Editorials

Billions in shipbuilding contracts will make waves for Harper
 

In recent days RCMP officers met with and gave information (or disinformation) about major figures in the BC Rail Scandal to a Vancouver blogger, some of which has been (internet) published.  The behaviour of RCMP officers is surprising and may be seriously unethical.

How honourable it must be today to be able to walk like an Egyptian! The people of Egypt just gave the world a lesson in how to make a government listen! Not just any government, but a torturous tyrant that had the backing of the US military industrial complex who's bosses are the international bankers and their corporate fascist brothers. This should show us all what can happen when a people can gather together in great numbers and peacefully shut down a whole country.

The present shake-up of the RCMP - setting the scene to remove present Commissioner William Elliott - may not be a move to clean-up the soiled Force but to entrench the worst kind of RCMP behaviour.

Recently in Maclean’s magazine, Andrew Coyne and Paul Wells discussed the narrative created by the Conservative Party for their vision of Canada, as compared with the narrative that had been offered by the Liberal Party.While the Liberal narrative put an emphasis on such aspects as the Charter of Rights, the national flag, the CBC, medicare, peacekeeping and the United Nations, the Conservative narrative emphasizes the Canadian military, support for families and the economy, the RCMP, Tim Horton’s coffee, hockey and Arctic sovereignty.

By André Picard

Provisions in a new trade deal being negotiated between Canada and the European Union could add about $2.8-billion a year in costs to Canadian drug plans if implemented, a new report warns.

The estimate includes $1.3-billion more for public drug plans and $1.5-billion for private drug plans.

"This will create a huge hole in provincial budgets in particular,” Aidan Hollis, a professor of economics at the University of Calgary and co-author of the report, said in an interview.

The far-reaching concept of a security perimeter encircling Canada
and the U.S. - with shared border facilities manned by
interchangeable guards relying on high-tech information on both
countries´ travellers - was given the stamp of approval after a
meeting between Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama at the White
House.
The declaration on a joint perimeter is part of a wider vision of
enhanced bilateral cooperation that is intended to strengthen Canada-
U.S. anti-terrorism capability and reduce barriers to cross-border
trade that have worsened since Sept. 11, 2001.
The framework agreement has been under secret negotiation for
months. The project is laid out in a five-page declaration entitled
Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and
Economic Competitiveness.

BeYourOwnLeader

Canada and the U.S. have officially launched negotiations on a trade and security agreement which would take continental integration to the next level. A declaration issued by the leaders follows months of secret preliminary talks. The deal would work towards facilitating the movement of travel and trade across the northern border. This includes pursuing a perimeter approach to security in an effort to better address common threats. The agreement sets in motion an agenda with the aim of going beyond NAFTA and further expanding on the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), but in the context of a bilateral framework. 

While Canada and the US get ready to move bilaterally to beef up border security, we wonder who benefits from the proposed "security perimeter."

 By Manuel Pérez-Rocha and Stuart Trew
 

U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will meet in Washington today amid calls in the United States for tougher security on the northern border. Suggestions in the Senate Homeland Security Committee that the 49th parallel is an unruly ‘no man’s land’ threatening the American people, and that Canadians should need visas to enter the United States  prompted the meeting.

Experts expect the two leaders to announce today a “new” border partnership to ease the flow of goods and people across the border by harmonizing security, immigration and refugee, surveillance and possibly defense policy across the continent. There's nothing new about this plan. It's the regurgitation of the defunct Bush-led Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)without the Mexican “amigo,” previously  played by Mexican President Vicente Fox. As the Canadian business lobby suggested to Obama, it only “takes two to tango.”

Major facts are being scrambled in the public domain.  Major information is being masked and confused about the BC Rail Scandal.  Is there a determined effort by the Mainstream Press and Media, the Courts, and the B.C. Liberal cabinet to confuse the public about the facts of the BC Rail Scandal?

 A vivid profit-and-loss statement in which 100 working sled dogs were slaughtered. A post-Olympics tourist decision which left their handler traumatized ... 

By Dana Gabriel 

A recent North American defense ministers meeting was originally scheduled to be a trilateral gathering, but Mexico’s Secretary of Defense was unable to participate in the summit. Canada-U.S. talks focused on continental, hemispheric, as well as global defense issues. The meeting went a long way to further deepen bilateral security and military ties. It was also significant considering that Canada and the U.S. are currently negotiating an agreement that would work towards establishing a perimeter approach to security