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Via terror plot suspect a 'very good boy,' mom says

CBC News

The mother of one of the two suspects accused of trying to carry out an al-Qaeda-supported plot to derail a Via Rail passenger train for almost a year doesn't believe the charges against her son, saying he is a "very good boy" and a genius who loves to study.

"It surprised me. I didn't believe it. I am certain my son cannot commit such an act," Raoudha Esseghaier, mother of Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, told Radio-Canada from her home in Tunisia "I know it because I've raised him and I know him by heart."

• Jason Kenney wants to know why Via terror suspect wasn't deported
• Via terror plot suspect says Criminal Code 'not a holy book'

Raoudha said her son, who had been doing doctoral research at the Institute National de la Recherche Scientifique in Varennes, Que, runs experiments and does research.

"He is a very good boy. He loves his studies. Chiheb is a genius. Since his childhood, believe me, he's been passionate about his studies," she said. "When he was four, he knew how to read and count. Since his childhood, he is studying. Even when we would say, 'come play,' he would answer 'no, I don't want to. I prefer to study.'"

His father, Mohammed Rached Esseghaier, questioned the evidence against his son

"When someone wants to derail a train, he needs equipment, something, or, at least, a plan with [targets] spelled out. But they have not found anything."

• Via terror plot suspects deny allegations
• Charges against Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser

But the father did admit that in the last few years his son had changed and that the changes did not please him.

Earlier this week, Esseghaier, a Montreal resident who is from Tunisia, appeared in court, where he said that the Criminal Code should not apply to him because it's "not a holy book."

He, along with Raed Jaser, 35, of Toronto, are facing terrorism related charges in an alleged plot to derail a Via Rail passenger train. Esseghaier has been remanded into custody until his next appearance on May 23.

Watched for almost a year

CBC News reported this week that the RCMP had been following Esseghaier since May 2012. At that time, two undercover surveillance officers watched him on an Air Canada flight to Cancun, where he was to attend a biomedical conference.

Esseghaier's behaviour on the plane was "bizarre," and he had an altercation with a female flight attendant after he went to the washroom, sources say.

Sheriffs from Calgary and Edmonton would join the striking corrections workers

News Canada

www.edmontonjournal.com

Alberta Justice has released a statement saying striking corrections workers in the province are beginning to return to work, saying that workers feel 'intimidated' by their own union.

"It has been our hope that the job action would be resolved quickly," reads the statement, "and this appears to be happening."

"Some of you have returned to work, and others have said they would like to return to work but feel intimidated," the release continues.

"We are aware of these union pressure tactics, which include misinformation being distributed. We can report, however, that picketing activities have substantially declined throughout the province."

However, as CBC's Briar Stewart reports, around 70 corrections officers are still picketing outside the Edmonton Remand Centre — and don't appear to be leaving any time soon.

Their numbers have also been bolstered by corrections officers from Saskatchewan who arrived by bus earlier in the day to support the striking workers. Several Edmonton sheriffs have also now joined the picketers outside the centre.

Sheriffs from Calgary and Edmonton said they would join the striking corrections workers on Monday, said Clarke McChesney, the chair for Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) Local 003.

He said he expects other sherrifs across the province will join them.

Earlier Sunday, AUPE said that corrections workers at remand centres in Medicine Hat and Red Deer have decided to return to work.

CBC News has also learned that Calgary police are in meetings all day, as they prepare for the possibility of strike action continuing on Monday.

Thirteen striking guards at Edmonton’s remand centre — where Friday’s strike action first began — have now been served with court papers ordering them to return to work.

So far the guards at that centre are refusing to obey the orders, which were delivered around 1:30 a.m. MT Sunday morning.

RCMP officers have now been called in from Saskatchewan to help maintain order at correctional facilities.

However, a lawyer for the provincial government said Saturday that the centres are still understaffed.

Robin Southcombe is an inmate at the Fort Saskatchewan Correctional Centre northeast of Edmonton.

She describes the mood at that facility as “tense” on the women's side, but says that things are much worse on the men’s side of the prison, where inmates had been kicking and punching the walls and windows of their cells.

"They had to pull out a lot of men on the units because ... they're trying to start riots on each unit,” she said Saturday. “But the women are doing OK. We have one RCMP and some other lady here who's in white but I don't know, we've never seen them before."

Southcombe says that RCMP officers have now had to go in unit by unit and shackle inmates in their cells.

"Right now I feel, really, it's like on eggshells right now, it's very on edge."

She says the male prisoners have been acting out in response to delays in the delivery of meals and medicine.

The last time Alberta prison guards walked off the job was for nine days, nearly a quarter century ago. And for now, the guards union is saying this strike will continue until their concerns are addressed.

[Video] Nutty squirrel hobby

GlobalToronto

Political Correctness & Canadian Muslims: Being Had For Dinner In Ottawa

The Investigative Project on Terrorism

By David B. Harris
Special to IPT News

Canadians are on their guard against the growing Islamist threat. After all, the last month alone brought the Boston Marathon bombing, and arrests in Canada of suspected Iranian-linked al-Qaeda bomb-plotters targeting Canada-US passenger train routes. Add to that, repeated stories of Islamist radicalism in Canadian neighborhoods and young Canadian Muslim terrorists abroad.

Against this backdrop, the last thing to be expected at this fraught time would be a public event in Canada's capital showcasing a radical Islamist, boasting a master of ceremonies from the tax-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, involving a respected mental health foundation, and including the wife of the highest office-holder in the land. Nonetheless, this is what is being planned for Ottawa, this weekend.

The Ottawa Muslim Women's Organization (OMWO) holds its 12^th Annual Festival of Friendship Dinner Sunday evening. The master of ceremonies will be major local CBC personality Lucy van Oldenbarneveld, whose name – along with the official CBC logo – appears on event advertising. Proceeds are to benefit the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health, an arms-length fundraiser for the public Royal Ottawa Hospital. In an email pitching the dinner and attributed to former Liberal Member of Parliament Marlene Catterall, the presence of Her Excellency Sharon Johnston, wife of the Governor General of Canada, is a selling point.

The keynote speaker will be Dr. Ingrid Mattson, Chair in Islamic Studies at Huron University College in London, Ontario, an institutional affiliate of the University of Western Ontario. Mattson, a convert from Christianity to Islam, was president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). The United States government designated ISNA an unindicted co-conspirator in the successful Holy Land Foundation terror-funding prosecution. ISNA is included in a key Muslim Brotherhood document as one of the "organizations of our friends." Other evidence abounds of ISNA's Brotherhood inspiration and connections.

From the captured Muslim Brotherhood plan for Canada and the United States that was accepted as evidence in a US criminal court:

"The process of settlement is a 'Civilization-Jihadist Process,' with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in American [sic] is kind of a grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house …"

The Brotherhood's motto is "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

A joint statement of representatives of the moderate American Muslim Congress, Center for Islamic Pluralism, American Islamic Forum for Democracy and the International Quranic Center condemned "groups like ISNA, in which radicals are camouflaged as moderates." The statement especially warned Jews against linking up with ISNA because of the risk of "legitimizing a radicalism that, regardless of ISNA's rhetorical claims, is fundamentally hostile to Jews and suppresses the intellectual and social development of Muslims."

Mattson has been criticized as an "apologist for Wahabbism," the Islamist strain that fuels the Islamic-supremacist theology of Saudi Arabia, the country that gave us Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 9/11 terrorists. Mattson once astonished scholars by telling CNN that Wahabbism was simply "analogous to the European protestant reformation."

According to the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., Mattson responded to a question on behalf of "Muslim youth," with the assurance that "probably the best work of Tafseer [Quranic commentary] in English is by Maulana Abul A'la Maududi." The Center quotes Maududi's Jihad in Islam:

"Islam wishes to destroy all States and Governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a State on the basis of its own ideology and programme, regardless of which Nation assumes the role of the standard bearer of Islam or the rule of which nation is undermined in the process of the establishment of an ideological Islamic State. It must be evident to you from this discussion that the objective of Islamic 'Jihad' is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system and establish in its stead an Islamic system of State rule. Islam does not intend to confine this revolution to a single State or a few countries; the aim of Islam is to bring about a universal revolution."

Mattson's chair endowment benefits from substantial contributions from two notable groups: the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) and the Virginia-based International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

As I pointed out in Canadian Senate committee testimony in 2011, MAC has "boldly declare[d] on its website its allegiance to the tradition of Hassan al Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood – the organization causing dread in Egypt and beyond."

MAC runs a number of Canadian Muslim schools, including Ottawa's Abraar Islamic School. The school itself has had a mixed history: A good academic record, but in 2005, then-principal Aisha Sherazi was dragged before the media to explain why teaching staff supervised an Abraar student's producing of anti-Jewish hate material. Two teachers were suspended. In 2000, the Ottawa Muslim press reported that Imam Siraj Wahhaj "headline[d]" an Ottawa Muslim community fundraising event. Imam Wahhaj was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

Then there was the Huron University College Islamic Chair's second funding source: the International Institute of Islamic Thought. Word that this organization was helping to fund the Huron chair triggered a joint April 2011 letter from an associate professor of economics of the University of Western Ontario – with which, as mentioned earlier, HUC is formally affiliated – and about two dozen former faculty, alumni and others. They appealed to college Interim Principal Trish Fulton to reject the sponsored chair and keep clear of IIIT money.

"… Shaykh Taha Jabir al-Alwani, a co-founder and former president of the IIIT, was cited as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the trial of Sami al-Arian, an Islamist activist who served a 57-month prison sentence in the United States for conspiring to channel funds to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a designated terrorist group in the United States and Canada," wrote Professor John Palmer.

"Jamal Barzinji, founding member and current vice-President of the IIIT, has likewise been implicated in funding for terrorists. In a sworn affidavit filed in 2003, a senior special agent with the United States Customs Service testified: 'I believe that Barzinji is not only closely associated with PIJ as evidenced by ties to Al-Arian..., but also with HAMAS.'"

IIIT's troubling history extends beyond the FBI's raiding of the place in 2002. In a strange take on tolerance and social cohesion, the institution was said to have been the site of a meeting, years ago, to manufacture the neologism, "Islamophobia." According to various Muslim moderates, including one who said he attended the IIIT meeting, this terminology was developed by fundamentalists as a calculated means of smearing as bigots and silencing Muslims and non-Muslims who might dare discuss the building threat of radical Islam.

Referring to IIIT scholar Mahmoud Ayoub, a Mattson connection, Point de Bascule observes in terms that would arrest the attention of any self-respecting women's organization:

"The manual of sharia Umdat al-salik (Reliance of the traveller) is officially endorsed by Ayoub's IIIT. Section o1.1-2 of the manual specifies that certain types of honour killings must not be punished under Islamic law: "Not subject to retaliation (is) a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring."

According to the 2011 Bascule analysis:

"Mahmoud Ayoub has been involved with the Libyan World Islamic Call Society (WICS) at least since 1983. WICS was set up by Muammar Gaddafi in 1972 to spread Islam in non-Muslim countries. WICS has also been known to hide its financing of terrorism behind charitable activities. In Canada, WICS is based in London, Ontario."

IIIT's record has disturbed even prospective beneficiaries of its largesse. In 2008, an outcry resulted when IIIT wanted to fund a chair at Philadelphia's Temple University to the tune of $1.5 million. The attempt foundered on Temple's concerns about possible IIIT extremist links and suspicions that such a gift could be part of a long-term Islamist influence operation.

Struck by the haste with which Huron University College, on the other hand, seemed to want to get the $2 million dollar MAC-IIIT Islamic chair endowment – a significant addition to HUC's $12 million budget – columnist Barbara Kay asked Huron's Fulton whether MAC and IIIT values were compatible with the college.

"We don't probe deeply into values held by donors," Fulton said.

Too true. HUC took the money and ran, establishing an academic chair with Islamist lucre and influence.

But few of even the most overwrought of Muslim and non-Muslim counter jihadists could have imagined that influencers would have been so brazen as to have compounded the sins of the HUC chair's founding by appointing Mattson to it.

For now, Canadians must live with an HUC Islamic chair that seems to have been maneuvered into existence with inappropriate funding sources and the aid of some senior – and troubling – London-area Muslims. These include lawyer Faisal Joseph, who is said to have played a part in HUC's surprisingly restrained "due diligence" assessment of IIIT. Joseph had previously attended – with Imam Munir El-Kassem and the IIIT's Ayoub – a 2008 conference in Libya of the extremist-flavored Gaddafi World Islamic Call Society.

El-Kassem has been a fixture of the Libyan-funded Canadian branch of the WICS organization. The branch's charitable status was revoked by the federal government, owing to what Postmedia News summarized as WICS' "transferring [of] money from Gadhafi's 'Jihad fund' to bank accounts of known terrorists." El-Kassem, is imam of the Islamic Centre of Southwest Ontario (ICSWO), yet another group contributing to Mattson's Islamic chair. He has been quoted speaking glowingly about the "leadership" of Louis Farrakhan, the notoriously racist and anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader. This, when the imam is not sniping in the media at genuine Muslim moderates like the University of Western Ontario's Professor Salim Mansur. Or, as some might think, playing apologist for the Taliban.

Despite all this, El-Kassem is making a name for himself in the more gullible reaches of some interfaith and outreach fringes, and even policing. The apparently uninformed London police chief, Bradley S. Duncan, rewarded the imam with – astonishingly – an appointment as police chaplain.

People will see different things in the Ottawa Muslim Women's Organization invitation to Dr. Mattson. Was this the result of inattention? An attempt to spin Mattson as a moderate and insinuate her into elite national-capital media, government and other circles?

Whatever the details, the participation of various interests in the OMWO exercise invites questions.

Will pertinent CBC personnel be disciplined for the failure of professional due diligence and associated misuse of corporate resources involved in the Corporation's role in this enterprise? Will the CBC ombudsman enter the fray? Will master of ceremonies van Oldenbarneveld and CBC apologize to Christians, Jews, moderate Muslims and others who have struggled against the tendencies represented by Mattson's record of activity, associations and sponsors – especially at a time of preoccupation with the dangers of Islamic radicalism? Will the Ottawa Muslim Women's Organization join in the apology?

Will similar apologies come from the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health for managerial misjudgment involved in allowing the Foundation's good name to enhance the credibility of the ill-conceived OMWO event?

Will the Office of the Governor General explain itself, and how the Governor General's spouse could have been drawn into such a situation?

Will compromised institutions launch internal reviews to determine whether Islamist fellow-travelers within their organizations may have worked from inside to encourage involvement in this year's Mattson-tainted Festival of Friendship Dinner?

And there remains, of course, a question about double standards.

Would van Oldenbarneveld, the CBC, the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health or the Office of the Governor General of Canada ever agree to become involved in a dinner sponsored by, say, an "Ottawa Christian Women's Organization," if the proposed keynote speaker had formerly headed a foreign unindicted co-conspirator radical Christian fundamentalist organization, been an apologist for Christian extremists, and been seated in a chair in Christianity funded by domestic and foreign Christian supremacist groups with connections to intolerant, divisive ideology – and far worse?

----------------
David B. Harris is a Canadian lawyer with three decades' experience in intelligence affairs, and serves as Director of the International Intelligence Program, INSIGNIS Strategic Research Inc. He is on the advisory board of the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow (MFT), although opinions expressed here are his alone.

Iran denies involvement in Canadian terror plot

CANADIAN POLICE SAY SUSPECTS WERE PLANNING TO ATTACK PASSENGER TRAIN IN TORONTO AREA

BREAKING NEWS-Canada: Alleged terror plot thwarted by arrests in Ontario, Quebec

CBC News

Canadian police and intelligence agencies say they have arrested two men and thwarted a plot to carry out a major terrorist attack on a Via passenger train.

The two accused are Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser. They have been charged with conspiracy to carry out a terrorist attack and "conspiring to murder persons unknownn for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group."

In a statement, RCMP said while they believe the individuals accused had the "capacity and intent" to carry out an attack, they believed there was "no imminent threat" to the public, rail employees, train passengers or infrastructure.

The two men are expected to appear in court tomorrow.

Highly placed sources tell CBC News the alleged plotters have been under surveillance for more than a year in Quebec and southern Ontario.

• RCMP are holding a LIVE update on the plot investigation at 3:30 p.m. ET

The investigation was part of a cross-border operation involving Canadian law enforcement agencies, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

According to a Reuters report, U.S. law enforcement and national security sources said the alleged plot targeted a railroad between Toronto and New York City.

The arrests Monday morning were co-ordinated and executed by a special joint task force of RCMP and CSIS anti-terrorism units, combined with provincial and municipal police forces in Ontario and Quebec.

The RCMP are expected to hold a press conference Monday afternoon to announce the arrests and provide details of the alleged plot, and give an overview of the extensive police and intelligence operation.

Law enforcement officials say the terror suspects arrested today have no connection to the two brothers accused of last week's Boston Marathon bombings.

They also say there is no tie to the former London, Ont., high school friends who joined al-Qaeda and died earlier this year while helping to stage a bloody attack on an Algerian gas refinery.

Alleged plot recalls Toronto 18 case

Sources say the alleged plot disrupted by Monday's arrests was potentially more dangerous than the bombings and hostage-takings planned by the so-called Toronto 18.

Police have made a number of arrests in southern Ontario and Quebec following a joint operation between Canadian and U.S. authorities. (CBC)

That plot was broken up in the summer of 2006, when police arrested 18 people in a massive anti-terrorism sweep in southern Ontario.

Eleven of the 18 were subsequently convicted of aiding the group in various plots, ranging from blowing up the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill and the Toronto Stock Exchange with trucks laden with explosives to beheading the prime minister and other politicians.

The group never got a chance to execute any of its plans before being arrested when one of its members took delivery of what they thought were three tonnes of explosive fertilizer to be used in truck bombs. Undercover agents had replaced the shipment with harmless chemicals.

Four are serving sentences of 18 years to life in prison, while the other seven received terms ranging from 30 months to just over seven years.

More recently, three Canadian citizens were arrested in August, 2010 — two Ottawa men and a London, Ont. doctor — and charged with knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity.

One of them, Hiva Alizadeh, was also charged with possession of more than 50 circuit boards allegedly to be used as remote detonators for bombs.

The cases involving those three have yet to go to court.

Member of Canadian Parliament requests Emergency Debate on Venezuelan Election Results

Karygiannis

At a press conference this morning Mr. Karygiannis and members of the Canadian Venezuela Diaspora called for the emergency debate to be held.

Karygiannis requests Emergency Debate on Venezuelan Election Results

OTTAWA - The Honourable Jim Karygiannis, Member of Parliament for Scarborough-Agincourt and Liberal Critic for Multiculturalism, has requested the speaker of the House of Commons to grant an Emergency Debate Members of this house can discuss and debate what measures should be taken to help ensure that the democratic rights of the people of Venezuela are protected.

“As an accredited international observer, I witnessed problems at the polls - military presence with guns, some electronic machines not working properly, others witnessed violence and the burning of ballots, individuals with several identity cards, voting early and often.” said Mr. Karygiannis. “I also saw the people of Venezuela streaming to the polls to exercise their democratic right.  They were full of hope believing that this election signaled a new era for Venezuela.”

Nicolás Maduro was declared President-elect with 50.8 percent of the votes cast.  The opposition, led by Henrique Capriles, called for a recount and the President-elect said in his victory speech that he would not object to a recount.  When asked, one of the Election Commission’s members indicated that the Commission would undertake a recount.  By Monday, the day after the election, the President-elect had changed his mind, the Election Commission had declared him to be the winner and his inauguration was on Friday, April 19, 2013.

“With results this close, there should be an automatic recount.  In order to ensure the legitimacy of the vote, the Election Commission should ensure that all the votes cast were properly counted.” Mr. Karygiannis stated.  “In Canada, a judicial recount must occur where the number of votes separating the candidate who received the most votes and any other candidate is less than one one-thousandth (1/1000) of the votes cast.”

There has been retaliation against people who voted for Capriles. There are reports of mass layoffs of civil servants who supported Capriles.  People have been indiscriminately arrested for having supported Capriles. 

The Election Commission has agreed to audit the 46 percent of the ballot boxes that were not subject to the recount on Election Day.  However, the Commission has stated that the results will stand and if someone is not happy with the results, they must take the issue to the Supreme Court of Justice.

The request for the emergency debate will be asked shortly after 3:00 pm please sign the petition as we need as many sigantures as we can get: http://www.karygiannis.net/venezuela

SHAMEFUL: The Canadian Government congratulates Venezuelans, Calls for Calm and Peaceful

I am totally astonished.

The Emergency Debate which was supposed to be asked today was postpond due to the Canadian Governing Party blocking the request with a procedural vote.

I am sending you a copy of the statement which the Government of Canada issued regarding the Elections in Venezuela also I would point out my difficulty with this statement and call upon you to get even more people to sign on the petition requesting an emergency debate on the Elections in Venezuela. Please pass this request to your family, friends, relatives and neighbours.

Read it on line and you will notice they absolutely say nothing and do nothing  to condemn the way President Mauro is handling the crisis. Also the fact that both parties have agreed to a recount is absolutely false.

----------------------------

April 17, 2013 - The Honourable Diane Ablonczy, Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas and Consular Affairs), today issued the following statement:

“We congratulate the people of Venezuela for their high level of participation in the recent presidential elections and for their commitment to democracy.

“The Venezuelan National Electoral Council indicates a very close result. We note that both candidates had agreed to an audit of the votes. The legitimacy of democratic governments rests on the confidence of the people they represent. Due process must take place in order for that to be achieved.

“Canada calls for a peaceful resolution to the tensions that we have seen, respect for diversity of views and space for political dialogue in this difficult environment.”

For further information, media representatives may contact:
Joshua Zanin
Director of Communications
Office of the Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas and Consular Affairs)
613-944-2300
Foreign Affairs Media Relations Office
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
613-995-1874
http://www.international.gc.ca/media/state-etat/news-communiques/2013/04/17a.aspx?lang=eng

Canadian Goverment has called for an emergency debate on Venezuela election-Sign a petition

The Government has called for a vote thus postponing emergency debate. Sent in your emails as soon as possible

April 17, 2013

Dear Friend,

Further to the latest revelations in Venezuela I will be asking for an emergency debate today in the House of Commons on April 17, 2013 at 3:00 pm on the latest crisis in Venezuela following the election on April 14, 2013.

I was an international elections observer and seen first hand some of these difficulties, however today we see the reality of the aftermath of the elections.

People were killed on the streets today while asking for a recount. We see pictures coming out of Venezuela that remind us of dictatorships.

I need your help in order to accomplish this. I need you to join me in asking the Speaker of the House of Commons to allow the emergency debate to go on.

We need to have as many as possible join us on this ePetition. Please join and send your email ePetition request to the Speaker of the House of Commons:

http://www.jimkarygiannis.net/petition_and_action_requests/venezuelan_-_election_results_need_scrutiny

Please pass this petition on to your family, friends and people on your email list. People through out the world can join in. This is not just limited to Canadian residents anyone can join.

Regards,

Hon. Jim Karygiannis P.C., M.P.
Scarborough-Agincourt
Liberal Critic for Multiculturalism
Constituency Office
3850 Finch Ave East Suite 206
Scarborough Ontario
M1T 3T6
Tel: (416) 321 5454
fax: (416) 321 5456
jim@karygiannismp.com
www.karygiannismp.com

Sign the petition for an Emergency Debate on the Venezuelan Elections in the Canadian Parliament

Further to the latest revelations in Venezuela I will be asking for an emergency debate on April 17, 2013 in the House of Commons a little after 3:00 pm.
I need your help in order to accomplish this. I need you to join me in asking the Speaker of the House of Commons to allow the emergency debate to go on.
Hon. Jim Karygiannis P.C., M.P.
Scarborough-Agincourt
Liberal Critic for Multiculturalism
Constituency Office
3850 Finch Ave East Suite 206
Scarborough Ontario
M1T 3T6
Tel: (416) 321 5454
fax: (416) 321 5456
jim@karygiannismp.com
www.karygiannismp.com

Rita MacNeil, Cape Breton singer, dies at 68: "Working Man"

CBC News

Acclaimed Cape Breton singer Rita MacNeil has died at age 68.

A notice on her website states MacNeil died on April 16 following complications from surgery.

Born in Big Pond, N.S., on Cape Breton Island, MacNeil was one of eight children.

She moved to Toronto at age 17, where she wrote her first song and began singing in folk clubs. MacNeil later moved to Ottawa, where she recorded three albums, but eventually returned to Big Pond, where she formed a trio.

MacNeil was famously shy, but said her parents helped her overcome that trait by constantly reminding her to believe in herself.

"You can be shy," she said. "You can work through all kinds of struggle. But somewhere deep down, you have to have belief or nothing's going to happen."

Turning point

Cape Breton's first lady of song made her mark during a six-week run at Expo '86 in Vancouver. At the time, MacNeil was well-known in her home province but a newcomer to the national stage.

"Word of mouth kind of grew," said Rod Mickleburgh of the Globe and Mail. He said review after review praised her performance, and that summer sparked a love affair between MacNeil and Vancouver.

He finally saw her on Canada Day, 1986, when she performed Working Man with Men of the Deeps.

Probe focuses on Canadian as Shabab leader of Somalia courthouse attack

Toronto Star

FEISAL OMAR / REUTERS

By: Michelle Shephard National Security Reporter

As the death toll rises in Mogadishu following Sunday’s suicide bombings, Somali investigators are increasingly focusing on a Canadian who they believe led the multinational commando unit, which allegedly included fighters with Swedish citizenship, the Star has learned.

Mahad Ali Dhore, a university student who grew up in a suburban neighbourhood north of Toronto, left Canada nearly four years ago to join Somalia’s Al Qaeda proxy, Al Shabab.

Sources close to the investigation who spoke to the Star on the condition of anonymity said they believe Dhore organized the assault Sunday on Mogadishu’s Supreme Court. The nine-member squad reportedly stormed the complex and shot lawyers, civilians and journalists during a two-hour gun battle with security forces before most of them detonated their suicide bomb vests.

A separate car bomb later hit a vehicle carrying Turkish aid officials.

There are also unconfirmed reports under investigation that a second Canadian was part of the squad, along with Somali fighters from Sweden.

In a statement Monday, Somali Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon confirmed that the militants included experienced foreign fighters but he did not state their nationalities.

The death toll from the attack — the worst since the Shabab pulled out of the capital in August 2011 — kept rising Monday, reaching as many as 35, including the nine militants.

Al Shabab immediately claimed responsibility for the attack and vowed that more would follow.

In an online interview with the Star, a former Shabab member, Alabama-born Omar Hammami, claimed he had recently spoken with Dhore.

The U.S. State Department has offered a $5-million bounty for information leading to the capture of Hammami, who had a public fallout with the Shabab last year and says he no longer supports the group.

“He called me weeks back to give me a hard time about my stances against (the) Shabab,” he wrote to the Star from a Twitter account which he is widely believed to author.

“He told us to stop creating disunity. He told me to just accept prison. He was following anything they fed him,” he wrote. “Dangerous stuff.”

Canadian authorities would not comment on the case but Ottawa has limited reach inside Somalia, despite Canada now being home to one of the world’s largest Somali diasporas and the fact that many Somali-Canadians hold senior positions within Mogadishu’s new government.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Greg Cox said in a statement that the federal police force is working with “relevant domestic and international partners to gather information.”

The RCMP is actively involved in another investigation of Canadians at the forefront of a terrorist attack. Ali Medlej and Xristos Katsiroubas, high school friends from London, Ont., were reportedly two of the leaders of a mid-January attack at an Algerian gas plant that killed 37 hostages.

Mogadishu had been enjoying a period of relative calm and reconstruction until Sunday’s blast. Reuters reported that African peacekeeping troops blocked streets Monday and searched houses for any Shabab loyalists.

Abdirashid Hashi, deputy director for Mogadishu-based think tank Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, said the fact the group was able to hit the heart of the capital will force Somalia’s new government to “revisit its priorities.”

“If it fails to provide security to the citizens in the capital . . . (the government) will have difficulties justifying its demands in extending its writ to other parts of the country,” Hashi wrote in an email.

Time to fire Premier Kathleen Wynne’s fools | Editorial Toronto Sun

Editorial | Toronto Sun

Voters need to have an “adult conversation” with Premier Kathleen Wynne and her sorry collection of “revenue fools” known as Ontario’s Liberal government.

In other words, it’s time to throw these bums out of office, with a swift kick delivered to their money-squandering keisters.

With Monday’s finding by Auditor General Jim McCarter the real cost of the Liberals’ political decision to cancel the Mississauga gas plant two weeks before the 2011 election was $275 million, not the $190 million the Liberals claimed, enough is enough.

They lied coming into power in 2003, when then premier Dalton McGuinty brought in one of the largest tax grabs in Ontario history, after promising not to do so during the campaign.

And they’re still lying today, given McCarter’s finding the cost of closing the Mississauga plant is 44.7% higher than the $190 million the Liberals claimed.

According to McCarter, the $190 million cost of moving the plant to Sarnia only accounts for how much extra Ontarians will pay as taxpayers.

But it doesn’t include the fact Ontarians will have an additional $85 million tacked on to their electricity bills because of the Liberal “seat saver” program.

“The circumstances surrounding the cancellation decision weakened the Ontario Power Authority’s (OPA) negotiating position,” McCarter concluded.

“We found that the OPA was under significant pressure to get the construction of the plant stopped as quickly as possible, and this likely resulted in the final cancellation costs being higher than they would otherwise have been.”

McCarter will report this summer on the cost of the Liberals’ 2010 decision to cancel another unpopular gas plant in Oakville and move it to Napanee.

The Liberals claim it’s $40 million, but an independent energy expert has testified before a legislative committee the real price could be up to $638 million, 16 times higher than what the Liberals are saying.

In any event, it’s past time for NDP Leader Andrea Horwath to stop condemning the Liberals out of one side of her mouth, while supporting their politically corrupt minority government out of the other.

She should join forces with Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak and bring down the Liberals now.

They don’t deserve to be in office another day.

"The Vaulter": Canada's most notorious bank robbers

GlobalToronto 

Police are turning to social media in the hopes of catching one of Canada's most notorious bank robbers. He's known as the "vaulter" and as Christina Stevens explains, he's still at large. 

How far will wave of popularity carry Justin Trudeau?

Toronto Sun

Trudeau Sr. & Jr./ www.ctvnews.ca

By Monte Solberg 

By the time you read this Joyce Murray will be the new leader of the Liberal party. Surely her victory must rank as one of the greatest upsets in the history of the adult entertainment industry that we call politics.

Given that I sent this column to my powerful QMI overlords last Thursday, I’m at a tiny disadvantage when reporting events that happened on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Nevertheless, because I am “gifted,” I happen to “know” with utter certainty that Joyce Murray has won the Liberal leadership.

I will, however, attach a small caveat to all of this. If some of the data I have been using to arrive at this conclusion is off by even an iota, this would completely invalidate my thesis. If even the tiniest dust mite has entered my equation, it will throw off my elaborate calculations.

So, let’s allow there is a small chance that, as you read this, the new Liberal leader might be Justin Trudeau. If so, what would be the impact of this dark horse candidate on the national political scene?

Well, to begin with, the Liberal party would be energized. Out of Stephane Dion, Michael Ignatieff and young Prince Charming, he’s the one most people would want to sit down with over a vanilla, low-fat, triple espresso, shaken-not-stirred, quintuple latte, if not a beer.

I have no idea what you’d chat about, certainly not algebra, but he’d be a charming liberal and that counts for something in politics. Ask Bill Clinton.

In fact, the polls tell us he’d be the prime minister if an election was totally held this second. But this second has now come and gone and over the next few billion seconds before the next election Justin will face tough issues. Ask Bill Clinton.

Of course, Clinton was also a policy wonk and a Rhodes scholar, so he could talk the lingo no matter the issue. Justin? Well, not a policy wonk. Normally that might not matter. It didn’t matter for Jean Chretien, but when he won the election in 1993, the Liberals were the official opposition and Chretien was a seasoned hand. No one but the Liberals had a chance of forming government.

It’s a different story today. The wanker who runs North Korea is threatening to nuke us, the world economy is a mess and the rookie kid with no ideas, heading the third-place party, wants to lead us through it. Maybe he’ll charm us into looking past those details. Maybe we’ll be swept up in his bright-eyed hope that politics can move beyond cynicism.

He tells us that politics should be about voting for something and not against something. But what are we supposed to vote for? His hair? He has no policies. See, it’s hard to take seriously his war on cynicism when he cynically won’t reveal his own ideas about the biggest issues facing the country.

Nevertheless, for the moment, he’s riding a wave. Staying on that wave depends a great deal on the calamities ahead and whether he can grow enough as a leader to tackle and tame them.

Justin Trudeau: Where to now?

Blair Gable, Maclean's

Macleans.ca
By John Geddes

If you were listening for hints of policy in Justin Trudeau’s acceptance speech in Ottawa as he won the Liberal leadership today, then you must not have been paying attention to his campaign.

Still, there was content of a sort. Three strategic aims, all well worth keeping in mind, stood out in Trudeau’s generally low-key text. He framed Liberalism as the sunny alternative to gloomy Conservatism; asked Quebecers to think of themselves as  builders of Canada; and scolded Liberals for letting their intramural squabbles undermine their electability.

1. Here was a key moment as he tried to draw that advantageous Liberal-vs.-Conservative contrast (throwing in the NDP for good measure):

“Canadians want to be led, not ruled. They are tired of the negative, divisive politics of Mr. Harper’s Conservatives, and unimpressed that the NDP under Mr. Mulcair have decided that if you can’t beat them you might as well join them. Well, we are fed up with leaders who pit Canadians against Canadians, West against East, rich against poor, Quebec against the rest of the country, urban against rural.”

That’s obviously broad-strokes partisan positioning. But Trudeau’s personal brand strength might be his inspirational quality, which he’s clearly trying to convert here into a message of unification.

The latest Nanos poll has 30 per cent of Canadians picking him as the most inspiring federal leader, ahead of Harper’s 17.8 per cent and Mulcair’s 11.6 per cent. But he trails them both badly on the question of which leader has the best experience (Harper, 41 per cent; Mulcair 17.6 per cent; Trudeau, 8.6 per cent), so it might be harder for him to be heard as credible when talk turns to more precise matters of policy.

2. He took a turn in his speech, in French, to address Quebecers directly. During the leadership race, he sparred with also-ran contender Martin Cauchon on their home province. Cauchon argues for openness to some future constitutional rapprochement, which Trudeau resoundingly rejects. He alludes here to not opening up that issue:

“Let’s leave it up to others to continue the old quarrels and the old debates that lead to discontent. Let’s leave it up to others to partake in unfettered rhetoric and petty politics… Quebecers, let’s be builders again. Let’s build Canada together again.”

Then, without saying the words “separatist” or “sovereigntist,” he seemed to suggest their reluctance to embrace federalism is just a matter of seeing Canada’s scale as unwieldy:

“There will always be skeptics. There will always be people who say our country is too big, too full of differences, to be properly governed and for everyone to be properly represented. Well, I think they’re wrong.”

It’s hard to guess how the specific elements of Trudeau’s plea for Quebecers might be heard. But there’s no doubt the province is intrigued by the Montréal MP with the legendary last name. A Leger Marketing poll conducted late last month found that with Trudeau as leader, Liberal support in Quebec would stand at 32 per cent, ahead of the NDP and Bloc Quebecois tied at 25 per cent, and the Tories far back at 12 per cent.

The Liberals have just eight seats in the Quebec now, compared to the NDP’s 57 and the Conservatives’ five. So no matter how much Trudeau’s rhetorical line of attack concentrates on Harper, his party’s true adversary for a potentially large swath of seats in Quebec is clearly Mulcair’s NDP.

3. Starting April 15 in the House of Commons, when he must square off against Harper (and rise after Mulcair) in Question Period, Trudeau will be seen largely in terms of how he fares in comparison to the other party leaders. But arguably as big a task will be making sure he doesn’t allow the sorts of internal divisions to emerge that have the potential to plague any opposition leader.

Perhaps his sternest moment today was addressing Liberal who remember such rifts in the recent past:

“Canadians turned away from us because we turned away from them—because Liberals became more focused on fighting with each other than fighting for Canadians.”

Oddly, though, the Liberals were most noticeably divided during their last long run of success, when the clear existence of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin camps didn’t prevent the party from ruling and running successfully with Chrétien as PM and Martin as finance minister.

During the failed tries of Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, the party was less obviously divided. Their successive election losses came less as a result of Liberal in-fighting than because the party was united behind unpopular leaders running on confusing platforms.

For his part, Trudeau has shown in the past few months that he has plenty of potential to be popular. But on whether he has even the beginnings of a notion of the sort of platform that might propel a solid campaign in 2015, there was little indication during his leadership run and nothing more in his acceptance speech today. He’s likely got a couple of years to fill in the blanks.

Portuguese-Canadian thought he won 40,000 but were 40 million [Video]

the portuguese are not raw, hard-working people but just go step and step and and sometimes get help.

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Maria Carreiro was thrilled to have won $40,000 – until her daughter took a second look at the winning  ticket and realized it was actually worth $40 million. Carreiro has playing the same lottery numbers for 20 years.

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TORONTO: Sharia-compliant public pool barred a father from watching his daughter’s swim class because Muslim women were in the pool

barenakedislam 
When a single dad signed up his nine-year-old daughter for female-only swim lessons in a public pool, he didn’t realize he would be forced to submit to the rules of sharia law, which forbid any man from looking at Muslim women in a pool, even though Muslim women wear full body bags for swimming. 

Toronto Sun (h/t Susan K) Chris (who didn’t want his last name published) was shocked when he had the blinds to the viewing area of the Dennis R. Timbrell Recreation Centre pool in Flemingdon Park shut on him and then was told by staffers it was for “religious reasons.” “I spoke to a staff member and she told me that it’s because of Muslim women, that we’re not allowed to look at them or whatever,” Chris, 38, told the Toronto Sun Friday. “I don’t think religion has a role to play in a public pool.”

Nowhere on the form did it mention that males could not watch the lessons. So, when he showed up with his child at the pool on March 28 and again on Thursday night, he was confused when told he wasn’t allowed to watch.

“She doesn’t have a lot of friends and I wanted her to swim with girls,” Chris explained. “I don’t know what parent wouldn’t want to watch their child participate. There were other fathers there who weren’t too happy.”

Local Councillor John Parker hadn’t heard of the particular case until the Sun contacted him Friday, but said the dad’s point is a “legitimate one” and raises a “fair issue.”

Female-only swim programs began 20 years ago on the basis of “accommodating (Muslim) cultural and religious practices and requirements,” confirmed city aquatics manager Anne Jackson.

“Without a female-only program, there would be Muslim women that wouldn’t be able to participate in swimming,” Jackson said. “This is the way it needs to be in order to accommodate the programs. We’re not opening the door to one cultural group only — this is all females we’re accommodating.”

Late last month, Dennis R. Timbrell began a male-only swim course where only men could watch from the sidelines — no moms. The program bred from the same Muslim religious/cultural reasons, Jackson said.

If any parents wish to watch their child who is enrolled in a female or male-only swim class, they would have to move them to a mixed boys/girls class that runs three days a week. There are currently nine pools across Toronto that run the female-only swim program. All pools follow the same sharia-compliant policy of not allowing people of the other sex to watch practices, Jackson said.