Sister Sage's Musings

Author Archive

Herewith, a list of Canadian members of the Task Force on the Future of North America, a group whose final report recommended North American Union:

1) THOMAS S. AXWORTHY is the Chairman of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen’s University. From 1981 to 1984, Dr. Axworthy was Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Trudeau. Since 2001, he has served as Chairman of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

2) THOMAS P. D’AQUINOS is Chief Executive of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), composed of one-hundred-fifty chief executives of major enterprises in Canada. A lawyer, entrepreneur, and business strategist, he has served as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Canada and Adjunct Professor of Law lecturing on the law of international trade. He is the Chairman of the CCCE’s North American Security and Prosperity Initiative launched in 2003.

3) WENDY K. DOBSON is Professor and Director, Institute for International Business, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. She has served as President of the C.D. Howe Institute and Associate Deputy Minister of Finance in the government of Canada. She is Vice Chair of the Canadian Public Accountability Board and a nonexecutive director of several corporations.

4) ALLAN GOTLIEB was Canadian Ambassador to the United States, Undersecretary of State for External Affairs, and Chairman of the Canadian Council. He is currently a senior adviser to the law firm Stikeman Elliott LLP, and Chairman of Sotheby’s Canada and the Donner Foundation. He has also been a member of the board of a number of Canadian and U.S. corporations, taught at various universities in both countries, and written several books and articles on international law and international affairs.

5) MICHAEL HART holds the Simon Reisman Chair in trade policy in the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa. He is a former official in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, founding director of Carleton’s Centre for Trade Policy and Law, and the author of more than a dozen books and a hundred articles on Canadian trade and foreign policy.

6) PIERRE MARC JOHNSON is a former Premier of Quebec, attorney, and physician, and has also been Counsel to the law offices of Heenan Blaikie since 1996. He was a senior member of Rene Levesque’s cabinet (1976-85) and succeeded Mr. Levesque. Since 1987, Mr. Johnson has been Professor of Law at McGill University and an adviser to the United Nations in international environmental negotiations. He has written numerous books and essays on trade and the environment, civil society participation, and globalization. He lectures in Canada, the United States, and Mexico, and serves on Canadian and European boards.

7)JOHN P. MANLEY is Senior Counsel at McCarthy Tetrault LLP. He has held several senior portfolios in the Canadian government throughout his fifteen years of public service — including industry, foreign affairs, and finance — as well as holding the position of Deputy Prime Minister. Following 9/11, he was named Chairman of the Public Security and Anti-terrorism Cabinet Committee and, in that capacity, negotiated the Smart Border Agreement with U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security Thomas Ridge.

8  DAVID McD. MANN, Q.C., is Counsel at Cox Hanson O’Reilly Matheson, an Atlantic-Canadian law firm. He is the former Vice Chairman and former President and CEO of Emera Inc., a diversified investor-owned energy and services company.

It is my hope that enough Liberals will open their eyes to what the Corporatist faction of their party is up to, and put a stop to it. At that point I would be willing to bridge the other differences between the NDP and the Liberals and look for a true Centre Left option. But as long as a significant number of the Leaders of the Liberals support the destruction of Canada as a sovereign nation, this cannot happen. I am in the process of researching  a long article on North American Union, and the following is an unedited segment of my rough draft:

Power Corporation: The company is controlled by Paul Desmarais, Sr.. Paul Desmarais, Jr. is one of thirty members of the North American Competitiveness Council, a group whose advice directs the policies of North American Security and Prosperity Partnership. Additionally, the company has long been a close ally of the Liberal Party of Canada, although former or current members of other Canadian political parties have also worked for Power Corp. A brief summary of the connections between Power Corp. and those with political power in Canada is below.

Former Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin, was hired in the 1960s to work for Paul Desmarais, Sr. by Maurice Strong. Martin became President of Canada Steamship Lines, a subsidiary of Power Corp., and in 1981 Desmarais sold the company to Martin and a partner. Martin went on to make his personal fortune as an owner of CSL.
Former Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chrétien sat on the board of Power Corp. subsidiary Consolidated Bathurst in the late 1980s before he became the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Chrétien’s daughter France is married to the son of Paul Desmarais, Sr., André. Also Chrétien’s chief of staff Eddie Goldenberg worked in the past for Power Corp.
Former Prime Minister of Canada, the late Pierre Trudeau, served in the mid-1990s on Power Corp.’s international advisory board. Trudeau’s assistant Ted Johnson also worked for Power Corp. During the Trudeau administration Michael Pitfield held a variety of positions in government but during his time in the private sector he was at one time a Vice-Chairman of Power Corp. and is currently listed as a Director Emeritus.

Former Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney also has a relationship with Power Corporation. Mulroney’s friend Ian MacDonald described Desmarais as “Mulroney’s mentor in the business world,” and it is believed that Mulroney has done legal work for Power Corp. since the end of his term as Prime Minister. Additionally, former Mulroney Minister of Transport Don Mazankowski is currently Power Corp.’s company director.
Former Premiers of Ontario William Davis and John Robarts of the Progressive Conservatives have both sat on Power Corp.’s national advisory board. John Rae, the brother of former NDP Premier Bob Rae, currently serves as Power Corp.’s Executive Vice President. ( John Rae is also a long time advisor to the Federal Liberals, and was instrumental in bringing the prodigal Bob Rae to the Liberals)
Former Premier of Quebec Premier Daniel Johnson, Jr. worked for Power Corp. from 1973 to 1981 and in the last three years of this term was a Vice-President in the company.
Former member of the Liberal Party of Canada Maurice Strong became President of Power Corp. by his mid-thirties. He had a role in the creation of the Canadian International Development Agency and in 1976 he was appointed to run Petro-Canada. He later worked for the United Nations.
Power Corp.’s international advisory board has featured individuals such as former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, former oil minister of Saudi Arabia Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, former head of the US Federal Reserve Board Paul Volcker, and the previously mentioned former Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau.
The former Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec’s President and CEO Henri-Paul Rousseau became the vice-chairman of the company and a member of the board of directors of Power Corporation.

Times have changed in terms of donations to political parties. But John Rae, (Bobby’s big brother) is still on the Power payroll while working almost full time as a Liberal advisor. How many others?

How many employees of major Western oil interests work for Harper’s Conservatives?
How much money is given to third party “think tanks” and outfits like the “National Citizen’s Coalition” which do tons of the leg work for  the  Conservative party and others that do the same for the Liberals? 

How many pols are promised lucrative board appointments in return for a job well done? Can you say Manley? Can you say Mulroney? Here’s what John Manley has been uo to just before he took the job to whitewash the extension of the Afghan mission for Harper and his supporters WITHIN the Liberal Party: Manley was named to the Board of Directors of telecommunications firm Nortel Networks. On January 27, 2005, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. He is also chair of the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, a project of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations. In March 2005, the Task Force released a report that advocated a North American union, an economic union between Canada, Mexico and the United States which would resemble the European Union. This is the guy that many Liberal insiders wanted as leader.

I hope to have a completed article prepared in about a month. There will be more on the Liberals, MUCH MUCH more on the Conservatives , and revealing expose on the large number of bilateral organizations that are already establishing the infrastructure of a North American Union. All of this, and it has never been debated in Parliament, and never exposed in a meaningful way in the main stream media. We will be the first nation in the world to lose our independance by stealth and with the full co-operation of our leaders.

So Prime Minister Harper is all in a tizzy that a convicted Murderer named Clifford Olson is getting the Old Age Pension while in prison.

Olson is undoubtedly an evil man, a child killer and the worst sort of perversion of humanity imaginable.

These are the very attributes Harper was looking for. A very convenient Bogeyman indeed.

You see, to the Far Right, social programs are anathema, and universal social programs are the devil’s own spawn.

By setting up Olson as the straw man to be skewered by Harper’s righteous sword, the Conservatives also are aiming at setting a very dangerous precedent.

Whipping up the fury of the masses at the monster on a pension, they hope to be able to insert the thin edge of a very large wedge that soon will be striaght up the collective asses of aging Canadians.

Once Harper is able to argue that convicts should not be eligible for pensions, who’s next.

Once the universality of pensions is no longer sacrosanct, how long before universal Health Care (the real long term target IMO) will start to be dissected, one segment at a time.

If nothing else, Harper knows how to take the long view. He once promised that when he was through with Canada, we would no longer recognize it. In this case I believe he is a man of his word.

When George Galloway, the pro Palestinian British MP was banned from entering Canada, well known Uber Conservative high forehead (lol) Ezra Levant had this to say:

“But that’s not my main point: my main point is that Galloway has no “right” to come to Canada. He’s not Canadian.

I’m all for his free speech — elsewhere.”

It’s sort of like my position with the Canadian Islamic Congress and their nuisance complaints against Maclean’s magazine. They demanded five or six pages of Maclean’s magazine in which to write their pro-Islamist propaganda. They have the right to express that propaganda all they like — but not in Maclean’s magazine. It’s not a matter of free speech, it’s a matter of property rights — they don’t own Maclean’s, and don’t have a right of access to it.

I just don’t think that Canada needs to be open to any dime-store bigot from around the world. It really is an immigration matter.”

Now Ann Coulter,  also not a Canadian, and possibly the other side of the Galloway coin is on a speaking tour of universities in Canada, Levant is leading her band of cheerleaders. He had this to say when Coulter’s security staff shut down the affair in Ottawa:

“At a university, instead of free speech, censorship,” said Ezra Levant, a Canadian conservative writer, lawyer and blogger who was scheduled to introduce Coulter.”

So, in Ezra’s erudite logic, free speech for the guys on my side and a muzzle for those who I don’t like. Hmmmmm.

Coulter is famous for wanting the US to “Crush Canada” for not participating in the US invasion of Iraq, praising Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing, and telling Islamic women that they shouldn’t be allowed on airplanes and should use a flying carpet or alternatively a camel to get around.

The difference between the aborted Galloway visit, and the current Coulter tour is that the Weight of the Government of Canada was used to prevent the visit of Galloway, while Coulter was welcomed by the Canadian government. Therein lies the dangerous hypocrisy (or Harpocrisy if you prefer)

Personally I would love to see Galloway and Coulter in the same room, debating the issues. We could make it a cage match. Ultimate fighting indeed!

Well it’s pretty weak beer, but the much amended , watered down, and compromised Obama Health Bill passed Congress last night.

Still, better than nothing I suppose. Like drinking Schlitz Lite, instead of Black Ice, or Bras D’Or.

Maybe that is what happened to American Beer as well. More on this when I’ve had a chance to sleep on it.

_________________________________________________________

Well I slept on it: My only further comment is WALL ST. likes it which means it’s good for Corporate bottom lines, which means it is another subsidy for American business of the Mega kind!

It is a day of Great Joy in the hearts of many progressives to-day. Representatives of all three Opposition Parties filed Questions of Priviledge, citing Conservative cabinet ministeras with contempt of Parliament to-day. (March 18th, hereby declared Canadian Democracy Day)

Fifteen months ago, Harper rallied Canadians with a huge misinformation propaganda campaign. He tried to portray a perfectly legitimate attempt by opposition parties to create a coalition government that would have the confidence of the majority of members of the house of Commons as a Coup d’etat. With the connivance of the main stream media, and playing on the ignorance of Canadians about their own form of government he was successful, as the Liberals lost their courage and backed down, led by Ignatieff.

To-day, there is a real coup d’etat being attempted, this time by the executive branch (PMO) of the Governing party.

The attempt by Harper to ignore the order of Parliament to produce all documents relating to the Afghan detainee scandal, essentially usurps and makes baseless the constitutional power of the House of Commons, vesting it instead in the office of the Prime Minister.

Let us call this what it is, loud and clear. Harper is attempting a slow motion Coup d’etat, and if the opposition doesn’t get it’s act together immediately, he may well succeed.

See this :

I read a piece by Rosie DiManno in the March 15th Toronto Star, which, in essence, equated any criticism of The government of the State of Israel, or the Zionist movement, as anti-semitism. This in response to a recent conference equating Zionist dogma with Apartheid.

Rosie, for some reason, can’t understand the difference between Race/ Ethnicity, Religion, and Ideology, and espescially doesn’t understand that lumping the three together as one amorphous singularity, is truly anti-semitic.

So a few pointers on the off chance that Rosie ever goes slumming in Progressive Blogs.

1) Judaism is a religion.

2) Semitic is an Ethnicity or Race originating in the Middle East and including many nationalities including Arabs, and Israelis.

3) Zionism is a political Ideology, originating in the mid Nineteenth Century, originally advocating a homeland for European Jews in Palestine. Since the creation of the State of Israel after World War II, it has gradually morphed from liberal democratic ideology to one of the far right. An argument can be made that it entails many of the attributes of Fascism.

So Rosie, not all Jews are Zionist, and considering the rather vociferous support for Zionism among certain elements of the Conservative right in North America, I think it can also be stated that not all Zionists are Jews.

Also erroneous is labelling Hamas as an anti-semetic organization, as many, if not most of it’s members are themselves, semites.

Rosie, thus endeth the lesson. No charge.

The following, known as a Writ of Mandamus, has been filed with a Federal Court by a member of CAPP:

NOTICE OF APPLICATION

TO THE RESPONDENT: The Attorney General of Canada

A PROCEEDING HAS BEEN COMMENCED by the applicant. The relief claimed by the applicant appears on the following page…. See More

THIS APPLICATION will be heard by the Court at a time and place to be fixed by the Judicial Administrator. Unless the Court orders otherwise, the place of hearing will be as requested by the applicant. The applicant requests that this application be heard at (place where Federal Court of Appeal (or Federal Court) ordinarily sits).

IF YOU WISH TO OPPOSE THIS APPLICATION, to receive notice of any step in the application or to be served with any documents in the application, you or a solicitor acting for you must prepare a notice of appearance in Form 305 prescribed by the Federal Courts Rules and serve it on the applicant’s solicitor, or where the applicant is self-represented, on the applicant, WITHIN 10 DAYS after being served with this notice of application.

Copies of the Federal Courts Rules information concerning the local offices of the Court and other necessary information may be obtained on request to the Administrator of this Court at Ottawa (telephone 613-992-4238) or at any local office.

IF YOU FAIL TO OPPOSE THIS APPLICATION, JUDGMENT MAY BE GIVEN IN YOUR ABSENCE AND WITHOUT FURTHER NOTICE TO YOU.

(March 15th 2010)

Issued by:_____________________________________
(Registry Officer)

Address of local office:__180 Queen Street, Toronto, Ontario, 2nd Floor________________

TO: The Attorney General of Canada

The Honourable Robert Douglas Nicholson
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
284 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada K1A 0H8

Service will be on Justice Canada Toronto, Ontario

APPLICATION

This is an application for a writ of mandamus pursuant to the Liberal Party motion passed in the Canadian House of Commons on Thursday December 10th, 2009 regarding the handing over of documents in the possession of the government, relating to the Afghanistan detainee issue. Given that parliament is supreme under our Canadian constitution, the government and this PM has to without delay, had over all the documents as requested in the motion order, in full, uncensored, unedited, unredacted. The government remains as of this filing, in contempt and in violation of the Canadian Constitution in failing to obey the motion. I ask the court to take jurisdiction of this matter.

This matter pertains to an order issued in the House of Commons by parliament and ignored and not complied with by the Prime Minister and members of his government. This obstruction and failure to comply with an explicit order from parliament which is the supreme body, continues of today, March 15th, 2010, at the filing of this motion.

The date of the motion order originating from parliament of Canada was December 10th, 2009. 40th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 128
CONTENTS
Thursday, December 10, 2009

The parliament motion (which forms the basis for this filing) tabled by the hon. member for Vancouver South stated:

‘That, given the undisputed privileges of Parliament under Canada’s constitution, including the absolute power to require the government to produce uncensored documents when requested, and given the reality that the government has violated the rights of Parliament by invoking the Canada Evidence Act to censor documents before producing them, the House urgently requires access to the following documents in their original and uncensored form:

all documents referred to in the affidavit of Richard Colvin, dated October 5, 2009;

all documents within the Department of Foreign Affairs written in response to the documents referred to in the affidavit of Richard Colvin, dated October 5, 2009;

all memoranda for information or memoranda for decision sent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs concerning detainees from December 18, 2005 to the present;

all documents produced pursuant to all orders of the Federal Court in Amnesty International Canada and British Columbia Civil Liberties Association v. Chief of the Defence Staff for the Canadian Forces, Minister of National Defence and Attorney General of Canada

all documents produced to the Military Police Complaints Commission in the Afghanistan Public Interest Hearings;

all annual human rights reports by the Department of Foreign Affairs on Afghanistan; and
accordingly the House hereby orders that these documents be produced in their original and uncensored form forthwith.

The applicant Paul Alexander makes application for and the relief sought (as I make my case to re-establish power back into the hands of parliament (usurped by the Prime Minister) and power back into the hands of the people of Canada (usurped by the parliament in their failure to charge the government in contempt of parliament which is in derelict to their duty to the people of Canada):
1.) a writ of mandamus ordered by the court on the parliament to file (conduct the necessary parliamentary actions as under our constitution) the charge/motion of contempt of parliament on the sitting Prime Minister, Mr. Mackay (Defense), Mr. Nicholson (Justice) and any civil servants, bureaucrats, political masters, and MPs who are complicit in the obstruction in complying with the motion issued by parliament. This obstruction is unacceptable and in violation of our laws and constitution, and we plead on the court to compel the parliament under the constitution, to file the charge of contempt of parliament on the sitting Prime Minister. We are throwing ourselves at the mercy of the court, as self represented applicants, to compel the parliament of Canada to immediately and without delay, perform their purely member of parliament duties properly as mandated under our constitution when there is a contempt of a parliamentary order. The court must ensure that the government complies with the house’s standing order to produce unredacted, unedited, untouched documents about the handling of Afghan detainees. This charging of contempt of parliament is based on this PM and government being in contempt of a parliamentary motion.
2.) The applicant also asks the court to order the parliament and sergeant at arms/police in the commons, whether the parliament themselves or the sergeant at arms or police, to immediately seize the documents that are the subject of the above described motion that was passed on December 10th 2009. The applicant asks the court to order that the documents be seized immediately and handed to parliament in full and parliament is to declare that the documents have been received in full for this matter to be complete. Under the constitution, parliament has the right and duty to instruct the police/sergeant at arms to seize the materials in question. This is in addition relief number 1.)
3.) The applicant further asks the court to instruct the parliament and sergeant at arms/police that any obstruction by the government, or any sitting MP, on either side of the political divide, regardless of party, be met with arrest.
4.) The applicant asks that if the court orders finds for the writ of mandamus and the parliament fails to immediately and timely file the contempt charge, that the parliament be subjected to charge by the court as the parliament is and will be in violation of its constitutional duty.
The applicant is self-represented. The applicant remains unclear as to which arm of the court his be filed yet is in strong belief it is in the Federal Court and thus subjected to the Federal Court rules and procedures. I am asking the court to consider if this matter cannot be enforced by the Federal court under rules, then please consider rule 57 to be applied by this Court to permit the conversion of this matter to one of Judicial Review. I leave this to the court to decide and throw myself to the mercy of the court. I am a self-represented litigant and I admit there may be defects as to form

One thing Stevie Harper has been extremely successful at over his political career is controlling the agenda. He has so many angles to accomplish this that he doesn’t walk down stairs, he flows like semi-set gelatin.

Whether it is calling early elections in defiance of his own fixed election date law, attempting to bribe sick MP’s to win a Confidence vote, Proroguing Parliament to avoid embarrassing questions, or painting a perfectly legitimate coalition as a coup d’etat, Our Steve manages to control the agenda.

Except…

His last proroguation blew up in his face, and the questions he sought to avoid, about the transfer to torture of Afghan detainees, are simply not going away. Indeed, with each passing day, the smell of cordite grows stronger, and we all know the smoking gun can’t be far away.

So how can those of us who love democracy help the process along?

Join the push to force the release of unredacted documents on the Afghan detainee scandal. Or as an alternative, to declare Harper and his Ministers in contempt of Parliament for refusing to do so.

Our old friends from C.A.P.P. seem to be refocusing their efforts, now that Parliament is back in session. If you haven’t visited the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament Facebook page for a while, I suggest you do so now.

CAPP successfully foiled Harpers attempt to control the agenda by signing up hundreds of thousands of Canadians, and mobilizing 25,000 of them to attend rallies in opposition to the Harper Prorogument. Thousands of letters were sent to MPs and the MSM. Flash rallies dogged the steps of Ministers.

Now C.A.P.P is changing their name to Canadians Advocating Political Participation (Same acronym) and setting it’s sights to forcing the PM to respect the wishes of Parliament and to release the documents.

Many CAPPers feel this issue is a much greater threat to democracy than the prorogument, and I tend to agree.

Time for Canadians to sieze the agenda once more!