Bill C-3 Sails Through The House

That bit of bad fish is due thrown out for good at month's end, an excuse the Liberals have been quick to claim countenances their leader's tactical retreat on the notion of universal Justice in favour of political expediency. It's a depressing reading, but at this rate Canada will fully emulate all the worst aspects of Georgian America soon. And when that time comes, when Canada fully does mirror present day America - its private prisons full with the unlawful combatants of the domestic drugs war, its armies cutting deals with heroine cartels in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan and Pakistan, its pension plans plundered and public wealth withered - those sad historians of the near future, (you and me actually) may just look at the passage in the Senate of Bill C-3 as the passing of the last vestiges of the nation into gloom. As in America, Canada's political system is hammerlocked by a ruthless duopoly, that are so similar, members almost routinely switch affiliations with the vageries of political winds. Some, like David Emerson of British Columbia, who shortly after the federal election loss of the Liberals, decided to take his riding into "enemy" hands in exchange for a seat close to the p.m.'s ear. He was given the same portfolio he held beforehand, that of overseeing the parceling off of Canada through trade deals. A House "Divided" House of Commons vote on Bill C-3, February 6, 2008 191-54 passed It's a pity the brutes of the Right Wing Consensus have so totally succeeded in subverting the language; they've cried to death the one wolf that fits the image to a tee in this instance, that of 'The Great Appeaser.' Any practicing in recent years the temerity to question muscular foreign policy adventures were so often tarred with the visage of Britain's ill-remembered Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the man the pundits would have was most responsible, next to Herr Hitler, for the disaster and destruction of Nazism and World War II, that it is now ruined as a descriptor when ironically nearest true. Opposition Liberal party leader, Stephane Dion, explaining his party's support of C-3 says; (now, imagine the grey and black toned newsreel: Neville Chamberlain, on the tarmac; fresh home from Germany, he's triumphantly waving the paper agreement with Adolph for the cameras): "It's not our first choice, but we think with amendments ..." "...it's improving the bill that the government wants to pass." Let's get this straight. The loyal opposition would have a better law, but in the absence of that, will just go along and harp about "amendments" knowing the 'New Government of Canada' will never move to make amendments. Pathetic! Meanwhile, the very foundation of the law, going all the way back through the English Common Law to the Magna Carta, The Great Charter, that led the British forebears as surely as Moses led the Israelites, out of servitude and into the light of a new age, an Age of Enlightenment, and destroyed the calumny known as the Dark Age. That's all. Amended once, something tells me the fundamentalist, second coming of the Roundheads would be more wary of relinquishing power regained. Of course, there are reassurances: Secret trials; secret evidence; secret sentencing; secret prisons, yes; but not to worry, the secrets secrets, secrets will only apply to those "other:" Non-citizens, illegals, terrorists; and rest assured, "special advocates" will be assigned to make sure everything is on the up and up. Just ask a Canadian lawyer. Cristin Schmitz, writing for Lawyers Weekly quotes immigration lawyer, Ronald Poulton describing the proposed bill and what its practice would likely require; * "There is no one in the defence Bar on the criminal or immigration side who could hold their head up after being in a job like that,” adding; "We believe... we would be supporting a system that is unfair to the person against whom there are extremely serious allegations. It’s a shocking process. You are in court one day, and then the next day they are going to have another court session without you, and then you come back into court the following day and they have said things that you, and the client, have no idea about. And usually, what we guess at, is that the secret stuff is about some personal relationship our client had, or did not have, with another individual, and so that’s the kind of evidence that you really need the client to be able to comment on because its just ripe for false accusation. So what’s the special advocate going to do?" This odiferous Bill C-3 must still be ratified in the Senate. Canada's body is not nearly as robust, or integral to the passage, or killing of legislation as is its American counterpart, but there are technicalities that have been used in the past on particularly contentious bills to obstruct passage. Social justice groups are calling on the public to begin lobbying senators to vote against adoption of C-3. This week in Parliament also sees a vote on the controversial Bill C-2, a sweeping "law and order" bill that too emulates failed American policies on crime and punishment and promises the same fiscal and social damage in Canada America has endured in recent years. Add to this Afghanistan, and the recent press allusions Stephane Dion will be called upon again to support the government on extending Canada's combat "commitment" there, or face an election on the issue. It looks like we're well past Chamberlain's acquiescence to Hitler's campaign to remake Germany. Stephen Harper has crossed his Rubicon, taking Canada closer to his goal of remaking this country in the image of the 'New Government of the United States.' Sadly, Dion isn't the only, and certainly not the greatest of the appeasers here; Canadians serving in positions of influence, and their supporters, have taken to the idea we must follow America so closely we intimate, declaring new vows to harmonize entirely ourselves to America's will and ways. There may still be time to save the rule of law in Canada, and thus preserve the remnants a post-fascist America will need to rebuild. But it demands we Canadians preserve our legal integrity, something Bill C-3, and it's equally odious twin C-2 does not do. Contact the senate today! Stand against C-3 today! http://pacificfreepress.com/content/view/2262/81/

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