Open Season: Sue Canada!

Egad, another innocent individual of Middle-East extraction threatening to sue the Government of Canada. The Government of Canada; well that's just about everyone in Canada, since it's tax dollars involved. Seems every time an Arab or a Muslim is affronted because they've received what they interpret as dirty looks, or a government reaction to a personal situation they're dissatisfied with, out comes that threat.

This government is on the hook for millions, and millions, and millions ... Hands out of our pockets, fellas...!

And whoops! here's another one. Former president of ICI Construction Management, Roland Eid, who informed his employees that he was about to depart to Florida for a winter holiday, transferred almost $2-million of company funds - at a time when the company was struggling to pay its suppliers - back home to Lebanon, and then flew there himself. The company is insolvent, has $10-million in debt.

The company has left a number of construction projects dangling, unfinished. Including a $4.2-million contract for a new RCMP administration building in Ottawa. By sheer coincidence bankruptcy trustee Kevin McCart of Surgeson Carson Associates recommended the RCMP investigate Mr. Eid's financial transactions.

"It was the quantum of losses and the fact that just prior to leaving he wire-transferred himself money to an account in Lebanon, to his personal account, which seemed to be not in the normal course of business", explained Mr. McCart. And an RCMP document points out that Mr. Eid "used corporate assets to pay for his lavish lifestyle".

"Witnesses claim that he paid for personal expenses such as his wedding, his son's baptism with over 200 guests, vehicle for the in-laws, child support and renovations of his in-laws' house. ...using ICI Construction Management's money, while the company could not even pay their subcontractors", the document concluded.

But according to Roland Eid, from Lebanon, "It has nothing to do with money. ... It's all political. They're trying to discredit me because they're afraid I'm going to come out with the truth." And out it came, the truth, utterly devastating. Wicked CSIS is at it again, trying to compromise the integrity of an honest businessman for their own dastardly purposes.

And that, precisely, is why the RCMP is after him, protecting CSIS.

For according to Mr. Eid's account, CSIS approached him a decade ago while he worked for McDonald Brothers Construction, urging him to obtain blueprints of the Ukrainian Embassy so they could proceed with implanting bugs and cameras. He was approached, he said, only after his employer, Pat McDonald refused to provide them with blueprints.

When Mr. McDonald was interviewed, he had no recollection of such an event. Moreover, he said that in his decades of experience in the Ottawa construction industry he had never heard of CSIS ever seeking such information in such a manner. Details, details. Mr. Eid also declared that within his company employees were aware of the CSIS connection.

Two former employees questioned about this very fact said they had no knowledge whatever of any such connection, nor did they recall the company ever being engaged in any construction work on embassies, effectively belying their former boss's contention that, "I was given those three missions to do: The information about Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon. The drawings and construction of the Syrian Embassy. The drawings and renovation of the Lebanese Embassy."

However, it went against his morals to pass on such information to CSIS, since it would amount to spying on Arab countries. To avoid further pressure, he escaped back to Lebanon. The man's ex-wife denies ever having any information about his supposed involvement with CSIS: "I don't know anything at all. He never mentioned it", she responded to questioning.

Nor did the bankruptcy trustee, Mr. McCart, see any paperwork that might reveal a relationship with CSIS, in his review of ICI's files. None of these contradictions appear to faze Mr. Eid, his story is one he intends to rigidly stick with. "People should know the truth. I'm planning to go back to Canada and sue the government and tell my story."

A-huh...