives had 37% support; the Liberals 28; NDP 17; Greens 11 and Bloc Quebecois slipping to 7. Party standings remained stagnant, said Derek Leebosh, a senior associate with Environics. He likening the parties' positions to "World...

We must not break faith David Warren, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 I was not there. My sister was however, for she was returning to Toronto from her cottage Sunday evening and turned onto Highway 401, about the longitude of Trenton, Ont. By chance she found herself a half-mile ahead of the hearses for our six Canadian boys, back from Afghanistan. She reports there were firemen with their trucks saluting from almost every bridge along the way to Toronto and people out by their thousands on the bridges and along the highway -- including veterans in...

Hypocrisy takes the stage Lorne Gunter, National Post Published: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 EDMONTON -The '80s band The Police brought their reunion tour to Commonwealth Stadium in early June. Two nights before their concert I had occasion to visit the venue, and when I pulled into the parking lot I thought I had stumbled onto a new-truck show. Really. There were 16 to 20 gleaming semis all lined up, as if for viewing-- with matching trailers. Only when I saw the name of the Chicago-based tour production company on the doors of the cabs did I twig to the...

Making Canadian jihadis Barbara Kay, National Post Published: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 Montreal has proved a particularly alluring logistical base for francophone Islamists. Forty minutes from the U.S., it boasts a large airport, multiple bridges and a bustling port, all attractive targets. Over the last decade, about 20 Montrealers have been involved in terrorist plots. Some, like the former Montrealer Abdellah Ouzghar, convicted in absentia of abetting terrorism in France, but awaiting our sluggish judiciary's imprimatur on his extradition (the delay has aroused angry incredulity in France's special anti-terrorism judicial branch), still move about in virtually complete freedom. Who...