Officially Sanctioned Extortion

Canadians feel complacent that our security is assured, that illicit attempts to force any of us to part with our hard-earned cash will bring the law to our side, protectively. We live in a free and fair society, one where each of us is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees us equal treatment under the law. Providing us the choice of religion, ideology, gender orientation.

Our right to free speech and free association is guaranteed under the Charter. To a certain point.

Unless any of us utter hurtful slander geared to cause pain and suffering and danger to others. And then the law steps in, for there are anti-hate laws that protect society. Of course if someone is not being utterly hateful and dangerous to your well-being, but being provocative and causes you distress you can get your own back by claiming hurt feelings. Take those hurt feelings to a human rights tribunal and you're away to the races.

If there is a criticism that impacts on you personally, if someone who offers specialized services to the public, but declines to provide those services to you, become affronted; it is your due. For the human rights tribunals are there to look to your peace of mind. You can trample on someone else's peace and security and values by imposing your own on them, and that's a lesson learned, isn't it?

And psst! it won't cost you a red dime. Designed and paid for on taxpayer funding. And through the process of impressing on the tribunal just how hurt your feelings are and how unfair it is that a religious group refuses to honour your orientation because it offends their value system, take the opportunity to give them a come-uppance, courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer.

In the process you can bleed them of their assets as compensation for hurt feelings.

Cry racism, or homophobia or any other manner of phobia to impress the human rights tribunals and presto! Your case is made for you. Because that's what their raison d'etre is, after all; to defend those who are bleating and to offend those who claim innocence. There is no neutrality, no balancing of opposite and apposite standards and opinions, there is your tragic story that must be pursued to your satisfaction.

Make your story compelling enough, describe your grief over the insult, the assault on your human dignity and watch the tribunal excoriate the offender, and see them empty their pockets to satisfy the fine that will go directly into yours. These are shakedown tribunals under a human rights guise. The complaint whatever the issue is the issue.

The outcome is a settlement agreed upon by a harassed and discombobulated individual or group who never in their wildest nightmares imagined themselves as human rights defilers.

Arctic Resource Ownership

Map of the polar region, showing Peary's 1909 route to the North Pole. (Corbis) Read more: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/05/19/is-the-rush-for-the-arctic-back-on/#ixzz1MtMBs1kc

Canada has had a long-standing territorial dispute with Denmark in the Arctic over Hans Island. The Arctic territorial nations all lay claim to ownership of 'their portion' of the Arctic area, but the territories are not clearly defined and there is much overlap in claims. Particularly with the discovery of great natural resources to be mined and claimed to enrich those nations with sovereignty of the areas in dispute.

Russia, the United States, Canada and Norway, along with Denmark, all claim ownership of various areas of the Arctic. Russia famously made headlines when it planted a three-foot titanium flag using a submersible, to hammer home the point that it plans to claim its territory and with it the riches ensconced there in natural resources.

As the environment changes and passage through the area becomes feasible year round eventually, shipping challenges Canada's claim to the North West Passage. Those who plan to increasingly use it as an efficient transitway claim it is international waters and is not in the possession of Canada.

Early explorers from Norway, Russia and the United States all gave those countries an investment in the future.

Now Denmark has unveiled a plan for its Arctic territories to lay claim to the North Pole sea bed. "We expect that Denmark will be able to document claims to an area that among other things includes the sea bed at the North Pole" referring to a ten-year strategy. This initiative will lead to a confrontation for ownership with Russia, the U.S., Canada and Norway.

Thanks to new undersea mining technologies - it lies within the capacity of those nations that can document and prove to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea their claims to ownership - they will be able to harvest 30% of the world's undiscovered gas resources and the 90 billion barrels of oil to be derived from those undersea areas.

All of the nations claim their ownership of the Arctic area in a 200-mile radius from their shorelines. Russia is invested in proving that the gas, oil and diamonds that exist on its claimed territory - the Lomonosov Ridge - is theirs alone. But experts also say that the Ridge does not represent part of the continental shelf, but the point where two ocean floor plates spread.

Since the Ridge extends from Russia to Canada, claims by Canada should have at least as much merit as Russia's. From time to time all the countries involve say they are invested in working amicably together. Then greed gets in the way of good intentions and each embarks on its individual plans to prove ownership, disputed by the others.

The geographic and geopolitical assertions on all fronts with a view to ownership of seabed resources will remain a contentious issue for some time to come until full clarification can be achieved through proper mapping and documentation and geological identification. Meanwhile the issues involved see all those nations jostling for primacy and injuring diplomatic relations.

Once Upon A Time

There was a time when Canada's immigrant population was far more homogeneous than it is now. Many of its immigrants came from English-speaking countries; Britain, Scotland, Ireland; the mother country. Many more came from Europe, they were Caucasian. Those who were brought into the country to labour mightily where no one else would, were often orientals and they faced great discrimination.

Canada was not kind to its visible minorities. Although black Americans, escaping slavery, made their way into parts of Ontario and Nova Scotia, they lived as free men and women, but still faced grave discrimination. Canada's native populations, the First Nations people, always faced bigoted discrimination. And Jews faced the legends "no Jews or dogs" for entry to private clubs and universities.

That was once upon a time. Now Canada celebrates itself as a tolerant, multicultural country whose pluralist society represents ethnic groups, cultures, and religions from across the world. Once upon a time there were no special social programs through government agencies that existed to assist immigrants to adjust to their new, adopted country. No language study groups, no social service agencies to provide introductions to society and social assistance.

Immigrants adapted, they learned the language, they worked at menial, subsistence jobs, they raised their children who attended schools and adopted Canadian customs with the language, and they melded into society. If they had assistance it was far more likely to come from those of similar backgrounds who saw it as a duty to help others. There was practical assimilation.

It is now far more costly for Canada itself to embrace, encourage and absorb immigrants. There is a recognized humanitarian aspect to immigration that did not exist in much earlier days, once upon a time. Family reunification, for example; before, family sponsored family by paying for every aspect of their emigration and taking responsibility for adjustment and investment in the future.

Once upon a time there was no universal health care, nor the broad social services seen today. Earlier immigrants had a difficult, often miserable time adjusting on their own, and they lived in helpful communities that offered support. New immigrants also live in communities that offer support, but support is there in many other ways, government-sponsored at every level.

And it is immensely costly. The cost underwritten by the taxpayer. A new study by the Fraser Institute points out that for every immigrant coming to the country it costs an average of $6,000 over what government spends for all Canadians in terms of social supports. Since 2004, it has been estimated the total cost of integrating immigrants reached $25-billion.

Family unification, bringing over parents and grandparents to join their adult children with young families is a costly affair because the parents and grandparents have nothing to offer to Canadian society. No language capability, nor working skills, and because of their advanced age, a need for health care and other services, and eventually old-age supplements.

Immigrants do not, even after their first decade of employment in the country, earn salaries commensurate with the average population, and therefore pay less taxes. They consume the same amount of social programs as other Canadians while adding less than the majority of the population to the tax base.

A longer-range thought process might come to the conclusion that eventually, with the second and the third generation, all those 'differences' will have been expunged; the children of immigrants, adapted into Canadian society and the workforce will earn what other Canadians do, and pay for their own social services.

And they all live happily ever after.

Upholding Law and Order

The troubling, if not utterly pathetic story of the Mountie who couldn't distinguish right from wrong. How then, is he able to administer the notion of law and order, let alone justice? Amazing how aptly named he is, as well: Constable Wright, confused about right and wrong.

Are we expecting just too much from law enforcement officers? Are we being unreasonable, anticipating that they are imbued with a righteous sense of what is socially permissible and to avoid the illicit in their personal lives? Is their training apt? Are we prepared to accept that an officer of the law will hold us responsible for our anti-social and criminal acts, while blithely pursuing those acts themselves?

Constable Matt Wright was definitely not in his right mind - or perhaps he was - when he decided not to document taking possession of drugs and cash after a drug bust. It wasn't that he had no previous experience as a law enforcement officer, why the man had also served in the military prior to taking up his profession with the RCMP. He then must have known what he was about, and it would appear that he approved of what he was planning.

Leaving no logistical trace of the drugs and cash he had earlier seized he took the opportunity some months later to depart the Chilliwack detachment with files, his notebooks, RCMP I.D. card along with the cash and drugs he had taken possession of, but never documented. This was the result of a street arrest, after all, and no one would be any the wiser. Was the miscreant about to begin an investigation into the cash and drugs that he had been relieved of, at his arrest?

Off he set with the undocumented goods. And then he reported that those items which he had left in his vehicle had been taken by some no-good who had broken into his car. It was only a "thin wad" of cash, he explained, containing a $20 bill as a wrapper, and perhaps 50 blue pills. No great loss. But he was brought before an internal disciplinary hearing where he made an admission guilt of the allegations brought against him.

And for his misdemeanor was docked two days' pay representing due punishment for neglect of duty. "The lapse of judgement in the proper care, control and storage of an exhibit may be out of character; however, members must be vigilant in properly processing exhibits. The public and the courts expect nothing less than perfection", huffed the disciplinary board.

Months later it was revealed, Constable Wright's supervisor discovered that he had purchased a rifle a few years earlier from a retired member of the RCMP. He never got around to acquiring a firearms certificate, nor was the rifle registered to him. The superior officer took possession of the firearm, and Constable Wright was charged under the RCMP Act with disgraceful conduct.

And docked (gasp!) another three days' pay for having an unlicensed firearm. The disciplinary board stated: "We commit to uphold the law and by acquiring a firearm without the proper licensing, Constable Wright is breaking the very law he swore to enforce." This severe chastisement caused Constable Wright to apologize.

He has demonstrated contrition, and expresses deep regret for having embarrassed the national police force. The RCMP has experienced a great many occasions of late for being deeply embarrassed by the unprofessional and occasionally not very exemplary behaviour of its members in pursuing their duties. Constable Wright feels very badly about that, too.

He has assured his seniors that he is now scrupulous about processing all crime exhibits "meticulously". Good thing that is, too; restoring our confidence in the honesty and integrity of those whose duty it is to serve the public interest in upholding law and order.

Another Canadian Hostage

Why Canadians, why not Australians, or Germans? Isn't it always German and Australian youth who are portrayed as curious about the world around them, adventurous, always heaving off on bold new forks in the road? When was it that Canadians began experimenting with the joys and the travails of venturing in bold pursuit of new places in various geographies of the world?

The allure of placing oneself in dangerous situations appears to have become an irresistible attraction to young Canadians. As well as older ones.

The Taliban dispatched a woman convinced that they would never harm her for she had herself become Muslim, and defended their right to protect their country from the incursion of foreign troops. Beverly Giesbrecht, also known as Khadija Abdul Qahaar, kidnapped on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, also videoed and finally murdered.

A few years earlier it was three women in Afghanistan who advanced the cause of women and children and whom the Taliban pumped bullets at, despite that their white SUV bore the markings of the International Rescue Committee. One woman acknowledged as an authority on education for women and girls in zones of conflict, the other committed to assist disabled Afghan children.

And now a 26-year-old Canadian man taken hostage by Mujahideen in central Afghanistan. A video released by his captors show him being interviewed. He is trying to convince his captors that he is not, as they claim, an intelligence spy, but simply a tourist with an interest "in history and historic sites, old buildings, shrines...I am an auditor from Canada and I came as a tourist", he tells them.

What makes young people feel they are somehow immune from danger when they present themselves in what are clearly dangerous world hot-spots, like active war zones? Are they that naive, or do they harbour a secret death wish? One that the local psychopaths are only too eager to fulfill for them.

Muslim Charities

Aren't Canadians curious about the fact that funding of terrorist activity is carried on as a quasi-legal action within this country? All the more so that our security services have tracked down precisely how this occurs? And that it is permitted to continue?

Mind, the federal government has taken steps to rescind the charitable status permitted to this fund-raising entity. Which does not, in fact, raise funds, but merely accepts the transfer of funds from a well-known supporter of terror groups, effectively, though transit in Canada, white-washing it, for further transfer to places like the U.S.

Our great good friend, the Libyan dictator, Moammar Gadhafi has long had a penchant for generously advancing cash credit to terror groups around the world.

Islamist groups who conduct a campaign of terror can always count on the largesse of oil money garnered through the thirst of the West for energy sources, for distribution to cells invested in spreading terror by conceiving of plots to challenge the lives of their perceived enemies. The more spectacular and gruesome the plot, the more victims are slaughtered in these atrocities, the finer the outcome.

The World Islamic Call Society - sounds innocent, doesn't it? - is based in London, Ontario.

Imagine that, a world-class Islamic society has chosen to position itself in Western Ontario; who knew we would be so deserving of such recognition? Except that the innocent sounding name represents a sole individual tasked to distribute funding in support of terrorism by a special fund of Col. Gadhafi's named the "Jihad fund". Now that's fairly straightforward; we understand quite well what that refers to.

Financial documents received by Canada Revenue Agency indicate that this registered Canadian charity has transferred thousands to Jamaat al-Muslimeen, known for its rape, torture and murder campaigns. Headquartered in Pakistan, it has associates in various parts of the world, including the United States.

Money was wired directly to the bank account of 75-year-old Assem Fadel, president of the sole Canadian franchise of the Islamic Call Society. From Mr. Fadel's personal bank account the money is transferred to the Society for further disbursement to all the terrorist organizations obviously thought to be deserving of this special attention.

Mr. Fadel, for his part, rejects the 'allegations'. "The charity doesn't have a U.S. bank account so the money came to me and I distributed the money as directed by the mother organization in Libya", Mr.Fadel explained. Perfectly clear. He is resigned to continuing the good work funded by Col. Gadhafi less the charitable status now revoked.

For there is a noble purpose to the cause and its funding. For the past four decades that funding has gone to Muslim centres around the world for the purpose of spreading "Muslim culture".

Mr. Fadel also operates a travel agency where he organizes trips to Saudi Arabia. Saudi money also funds terror; the al-Qaeda cultural Muslim association benefits hugely from Saudi generosity, sent directly to its former leader, Osama bin Laden. The funding meant specifically for the purpose of narrowing the gulf of understanding between Western society and Islam.

None of the money has been used to fund terror: "The Muslim faith is the most misunderstood religion in the world, but once Christians sit down and talk with us about the issues, they understand", Mr. Fadel explained, reasonably. It is a canard that the terror group planning the 2007 bombing plot at J.F. Kennedy Airport was funded handsomely by the Canadian charity to the tune of $180,000; calumnies all.

With this knowledge well in hand and well understood, the mystery that remains is why these transactions are permitted to take place at all.

Simply revoking the charitable status of a money-transfer scheme that should never have been granted charitable status to begin with, does not respond to the reality that this is money laundering; taking foreign funds into the country to disguise its origins for later distribution to terror cells in the United States, Europe, and even back to the Middle East.

If the Canadian government is aware of this charade - which it is clear now that it is - why and how can it be possible that this is allowed to go on unobstructed, as an entitlement as a genuine charity under Canadian cover?

Loony Left Resurfacing

Things can get dicey sometimes when people begin to speak frankly what's on their minds. Leading listeners to conclude that their minds are somewhat lacking in reason, hampered by impressions that seem impressively in accord with conspiracy theorists. But of course this is a spokesperson for the New Democratic Party, in fact the NDP deputy chief, a man thought of normally as sober-minded and reasonably intelligent.

Perhaps he's been rattled by the necessity, as the senior - and for many years the sole - NDP MP in the Province of Quebec, of having to explain to skeptics that the new crop of NDP MPs who took the province by storm are perfectly legitimate candidates. Even one whose candidature is now being questioned by the very people who supposedly signed on to her nomination papers as having not done so. It does get confusing.

This is the party that suddenly appeared to that great unknowable beast, the Quebec-voters-in-aggregate as their new source for extraction of special entitlements from the rest of Canada. Thomas Mulcair, party deputy leader stated his well-thought-out opinion that the United States is bluffing; there are no photographs of the man shot dead by US Navy SEALs in his compound in Pakistan.

In the fine tradition of the NDP - not fondly named "dippers" for no reason, as in "dipsy" ; the antics of Svend Robinson come to mind - Mr. Mulcair felt it his responsibility to comment on world affairs which shed a dark light on the modus operandi of the United States. He is obviously invested with a sense of outrage that the world's super power took illegal means to destroy one who sought to destroy its symbols and its people.

"I don't think, from what I've heard, that those pictures exist. And if they do, I'll leave that up to the American military", he said in a spirit of generosity, and then expanded: "No, I don't think they do. If they've got pictures of a cadaver, there's probably more going on than we suspect in what happened there", he concluded. Why leave us dangling? Why couldn't Mr. Mulcair tell us precisely what happened?

And the web sites he has visited as well, to enable us to catch up with all the latest that the truthers have uncovered.

UN's High Commission for Human Rights Coming to a Country Near You

What concerning news. Canada is set - again - to be investigated by the UN High Commission for Human Rights. Navi Pillay is dispatching a committee upon Canada again to look carefully at our human rights' record. For it is entirely possible that in some obscure manner Canadian society - even government agencies - may be guilty of making light of someone's human rights.

The United Nations Human Rights Council is not fond, we are informed, of Canada's cavalier attitude toward people of colour. Naming them "visible minorities" as a way of readily distinguishing the most obvious characteristics setting some ethnic groups aside from the bland majority to expedite documentation is considered to be horribly insulting.

But that's the thing about Canadians; we are so out of tune with the real world of careful dignity allocated to all those who declare themselves to have been ill done by because of perceived physical differences. An alienating process, recognizing that people look different from one another, in a way that identifies which part of the world they come from.

That's another thing about most people; they're curious about one another, about various ethnic and cultural experiences and differences. We are curious animals; we like to look around us, make sense of what we see. And when we identify differences we assimilate the fact that they exist, while clarifying at the same time our awareness of how much more we share as human beings.

The UN's Working Group on People of African Descent will have none of this. They know racism when they see it, sniff it, feel it. The group plans to visit Canada in May. They will be busily engaged in rooting out any and all instances of persecution suffered by black African-Canadians.

Our neighbour, the United States, has been visited by them; no word whether they interviewed Barack Obama.

This working group sees no need nor merit in visiting countries like Sudan or Libya. UN Watch, unaffiliated with the UN, but keeping a close eye on what the UN does on behalf of the great, wide world, has noted the acute persecution black Africans suffer in Libya and Sudan, but this appears of little interest to the working group.

It would be a fitting welcome if black Canadians courteously entertained the group, and speedily ushered them on their way, pointing in the direction of Sudan and elsewhere in the world where black Africans are exploited and suffer, usually by their own; Zimbabwe, Congo, Somalia come readily to mind.

A Humbled Worthy

The assured arrogance of entitlement that once alternated with a thespian folksiness of an aristocrat submitting to the relaxed demeanor of the man of the people has dissipated. Reality set in with its stunning effects. For no one could really have visualized what the federal election of 2011 for the 41st Parliament of Canada would result in. Certainly not the decimation of that venerable old party, the Liberals.

Fallen now to a historical low. For the first time in its history no longer either the governing party or the temporary set-back of the official opposition. The Liberal Party of Canada has always enjoyed its eternal headquarters either at 24 Sussex Drive or at Stornoway. Now neither of these official residences welcomes it to enjoy yet another stay. Banished to obscurity, a back-handed slap at its manifest destiny.

No longer wither goes Canada goes the Liberal Party.

Canada has veered off on a direction that has left the Liberal party at rather loose ends, confused and forlorn. When the man who has been anointed leader in the wake of too many leadership failures, enticed back home to Canada to deliver the party once again to its natural place of governance is unable to hold on to his own Parliamentary seat, no longer a Member of Parliament, there is nowhere lower to stumble.

Michael Ignatieff delivered a wonderfully heartfelt speech accepting responsibility for the failure of his party to increase the number of its seats, to overtake the Conservatives and install itself back into governance. Surely the responsibility was not all, entirely his alone. The party has failed to ignite itself back into the minds of Canadians, after too many opportunities were worn too thin by a sense of entitlement they were no longer entitled to embrace.

In that regard Mr. Ignatieff was a perfect fit. His constant complaints that Prime Minster Stephen Harper was disdaining democracy reflected his own lapses in spurning democratic action for acclamation. And Mr. Ignatieff's spontaneous warning to Mr. Harper that his "time was up" as prime minister and as his adversary he was prepared to assume that position was stunningly premature.

As was his uninspired decision to lay himself and his party open to disaster through the rash decision to bring down the government on a pretext of censure, when the Liberals were still a long way from being prepared to mount a serious challenge to the Conservatives. When poll after poll demonstrated the insipid rating of the Liberals as opposed to the robust rating of the Conservatives.

Choosing their time badly; when the economy was just recovering and on a steady course; when the party was still in disarray; when the electorate clearly had not reached a flattering opinion of Mr. Ignatieff; when Canadians stated unequivocally they were content to permit this effective minority government to continue - for no one wanted the imposition of an election.

The outcome of this election, under those circumstances, with its $300-million price tag, can only be described as "just desserts". But Mr. Ignatieff's speech was humble, and moving, and beautifully and earnestly delivered, a tour de force of quietly passionate remorse.

Bloc Quebecois - Adieu!

"This time, Quebecers wanted to try something else. I am leaving, but others will follow - until Quebec becomes a country." Gilles Duceppe

The heart simply bleeds for the emotional trauma writ so large on the visage of Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, once enough ballots were counted to inform him and all Bloquistes that their day had dawned, and finally set. The separatist party that was established for the sole and singular purpose of representing Quebec's interest in Canada's Parliament as a sovereign country determined to secede from Confederation has virtually vanished overnight.

From a political powerhouse of astringent complaints, totally disinterested in the federation, and completely consumed by its mission to separate Quebec from Canada, while continuing to demand its financial due entitlements in the form of federal transfer payments courtesy of the wealthier provinces, no longer an official, recognized party. The 47 seats that the Bloc commanded in the House of Commons were reduced to a paltry four.

Gone the authority to speak for its provincial little-brother political agitators, the Parti Quebecois, condemning the rest of Canada for mistaking Quebec's exceptionality as a nation as a whim of French-speaking Canadians. Gone the bluster and the blister, the canards and the unsubtle blackmail. This does not, however, translate into a change of heart for Quebecers; merely a change in tactics in the field of political warfare.

A new champion has arisen; this time no mere provincial party on the federal scene, but a federal party with representation in all the provinces of the federation, and prepared to champion the separatist cause if need be, but not necessarily if it need not. But it has given its word, through the voice and assurances of Jack Layton, leader of the NDP.

He will act on their behalf. He will do, far more effectively, for them, what Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc had promised, and failed to deliver. Mr. Duceppe has gone into retirement. No more will the Bloc be showered with tax-paid largess allowing it to insult and blackmail Canada. In its place, the New Democratic Party, newly heralded by Quebec voters as the official opposition in Parliament, speaking for Quebec.

It cannot be said with any kind of honesty that we are sad at the news of its timely demise. Adieu!

Jack On The Dole

NDP Leader Jack Layton, accompanied by his wife, Trinity-Spadina MP Olivia Chow, arrives at the East End Children's Centre during a campaign stop in Toronto on Sept. 17, 2008.ANDREW VAUGHAN/The Canadian Press

Smilin' Jack is beside himself with delight. Throw in some glee; who would've thunk it?

Himself, that's who. Because if there's something Jack Layton is well endowed with, it's a vigorous sense of self-entitlement. We just thought that Michael Ignatieff was stuffed full of himself, in the belief that he would make an excellent prime minister. Or that Stephen Harper felt entitled after his minority-government apprenticeship to an opportunity at full-steam-ahead majority status.

Come-from-behind Jack knows of a certainty that it was time his brilliance as a politician was appreciated. And the public appears prepared to support him in that belief. Will wonders ever cease? And will Canadians finally - actually, yet again - get the government they're deserving of? Which is to say, are there really that many delusional voters dazzled by the fancy hobble-work of Jack-the-survivor to vote him into 24 Sussex Drive?

Jack and his estimable wife are accustomed to tax-subsidized digs. They felt equally entitled to life-support in Toronto in subsidized rent-scaled-to-income living arrangements. Never for one moment considering how peculiar it might look for two well-remunerated politicians taking away housing from those who really do need it; they just felt kind of comfortable there, anything wrong with that?

Well, yes. There is, a whole lot wrong with it. Something analogous to being the high-spending duo in Parliament out of the entire Member-of-Parliament contingent. A rather extravagant $1.6-M total expenditure annually for office expenses, travel and what-not, courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer. When asked to justify that huge sum in an interview with a nosy reporter, Olivia Chow simply said "it isn't illegal".

It should be. But there's an honour system in Parliament. We figure that those whom we elect to public office have a care about how they spend-and-claim taxpayer-funded largess. After all, our lawmakers are important to the political health and social well-being of this country. If we cannot trust them to be sensible and prudent with the country's welfare uppermost in mind, then who can we trust?

Well, Jack of course. He has great plans for this country. He and the unions that support him want better bargains for union workers. They're not sufficiently entitled. An already-bleeding industry sector better get ready to bleed more jobs as manufacturers decide to re-settle offshore. Ditto for foreign investment, when Jack decides to raise corporate taxes. Employment heading south....

As for viable candidates, Jack promises more women in his caucus and Cabinet than any other party. Olivia Chow for Treasury Board by way of Finance. And those NDP female candidates who absented themselves in Las Vegas and France and just elsewhere-who-knows-where, to prove their commitment to the party and the country, will be slipped into office by voters suddenly enamoured with the NDP.

And then there's Quebec, and its special status; very special under Prime Minister Jack Layton. Feel like extending Bill 101? Right on. Restrict English, sounds like a sound business choice. And no, there will be no Supreme Court judges appointed under his rule who are not efficiently bilingual. Nope, no English-language studies for Quebecers who think they may slip through the barriers. As for Quebec independence, why not; a simple majority will do; rescind the Clarity Act.

Who needs the Bloc when they've got Jack Layton and the NDP in the PMO? Got those moving vans busy at 24 Sussex yet?

Brutally Unsavoury

It never ceases to amaze that Canada seems to have become an immigration magnet for people whose presence in Canada will never be a benefit to this country, but do become both an embarrassment and a threat by their very presence. To begin with, Canada has a well-founded reputation as an easy country to access for immigration. And there are huge numbers of migrating peoples in the world.

Perfectly legitimate candidates for emigration from diverse countries of the world who feel that other countries than their own may offer their families better living conditions; others who are eager to escape living conditions that are inimical to their well being, where they are persecuted on the basis of their ethnicity or religion. And those who live with the misery of migrant refugees, fleeing wars or natural disasters.

It's the left-over category comprised of several groups; those who no longer wish to live in repressive countries of the world, seeking opportunity and freedom for their families, but bringing with them the pathological resentment and suspicion and hatred of others that form the backbone of their social heritage, and whose importation of enmity harms Canada.

And finally, those fleeing their countries of origin because they are war criminals. Generally people involved in support of a dictatorial regime or an autocratic government that has been proven to be a human-rights violator and continues to be just that, or a deposed government which has brutally suppressed its peoples' human rights and engaged in a civil war or one of brutal repression.

Canada issues visas to people on the basis of their backgrounds, their presumed suitability to conform to and accept Canadian values, and the assurance that they have never been involved in either a civil criminal act, or associated with governments and their agencies which are known to be human rights violators. Yet people know when to withhold critical information that will exclude them.

And Canada has, in the past, welcomed within its borders former WWII fascists involved in the murder of countless civilians, and only many decades later discovered proof of denied involvement. Rwandans who have been proven to having engaged in genocidal tribal warfare, Somalians who have been in the forefront of tribal and clan population eradication. And figures responsible for countless deaths in places like Cambodia.

When it is discovered through later revelations and following confirming investigations that those who have committed crimes against humanity have entered the country through falsely stating their bona fides, steps are taken to remove them. There are instances where, in the case of a Lebanese-born Canadian, France has asked for his extradition on suspicion of bombing the Rue Copernic synagogue.

There have been other expulsions and extraditions from Canada for those apprehended as being suspected, with security evidence to secure suspicions, of being involved in international terrorist groups such as Islamist jihadists affiliated with al-Qaeda. People born in the Middle East or in the African Maghreb who have infiltrated Canadian society for the purpose of causing harm, have been an especial problem.

And latterly, a 50-year-old lawyer originally from Kinshasa who claimed refugee status in Canada has been deported by the Canada Border Services Agency under this country's War Crimes Program. Canada deported 23 war criminals in the year 2007-2008 alone and another 211 are awaiting deportation, with a further 170 suspected or known war criminals on outstanding warrants

This most current deportation order links Ambroise Mapangu Ishaku as a former ranking member of Congo's Mouvement de Liberation du Congo, involved in a horrible civil war targeting innocent civilians, raping women and children; murdering, looting and torturing. The Immigration Refugee Board cites that 40% of the armed wing of the this group was comprised of children forced into service as fighters and prostitutes.

"These children were subjected to unimaginable horrors, forced to fight and often kill their own families, forced to engage in cannibalism, raped and used as sex slaves."

In his defence, Mr. Ishaku portrayed this period in his country's history as reflective of the normal consequences of war. And he caught up as a patriot fighting for his country. Which is precisely what most people caught in the web of their own lies to cover their involvement in indescribable acts of barbarity against others explain themselves.

Adequate reason for Canada to become far more diligent in rooting out their presence, and to invest more heavily in processes that would deny them entry to this country to begin with.

Meant To Benefit Canadians

Let's hear that again? Canada a potential destination for medical-tourism? That's a stretch, isn't it? Universal medicare and hospitalization within Canada is already stretched to its outer limits. And Canada is not in the business, like countries whose economies are struggling, in the business of making a reputation, let alone money, off the avails of surgical-medical expertise, therapies and state-of-the-art, precision equipment.

Canada has long waiting lists for certain surgical procedures. There is a shortage of medical experts in some quite particular disciplines. There exists, relative to other wealthy and developed countries of the world, a relative paucity of expensive diagnostic and surgical equipment. All complicated by the inexorability of a steadily aging population, requiring more hospital admissions and critical care.

But then, there are some that present the situation and the possibility that Canada might indeed open up to a different kind of medical-surgical treatment offered to foreigners suffering from unfortunate medical conditions. Apart from the occasional temporary visas issued to young children urgently requiring life-saving surgery or organ transplants from undeveloped countries through pure charity.

There are those who contend that simply because Canada is so relatively well endowed with the expertise of surgeons who have mastered new life-saving techniques in organ transplantation and surgical advances, that there is an obligation to share with others less fortunate than Canadians who may take advantage of such opportunities.

It's an argument that fails somewhat to convince, since in all instances, save for charity being extended to poor sufferers from abroad, non-Canadians seeking advanced medical-surgical treatment in Canada must pay their own way, and that way tends to be exceedingly expensive. Medical tourists going to countries like India and China experience a good level of satisfaction with their outcomes.

But costs associated with travelling there and other countries offering superior medical treatment in facilities not normally offered to their own populations, are relatively cost-effective to the medical tourist. It has become an industry, one that the travel and tourism industry itself has become lucratively associated with.

There are currently up to fifty countries of the world involved in offering medical tourism, where people may with relative ease, as long as they can pay the freight, receive joint replacement, cardiac surgery, dental and cosmetic surgeries, and surgeries that haven't been approved in their own countries like the MS 'liberation' procedure.

People willing to travel outside their own countries at a special rate tied up with surgical procedures must consider that the regulations and professional medical-school training may not equal the standards demanded in their countries of origin. That follow-up treatment and the drug protocol may prove to be problematical on their return home.

In Toronto the University Health Network representing multi-organ transplants appears to feel that since the medical professions' ultimate role is life-saving, it hardly matters whose lives are being saved, and the option to seek life-saving treatment should transcend borders. Doctors and patients from diverse places on the Globe make contact with the Toronto General for transplants, with patients bringing with them living donors.

But Canada's hospitals, its doctors, its medical-teaching universities are taxpayer-subsidized. There is a universal insurance plan for all Canadians paid out of general tax funds transferred to the provinces by the federal government, and individual provinces exact additional fees from families by way of an added tax in support of universal medicare.

Institutions and the benefits that flow from them are meant for the well-being of Canadians, acknowledging the odd exception for humanitarian purposes.

Even if a foreign patient is prepared to pay the entire cost of travel, the medical-surgical procedure and the follow up requirements, expert time and attention is taken away from Canadians, and operating rooms and hospital beds - already in short supply - are used for foreign, non-tax-paying individuals.

In the end, were this to be ome common practise in Canada, there is nothing particularly humanitarian about offering services to people from abroad. In essence, the services would be offered only to those who have the financial wherewithal.

It might benefit the health professionals by giving them more experience and enabling procedures to be streamlined, but this would occur under normal circumstances as procedures become more widely available.

Canada has, like most other countries, a problem acquiring enough donor organs to service the long waiting list of Canadians awaiting life-saving transplant operations. It makes little practical sense to complicate the issue even further by extending to non-Canadians the opportunity to travel on a visitor's visa for the purpose of acquiring surgery.

The issue is, if not a rare commodity, then at least one that is sufficiently difficult to obtain that its acquisition should be available to a narrow spectrum of beneficiaries; those who are citizens of the country, and who have paid their taxes in support of a universal education and medical care system meant to benefit Canadians.

A Socially NDP Canada

We preparing for a clean sweep this time around? All the devoted followers of the NDP set to shout in unison: "Prime Minister Jack Layton!" And all the newly engaged suddenly seeing in nimble Jack - who can turn any perceived advantage on a dime toward the NDP and his personal cause to steer the country- the social progressive we've been waiting for all these years.

Middle-class families (who even knew the NDP cared beyond the low-waged, the welfare recipients, entitled trade unionists, and oh yes, the odd academic here and there, and hard-put-to-pay-tuition students?), the retired, small business, UNIONS (sorry, didn't mean to shout it out), Quebec nationalists (separatists, that is) and (disaffected) Muslims.

Joining them in a hugely enthusiastic group hug, none other than Bloc organizers who are now encouraging those who might normally vote Bloc to transfer their allegiance to the NDP, so they can have a real voice in Parliament, a federal party which is prepared to give Quebec everything it hankers after.

Gilles Duceppe may be feeling betrayed, may have his nose slightly out of joint with disbelief at the traitorous turn of events, but if Pauline Marois obligingly steps aside he can always vent his outrage at the helm of the Parti Quebecois and learn to love partnering with Prime Minister Jack Layton who will be most pleased to grant all his demands, in spades.

Inclusive of waving 'bye-'bye, when Quebec decides finally it's time to shove off. They'll do it, taking with them those parts of the province that don't want to go, would prefer to stay with Canada, but then they're just aboriginals so who gives a damn anyway? They'll also manage to keep a comfortable level of transfer payments because being on the dole is so addictive.

And here's another constituency falling all over itself to endorse the NDP and get out the vote. It's the Holocaust-denying contingent of the Canadian Muslim community who don't much like Stephen Harper and his corrupt, perverted view of justice and morals, standing in solidarity with Israel's right to defend itself against the ongoing attacks by Hamas against Israeli citizens.

Welcome to the fold, all. Of course the NDP's extravagant plans to alter Canada's vision of itself, and to irremediably change the economic landscape resulting in a gangbuster of a green economy and bruised corporate interests, and a failing job market and steeply rising taxes, and failed investments, and a very happy Quebec, will alter this country beyond recognition.

Canada, the country that deserves to hobble along the same track as the failed Italy, Greece, Iceland, Spain, Ireland; we'll be in noble company.

Jack's Boundless Energy

Like the frustrated bridesmaid determined to finally become a bride, after having worked so hard to attain bridesmaid status following a very long period when she was merely a guest, here is Jack Layton bringing the New Democratic Party into the home stretch of either the official opposition or, unbelievably, the new government of Canada. He's sounding breezily confident of late, although perhaps slightly more guarded in his statements to the press since suddenly what he commits to may come back to bite him.

They will certainly - all of his promises, should he ever attain power, either through himself attaining a minority government, or finagling one by finessing a coalition-that-isn't-a-coalition with himself at the helm - come back to bite the voting public. Who may themselves take to biting their fingernails in frustration at the sudden flight of foreign investment, the moans of corporations stung with higher business taxes, and the agony of resulting higher unemployment figures, as fall-out leading to the economy staggering back into enfeebled recession.

Let alone all the expensive new commitments to the Province of Quebec which will call in all of its suddenly-discovered needs which Jack expansively guaranteed his government would be only too privileged to pay for, to keep Quebec happy. Because Jack believes in asymmetrical federalism, in the unique nationalism of Quebec, in the entitlements of Quebec to be its unqualified deserving self with little-to-no-interference from the federal government.

There are, after all, in the grandly-released, and little-focused-on election platform 205 policy promises as a starter as 'first steps' recognizing the needs of Canadian families in the process putting Canada on the highway to a soaring debt that will make the current one look attractive by comparison. A lovely new green plan will be unveiled to finally do justice to all the deserving environmental programs that have been ignored.

A new publication just released has some nifty little details the public can cue into for future prospects in that department. Little tidbits like the conclusion that Spain's efforts to be green resulted in "2.2 jobs (destroyed) for every job created", coming to us courtesy of Kenneth Green and Ben Eisen, writing for the Frontier Centre, explaining "while the capital needed for one green job in Italy could create five new jobs in the general economy". And that researchers at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos released data that the cost of each "green job" in 2009 Spain costed in at $791,597.

Green is a lovely colour, but it's an excessively expensive one to paint the economy with. Spanish researcher Gabriel Calzada Alvarez and company discovered that each "green" megawatt of energy installed "destroys 5.28 jobs on average elsewhere in the economy". Leading Spain finally to the conclusion that its bold new environmental venture into sustainable renewable energy alternatives were simply economically unsustainable.

In Italy and Germany, as in Spain, rampant corruption spread through the exciting new green corporate world of sustainable energy. Everyone eager to take advantage of this splendid new direction in business opportunities. "In Italy, however, rather than having numerous individuals defrauding the government, the Mafia is involved", while in Germany utilities are required by law to purchase solar energy at 59 cents per kWh, whereas conventional sources range from 20 cents to 3 cents.

But the thing is, no one is interested in boringly irrelevant details. The interest lies in the attractiveness of 'doing the right thing' since, after all, there is an environmental crisis at hand; the world is using up non-renewable energy sources at an astounding rate, and in the process adding further to the degradation of the environment. Add to that the fact that as the world's population rises and more people are demanding the privileges seen in the industrialized wealthy world, depletion becomes more assured.

There will certainly have to be some manner of functional address to be realized to this very real problem, simply not necessarily one reflective of proven failures, administered by rookie governments with no past experience in all the areas that the NDP is so eager to dip its fingers into as a purely social-welfare dedication to solving difficult problems. Layton has promised $20-billion for new green initiatives to be paid for by a cap-and-trade system yet to be devised.

But that amount represents only a fraction of the entire projected new spending commitments which come in at about $69-billion, in an economy which is still struggling to fully compensate for the downturn before full confidence can be assumed, and with it new jobs. Higher taxes can be assured with a newly-installed NDP government, but taxes alone won't be sufficient to pay for all the promises, let alone address the deficit and debt.

Canada will become more indebted, over and above the already burdensome amount that resulted from addressing the emergency of the downturn. And this is what Canadians are getting set to vote for? Reason appears to have floated into the upper stratosphere, beyond recall, as people are mesmerized by the picture of a courageous, scrappy populist, who faced down cancer surgery followed by a hip fracture, and still hobbles about tirelessly, and pugnaciously out there, capturing admiration.

Should the impossible come to fruition, we will begin to live in interesting times.

Canada's Finest

Canada, a country built on immigration. And continuing that tradition. Canadians are not replacing themselves at a level commensurate with the need to grow its GDP. We are becoming a nation of elderly people, and too few young people. Immigration stands at roughly a half-million each and every year. It is a costly but necessary process to ensure that Canada continues to grow. But the process comes at a cost when due diligence in admitting future citizens is revealed to have flaws that bring into the country people whose values are inimical to the country.

One such and now-obvious immigrant who entered Canada, originally from Mauritania, by way of Germany is an electrical engineer who lived in Montreal and served as an imam at the Al-Sunnah mosque. The most recent release of WikiLeaks documents details this man's trajectory from immigrant to radicalization and eventual engagement as an al-Qaeda operative. One who ended up as a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. But not before he successfully recruited new members for al-Qaeda, while imam of the Al-Sunnah mosque.

He has, in fact, been linked to three of the hijackers who were involved in the 9/11 terror attacks. As a high-value prisoner he is still being interrogated for any information he may divulge relating to the activities of Islamist extremists in North Africa, Europe and Canada. An American Defence Department assessment of the man which considers him "an admitted member of al-Qaeda" who "was prepared to be a martyr", posits that he was a lieutenant to his cousin, Osama bin Laden's religious adviser, a member of the al-Qaeda council.

A relatively high-ranking, high-value prisoner with deep involvement. He is presumed to have recruited Muhammad Atta, Marwan al Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, pilots of three of the planes lethally and disastrously involved during the September 11, 2001 attacks. According to the American assessment of this very interesting and dedicated Islamist, "multiple independent sources" corroborate his intense involvement in the 9/11 recruitment, along with the Algerian terrorist Ahmed Ressam and the Tunisian synagogue truck bombing in 2002.

Interestingly enough, it was as a teenager in Germany studying on a grant by a foundation at the University of Duisburg where he was exposed to extremist religious indoctrination. He received training in jihad in Afghanistan, and returned there to fight with the mujahadeen against the Soviet-installed Afghan government. Which led to the installation of the Taliban. He planned to fight in Bosnia but decided to return to Germany, rather than face the "danger" in Bosnia.

Of the interesting information he divulged to American authorities was that al-Qaeda was able to invest in "unwitting companies" within Canada. Despite being a fount of useful information, he denies any direct involvement in terrorism. Another innocent man erroneously and grossly unfairly charged with crimes he did not commit. His forthcoming co-operation has been appreciated by the authorities, despite his denials of personal commitment.

Another of Canada's fine immigrants with citizenship potential.

State-Funded Child Care

The Liberals and the NDP decry the Conservatives for not having launched a universal day-care plan, which both the Liberals and the NDP have mused about for a decade. Something that might be modelled after the Quebec day-care option, with $7-a-day, government sponsored and defrayed day care. Which the Conservatives years ago turned around and opted instead for a far less costly and less-intrusive yearly child-care support to parents to decide for themselves how the funding should be spent.

It's a nominal sum, serving as a recognition that some parents prefer to raise their children with one parent at home, rather than farm their children out to day-care providers. It is a tip of the hat to standard, old-fashioned parenting, in fact. And an admission that the Conservatives see it as impractical in the sense of becoming too great a financial burden for the taxpayer to support the concept of affordable, regulated, universal day-care. The public education system exists as a needful model of state-subsidized education.

As for the supposed effectiveness of state-subsidized day-care for the country's children, leaving parents not only free to get out into the workforce, but seeming to insist that they do so, since they have been freed by the state to do just that; parents feel the obligation they are under to leave the raising of their children to others. The end result of which can be far different than what those who encourage and demand it might anticipate, given the experience of a country which devoted itself to that very concept.

Sweden, with its long history of admired and often-emulated social welfare, had its universal, state-subsidized child-care system evaluated and the resulting study published in 2006 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranked Sweden at the top and Canada at the bottom in child care provision. The comprehensive, affordable day care available in Sweden, and its history of gender equality has resulted in a very high percentage of women joining the paid workforce. After all, the demanding occupation of child care has been removed.

Because of a policy of generous parental leave of sixteen months after birth, mothers look after their babies for the first year-and-a-half. After that fully 92% of Swedish children from 18 months to five years are looked after in a day-care setting. Day-care subsidies are set at $20,000 annually per child. Which, among other things, explains why Swedish taxes represent among the highest in the world. The day-care system was initiated in 1975, and it took until the 1990s for an evaluation of the success of the program to be undertaken and recognized.

What was recognized was that Swedish health-care professionals cite the lack of parental involvement in their children's upbringing, and the parents' unfamiliarity with child rearing techniques as being responsible for socially dysfunctional children. Swedish youth are exhibiting psychological problems and disorders at a rate far accelerated over their European counterparts. As for educational progress in Swedish schools, they have descended from the top 30 years earlier to average among OECD nations.

Problem behaviours in Swedish schoolchildren far outdistance those of their European counterparts. The ratio of teachers to students is also increasing with deleterious outcomes. Quality service and care has been impeded by the simple fact that Sweden has been involved in a financial crisis. The bold and progressive experiment in state child-rearing has proven to be a failure.

Canadians should have no interest in going down that same dismal road.

Canada's 21st Century Gold Rush

Well, it's a head-scratcher all right. The 'astonishing' surge of the NDP and the huge popularity of its leader, Jack Layton. Who might have thought this could occur? A former Toronto city councillor and would-be mayor who thought he would challenge for the leadership of the NDP, and here he is, a veteran of four election campaigns, suddenly thrust into the lime-light of beloved-first of voters' preference.

Are those voters thinking 'Prime Minister Jack Layton'? If so they're fairly suggestible, taking up from Jack Layton himself, who has enthused his party sufficiently that they too declare him the future prime minister of Canada, which is how he himself has been proudly proclaiming his intent. Will it come even remotely close to resembling the final results? How likely is that? Are Canadians listening to themselves, let alone the promises issuing from his smiling lips?

Even if this country were as wealthy commensurately as the oil sheikdoms, we would go broke paying for all the hefty and impractical social benefits Jack Layton is promising to rain down on us on May 3rd, when he bashfully makes his plans to move into 24 Sussex Drive. His green-energy agenda should make for very good relations with Ontario's Premier Dalton McGuinty, but theirs is fated to be a short-lived federal-provincial love-in, since Mr. McGuinty appears on his way out of the premiership.

Prime Minister Layton will open the Constitution and re-work it here and there to ensure it presents as compatible with Quebec's aspirations. He is prepared to give Quebec all that it wishes for, and to surprise it for having ushered him into the prime ministership, by giving it even more power, prestige and autonomy by moving Parliament to Quebec City and himself governing the country from that aerie.

Children nationwide will be cared for in government-sponsored-and-funded daycare. Their parents will be freed up to spend their time at unionized jobs that will successfully sue for greater and more generous perquisites, inclusive of a retirement plan that will release them from the stultifying effects of working for a living by the time they reach fifty years of age. There will be hugely-compensated employment for everyone. And for those who simply do not feel like demeaning themselves by applying themselves to working for a living wage, welfare will step in and provide, handsomely.

Health care will no longer present as a problem with long waiting times for surgeries and emergency room hold-ups, for the quality of Canada's universality of medicare will suddenly erupt in a bonanza of perfection paid for by ever-increasing transfers of funds from federal coffers, keeping the Royal Mint ever so busy minting gold coins everyone will clamour for, the precious metal dredged up from the Ottawa River where it has lain unclaimed by anyone for centuries. Canada's pharmaceutical generics will develop a not-for-profit conscience and offer almost-free drugs to those in need.

Finally, Canadians will be able to relax and enjoy life; no stresses, no messes. Thank you, Jack Layton.

Canadian Leadership Material

The Canadian electorate is facing up to its choices. At least it might seem that way, given the latest poll revelations. But then nothing is ever assured, and as the pundits say, things could turn on a dime. Predicting the nation's mood sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. With a full week left yet to voting day there's ample time for someone to impress and someone else to fail to.

It seems to the reasonable mind that a Conservative visible-minority candidate in British Columbia may not be too bright, too aware, less than capable when neither she nor her campaign advisers were quick enough to pick up a familiar-sounding name as trouble. Ignorance can be used as an excuse that Wai Young attended a public meeting in the presence of, and to be endorsed by Ripudaman Singh Malik acquitted of guilt in the Air India bombing.

But ignorance in general nor lack of diligence in whom one permits to endorse a candidature is not a very laudable quality in a political candidate. Nor does it reflect well on another partisan crowd attending a meeting with Stephen Harper, that protected him from responding to a reporter's question about the event.

On the other hand, it defies reason that a Conservative candidate, much less the party itself would court the support of a man whom a bungled RCMP investigation enabled a situation to evolve that allowed this Sikh-Canadian involved in the militant free-Khalistan movement to escape justice for his part in a home-grown terrorist attack. The answer is clear; neither would.

Then there's the campaign of Jack Layton's New Democratic Party, with the leader himself commiserating with Quebec over the plight of: "Too many families can't make ends meet, too many seniors are living in poverty - it's not right"; promising to fight for the interests of Quebecers. How are their interests any different than that of all Canadians?

Well, Quebec with its pride in clean-energy hydro thanks to the massive James Bay hydroelectric project is very receptive toward promises of further investment in clean-energy technologies. And Quebec's aging, crumbling infrastructure requiring the replacement of bridges is another item dear to the minds of the province's voters, and Jack Layton is responding.

"We offer to Quebecers the same thing we offer to Canadians, we will look after the issues of health care with your families. We will focus on job creation. we will work hard to provide economic security for seniors and we will try to take steps to make their lives a little more affordable", he promised.

Wait a minute: Jack Layton is differentiating Quebecers from Canadians? Amazing. Isn't it?

And there's Michael Ignatieff campaigning for the Liberal Party to be restored to its natural governing status. "If any of you are tempted to vote for the other party, take a look at the costing table at the back of the NDP program. They got $30 billion of spending. ...Don't go there folks. This is not wise."

Time out for campaigning against the Conservatives, focus needed on the NDP because they're splitting the vote. The gullible public is expected to handily forget all the costly promises being bandied about by the Liberals during this election campaign?

"We could have NDP amateur hour or we can have competent responsible government", Mr. Ignatieff warns his followers and the voting public at large. Liberals may swallow that message, but the uncommitted may gawp at the statements. Jack Layton cut his baby teeth on politics; he comes from a political family, he was deeply involved in Toronto municipal politics, and he has thus far had experience in running in three elections.

Michael Ignatieff returned to Canada from his sojourns abroad to be the saviour of the Liberal Party accustomed to governing as though they were the only party worth mentioning in the country. When, under the Liberals, regions that supported them were lavished with pork-barrelling, and when social programs Canadians depended on, got seriously cut back.

Yet Michael Ignatieff, who is a prime example of a democratic deficit in the very manner in which he was elevated to office can claim without blushing "People have a long memory here... They know that a Liberal government can govern." Sure, people have a long memory; long enough to recall the greed and corruption under the Liberals and the diminishment of social programs.

His stated strategy for the remainder of the campaign until voting day; "hope, hope, hope" and "optimism" is just what Canadians appear to have concluded, in very fact.

Strong Stands Against Terrorism

Why would Canada's relationship with Colonel Moammar Gadhafi have been any different than that of Canada's allies? The Western world reacted in lock-step horror after the monumental disbelief that overtook everyone, witnessing by remote the unspeakable carnage and convulsive destruction that fanatical ideological religious hatred was capable of producing.

And when the Western world recognized through the conclusive evidence that soon followed that the incendiary hatred of jihadists through the efforts of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda was directed without equivocation at all vestiges of "Western imperialism" traditionally feasting off the natural resources of the Arabian Peninsula as violent jihad stated, they joined in a self-protective phalanx of security.

Muslim countries took notice, and some, like Libya, decided that it would volunteer to give up its nuclear program initiated courtesy of Pakistan's Q.Khan and offer to co-operate with the West since it too was struggling with the fanatical extremists in Libya motivated by political Islam, not matching the violent ideological "socialism" that Moammar Gadhafi espoused linked to his own resentment of the colonialist West.

So there we were, in the wake of full knowledge of Libya's former investment in funding, inciting and spreading violence against the West exemplified by the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 with the Canadian military, under the influence of Britain, France, Italy and the U.S., viewing Libya as a willing and helpful bulwark against al-Qaeda, a mutual enemy of Libya.

Much was forgiven Libya when Gadhafi agreed to pay restitution to the families of those who died in the Lockerbie bombing. France and England sold advanced weaponry to their new ally against Islamist extremism, and British special forces trained Libya's government troops. The irony cannot be lost on many that Gadhafi blamed al-Qaeda for the popular uprising in his country.

This time around, however, as a result of his tyrannical and brutal repression of a popular peoples' revolt, the tide has turned and the former allies have been busying themselves urging the the UN, NATO, the African Union and the Arab League join forces in the just support of the peoples' rebellion in Libya to enable human rights to prevail.

The jaunty self-assurance of the rebels insisted initially there was no need for foreign intervention on the ground though they would appreciate the courtesy of some assistance in detaining Libyan warplanes and helicopter gunships from decimating their numbers as they steadily advanced on Tripoli.

Canada's Department of National Defence, echoing the attitudes of other NATO member-countries, no longer views Gadhafi as a front-line defence against radical Islam. Canadian warplanes are flying missions over Libya along with a few other NATO member-nations, and Qatar. And the U.S. has added more accurate, low-flying unmanned drones to the armoury.

And, confoundingly to NATO and its members, al-Qaeda in eastern Libya, long viewed by Gadhafi as an Islamist stronghold, continues to provide the rebels with recruitment, training and other assistance in the battle against the government. While al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is taking the opportunity to take possession of surface-to-air missiles and other looted military equipment from government munition stores in rebel-controlled areas.

Which weaponry will most certainly continue to be trafficked out of Libya, taken to safe sites like Yemen and stockpiled for future use against the infidel crusaders who are even now occupying yet another Muslim country for their own nefarious needs.

This is an old story, seen countless times before, where merging, supporting then fractured alliances come back to haunt the West in its attempts to make common cause with the East.