Magic Statistics

NDP environment critic Nathan Cullen strikes again.  Last May, he accused the government of isolationism and having a defeatist attitude shortly before Canada won unanimous support for its position at the Bonn conference on climate change.  He also accused Environment Minister Rona Ambrose of lying for saying that many countries were failing to meet their emissions targets.  Wrong again.

Now today he comes with this nonsense.

NDP critic Nathan Cullen said Ambrose embarrassed the country at a conference in Germany, when she announced the government would not meet its Kyoto Protocol commitments.

The Liberals had eight years to bring in a Kyoto implementation plan, but none was forthcoming.  They had eight years to begin to make a dent in Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, but emissions continued to increase during their stewardship.  Yet, at the same time, Liberal PM Paul Martin hypocritically criticised the US even though America's GHG emissions went down under President Bush.  Consistently, the Liberals paid extravagant lip service to Kyoto while making no practical effort to meet its requirements.

The Conservative government has only said what is clearly shown by the chart at right: Canada will not meet its Kyoto target.

But Mr Cullen is "embarrassed" because a Canadian government is finally telling the truth on Kyoto.  By implication, he would prefer continued hypocrisy and dissembling.

h/t: National News Watch

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Canada's top judges are whining as Justice Minister Vic Toews moves to change the composition of committees that review candidates for judicial appointments.

Beverley McLachlin, Canada's Chief Justice, along with a powerful council of the country's top judges issued an unprecedented rebuke yesterday to Justice Minister Vic Toews for hatching a plan to arbitrarily change the way judges are chosen.

The Canadian Judicial Council expressed dismay that Mr. Toews is planning to introduce "significant changes to the composition and functioning of the Judicial Advisory Committees," secret groups which are set up in each region to vet candidates for the 1,100 federal judgeships across the country.

Chief Justice McLachlin, who chairs the council, urged Mr. Toews to include the judiciary and key legal bodies in any discussion of changes to the committee vetting process.

Wow! It sounds like Vic Toews wants to place child molesters and other convicted felons on those “secret” committees.

The first hint of what the government may be planning came this week, when Mr. Toews told a Winnipeg newspaper that police representatives will be put on the judicial advisory committees.

You mean our country’s legal establishment hit the roof because police are set to be appointed to “secret” judicial advisory committees?  Are judges afraid of what the police might say?  Come on, don’t be so bigoted intolerant close-minded.  Expand your horizons.  Believe it or not, many Canadians who have never been admitted to the bar can offer intelligent and valuable judgments about law and order.

The chief justice seems to think that only judges and lawyers are competent to protect the be-all and end-all of Canada’s justice system.  (That would be “judicial independence”, don’t cha know?)

Chief Justice McLachlin called on the minister to initiate an immediate process of consultation on the proposed changes within the judiciary, Canadian Bar Association, the law societies and other interested parties. "We believe this is necessary to protect the interests of all Canadians in an independent advisory process for judicial appointments," she said.

With all due respect, Ms McLachlin, you really want to know what’s “necessary to protect the interests of all Canadians”?  It’s judges showing less concern for the rights of criminals and far more concern for the rights of law-abiding Canadians to walk their streets in safety.  It is blindingly obvious that too many judges in this country haven’t been as careful about that as they should be.

Our unelected robed masters are simply aghast that Vic Toews wants to open up their cozy little judges-and-lawyers’ clubs.  If it takes allowing police input into the judicial appointment process to get judges to wake up, then I say, “Do it”!  Based on their reaction, Mr Toews is clearly on the right track.

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Jeremiah Valentine, age 24, was arrested last month and charged with murder and aggravated assault in connection with the shooting of Jane Creba in Toronto on Boxing Day 2005.  (A gun fight broke out in the middle of a crowd of shoppers on Yonge Street.  Several innocent bystanders were hit; Jane Creba died.)  Public court documents show that he had been banned from possessing firearms on three previous occasions.

Mr Valentine has been arrested many times.  Every time, until his arrest for murder, he was released pending trial.  Christie Blatchford of the Globe and Mail reports:

It was only last month, when he was arrested, allegedly with a handgun, that Mr. Valentine was held in custody pending trial.

Indeed, at least twice he was released on what's called "a promise to appear," the least onerous form of release available and one that is dealt with by officers at a police station.

One of these occasions was his arrest last Jan. 16, when he was charged with using an imitation handgun to steal cocaine and $3,000. He was released on a promise to appear from 51 Division.

Cruelly, the allegation is that the actual incident — where Mr. Valentine allegedly forced a man to buy cocaine by threatening to kill him — occurred on Dec. 23, 2005, just three days before Jane was gunned down in what was a veritable wild-west-style gunfight on the busiest shopping day of the year.

At the time of his arrest last month, four different charges were pending against Mr Valentine, including possession of a restricted weapon.

Why did several judges release an accused already facing a serious weapons offence—and who had previously been banned from possessing any firearms?  Aren’t judges supposed to keep criminals off our streets?

Valentine is the fourth person charged with murder in the Boxing Day shooting.  Six others have been charged with manslaughter.

For access to the full column, click here.

Previous related post: Man arrested in Toronto shooting was on probation

MacKay's father to pay 17¢ for fax

Earlier this week, the Bloc Québécois revealed that Elmer MacKay used the fax machine in his son's [Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay] Nova Scotia office to send a letter berating the RCMP for its investigation into the dealings of Karlheinz Schreiber.

The story doesn’t say how the Bloc uncovered this egregious waste of taxpayers’ money. 

A former official in the British government's UFO Project (surprise!) is worried that extraterrestrials could attack the United Kingdom any minute now.

During his time as head of the Ministry of Defence UFO project, Nick Pope was persuaded into believing that other lifeforms may visit Earth and, more specifically, Britain.

His concern is that "highly credible" sightings are simply dismissed.

And he complains that the project he once ran is now "virtually closed" down, leaving the country "wide open" to aliens.

Mr Pope decided to speak out about his worries after resigning from his post at the Directorate of Defence Security at the MoD this week.

"The consequences of getting this one wrong could be huge," he said.
. . .
And while Mr Pope says that there is no evidence of hostile intent, he insists it cannot be ruled out.

"There has got to be the potential for that and one is left with the uneasy feeling that if it turned out to be so, there is very little we could do about it," he said.

Here's another surprise: Since leaving the defence ministry, Mr Pope has written four science fiction novels.

Previous related post: Moonbat alert: Paul Hellyer

Canada's Supreme Court has declined to consider whether (alleged) Muslim culture can justify murder.  A Muslim couple was visiting Ottawa in 1999.  When the wife disgraced him and violated "family honour" by confessing to an extra-marital affair, the husband stabbed her in the throat 23 times.

The Supreme Court of Canada declined an invitation on Thursday to consider whether Muslim cultural and religious beliefs in ''family honour'' should be taken into account as justification for receiving a lighter sentence for killing an unfaithful wife.

The court refused to hear the appeal of Adi Abdul Humaid, a devout Muslim from the United Arab Emirates, who admitted to stabbing Aysar Abbas to death with a steak knife on a visit to Ottawa in 1999.

In an application filed in the Supreme Court, Humaid's lawyer, Richard Bosada, argued Humaid was provoked by his wife's claim she cheated on him, an insult so severe in the Muslim faith it deprived him of self-control.

The concept of ''family honour'' in the Muslim culture means a man is disgraced if his wife has an affair, said the application.

Mr Humaid's lawyer said the court should hear the case because Canada is a multi-cultural society.  Now there’s a convincing argument!

h/t: Dust My Broom

Dr Donny George, former chairman of Iraq’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, has abruptly vacated his position and departed the country after religious persecution became intolerable.  His son received threats because the family is Christian.

Dr George, an Assyrian Christian, was concerned about the looting of Iraq’s archaeological sites, and had set up a security force to guard them. Since his departure, international archaeologists have been concerned about the preservation of Iraqi antiquities. Reports warn that indiscriminate digging has left some of the country’s 100,000 archaelogical sites pockmarked “like the moon”.

A letter to the Iraqi government, signed by 14 experts, including Professor Harriet Crawford, who chairs the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (BSAI), protested that too many treasures had been lost already. Antiquarians should be “above politics”, its authors said.

Dr Lamia Al-Gailani Werr, a former cultural adviser to the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council, believed that Dr George had been forced to leave Iraq because of his faith.

The Iraqi Ministry of Culture has come to be dominated by followers of the extremist Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr who are uninterested in preserving pre-Islamic heritage.  Thus, the most ancient Iraqi artifacts and archaeological sites are being neglected.

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