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It was a year when the Liberals in Ottawa almost forced another federal election, when the NDP in BC lost yet another, and when a fugitive banker Rajesh Saxena finally – after a decade – left his quarters in Vancouver to return to Thailand and face trial and possible detention.

As 2009 draws to a close, we have collected some of the editorials that marked noteworthy BC-based and international events for our readers.

To read these editorials in full, go to our website and enter the headline in the search bar.

With this summary we also thank our readers and advertisers for continuing to grow with us.

This issue marks our final edition of the year. We will return to publishing our award-winning independent newspapers in 2010 following the Christmas season.

Have a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy new year!

 

Dec 3, 2009

A new era emerges for Canada and India

 

Guest editorial by Ryan Touhey, an Assistant Professor of History at St. Jerome’s University/University of Waterloo in Canada and an expert on India-Canada relations.

When Prime Minister Stephan Harper went to India recently, it was an expression of an interest to make New Delhi one of its international priorities and is seeking to re-develop a historically neglected relationship.

Canada and India have been reluctant dance partners in decades past for reasons ranging from a heated disagreement on nuclear non-proliferation to Cold War-era divergences to name but two.

The importance of this trip, in many regards, is symbolic denoting a new era between the two countries. The aftermath should be used as a chance to lay the practical groundwork to develop consistent linkages and the political interest that have been missing for decades.

A survey of the main Indian newspapers suggests that the Indian media gave limited attention to this visit. And therein lies a key problem. Canada has to address a visibility gap in India and press its case as to why the India government and its peoples should be interested in Canada and the outcome of such visits.

A good start will be for the Canadian government to take a page from its allies, and trade competitors, such as Australia, France, and Germany and develop a public diplomacy profile that has been sorely lacking since 1947 when both countries established formal ties.

 

Nov 19, 2009

Canada’s nuclear salvation may come back to haunt us

 

The thought of the tax-dollar guzzling Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) doing business again is ringing with dollar signs for some of our politicians. China and India are two of the main targets for sales.

Today in Canada there is just no domestic urgency to go nuclear and this was underlined by Ontario’s recent decision to postpone indefinitely plans for two new reactors.

Even with privatization, AECL’s prospects look limited.

That is why Harper and his nuclear road show are targeting India and China both of which have dozens of new reactors planned or under construction.

Which brings us to the question; is Canada’s nuclear industry more important than making this world safer?

India has also refused to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, outlawing nuclear tests.

When it comes to China, the Chretien-led Liberals pumped hundreds of millions of interest-free loans to entice Beijing to buy CANDU technology.

China took the money, turned around and shopped at another nuclear bazaar.

Both India and China have a track record of betrayal when it comes to Canada’s nuclear expertise.

It will be wise for Canada to look back before moving forward. Because saving AECL may one day come back to haunt us.

 

Oct 15, 2009

Ban the burqa

 

Guest editorial by Tarek Fatah, founder of the The Muslim Canadian Congress

There is no requirement in Islam for Muslim women to cover their face.

Rather, the practice reflects a mode of male control over women. Its association with Islam originates in Saudi Arabia, which seeks to export the practice of veiling — along with other elements of its extremist Wahhabist brand of Islam.

If readers have any doubt about this issue, they should take a look at the holiest place for Muslims — the grand mosque in Mecca.

For over 1,400 years, Muslim men and women have prayed in what we believe is the House of God. And for all these centuries, female visitors have been explicitly prohibited from covering their faces.

Some apologists of Islamism in academia and feminist groups bend the truth to make it sound as if their defence of the burka is a defence of tolerant Western values.

What do these people have to say about laws against polygamy and slavery, both sanctioned in some parts of the Islamic world, but outlawed in Canada?

 

October 8, 2009

Surrey’s road to the future stuck in the past

 

 
 

Surrey city council voted 6-3 against the proposal to extend 84th Avenue across the southern fringe of Bear Creek Park — its third rejection in 10 years.

Most residents on 84th — along with a small group called Friends of Bear Creek Park — were opposed.

First term city councilor Barinder Rasode spearheaded the drive to connect the road.

While the battle was as much about disturbing the tranquility of 84th Avenue — one of Surrey’s major arterial roads — it is invariably only a smaller battle in a much bigger narrative about what Surrey is and where it is going.

Surrey has over 400,000 residents — in 10 years it will surpass Vancouver as the largest city in B.C – and is a little tiger powered by immigrant labour and the fastest growing municipality in Canada.

The issue of extending 84th Avenue is Surrey in a Petri dish: an anachronistic culture of a rapidly growing city clinging to the belief that it is still a bedroom community.

 

Sept 10, 2009

Bill Vander Zalm’s dangerous awakening

 

There is nothing wrong with being a Christian or a Conservative.

But when the two come together with former B.C. premier Bill Vander Zalm in the middle, all kinds of ugliness starts to form.

Vander Zalm is leading the charge against the HST, the Harmonized Sales Tax.

Like before when in office, Vander Zalm is using a populist platform to push his Conservative Christian tunnel vision.

Vander Zalm’s dream nation will be a one colour-creed zone because he says that the rise of multiculturalism has damaged Canada’s culture.

In a TV interview propelled by his dangerous awakenings, Zalm preached that our value system is being eroded because our religious values are waning.

This from a delusional Dutchman who should know better about stones and glass houses, given he has a nursery business.

This disgraced premier used his pulpit to ban funding for doctor-approved abortions and then went on to be found guilty of B.C.’s conflict-of-interest rules in relation to the peddling of his Fantasy Gardens to an Asian billionaire.

It was not too long ago that Zalm was described by a government inquiry to having a sincere belief that no conflict exists as long as the public is not aware of what’s going on.

 

June 25, 2009

Canada’s tale of broken treaties

 

Fugitive banker Rakesh Saxena finally went back to Thailand in November.

For over a decade he stymied all efforts by the Thai government to get him to answer charges of embezzling $88 million from the Bangkok Bank of Commerce.

But he is not alone.

We have fugitive Mexican labour leader Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, accused of embezzling $61 million from a union fund.

He sought refuge in Canada on the advice of his lawyers and wants to fight his case at your expense.

We have Gloria and Faustino Chingkoe in Richmond, B.C. accused of allegedly defrauding the Philippines government of $75 million.

We allowed Rodolfo Pacificador to stay in Canada. He is wanted in The Philippines for his alleged role in the assassination of a provincial governor. Earlier, we granted Ferdinand Marcos crony Dewey Go Dee, wanted for plunder, asylum in Canada.

India is totally frustrated with Canada because it is unable to get its hands on a whole range of fugitives, including Subhash Agrawal of Ottawa, wanted in India as a suspect in the 2003 murder of his sister, Canadian Dr. Asha Goel; Harnek Singh Grewal, who leads a powerful Sikh sect, wanted for allegedly inciting a deadly riot; and Malkiat Kaur Sidhu and Surjit Singh Badesha of Maple Ridge, wanted for the alleged contract killing of Sidhu’s daughter Jassi Kaur.

The list of fugitives who have made Canada their safe haven is long and large.

 

May 21, 2009

Mandatory voting in BC, anyone?

 

The provincial election was not the story about Gordon Campbell defeating Carole James. It was about the more than half of registered voters who shunned their democratic duty.

You wanted the status quo. You feared the unknown. But on Election Day you stayed at home and let other people vote for your future.

Which brings us to the question: Mandatory voting for B.C., anyone? Right now complacency rules, not only among the electorate but with those vying for office.

So maybe the time has come for mandatory voting legislation, as is the case in Australia. As someone once rightly pointed out: “Bad politicians are sent to office by good people who don’t vote.”

 

April 23, 2009

NDP’s Gender Bender Politics

 

The NDP believes that in order to treat women, gays and minorities equally, it has to first treat some of them preferentially. In a dubious Canadian first that is being played out in the on-going B.C. election campaign, the NDP reserved about 30 per cent of its ridings for female candidates and another 10 per cent has been designated for “youth, gay/lesbian/bi/transgendered, persons of colour, aboriginal people and persons with disabilities.”

Carole James and her NDP call it affirmative action that is required to repair the “institutionalized sexism” in the legislature.

There is no place in B.C. for the NDP’s affirmative action policy because the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race, gender and sexual orientation is to stop discriminating on the basis of race, gender and sexual orientation.

 

March 26, 2009

It’s not what you say...

 

Like Australia, Canada’s immigration minister Jason Kenney is pushing for new rules for immigrants who want Canadian citizenship. They should learn French or English first, the Canadian immigration minister said at a conference in Calgary.

Further, the requirement to pass the language tests will have a tremendous impact, especially in India, The Philippines and China, where prospective immigrants have to travel far to sit for such tests.

Most importantly, we have to be aware of the fact that immigration has been and will be the lifeblood of this nation.

If we had demanded English or French of all immigrants, Canada may still be a logging camp.

 

March 19, 2009

Is the Falun Gong an evil, anti-gay cult?

 

The following excerpt is from a paper that was presented by Rick Ross at the January 2009 International Forum on Cultic Studies sponsored by the Centre for the Study of Destructive Cults in China and published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

My work in the area of cults, controversial groups and movements began in 1982 and has included professionally consulting with hundreds of affected families, mental health professionals, attorneys, clergy, law enforcement and the media.

I have been qualified and accepted as an expert witness across the United States in numerous court cases. This has included testimony given in United States federal courts.

I am the founder and Executive Director of the Ross Institute of New Jersey (RI).

Falun Dafa, which was founded in 1992, is an idiosyncratic blend of beliefs and practises as assembled by its founder Li Hongzhi. This includes Taoist and Buddhist references predicated upon a belief in extraterrestrials and practised through a set of prescribed exercises and meditation techniques.

While Li Hongzhi talks about “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance,” neither he nor his followers actually demonstrate any tolerance concerning critical questions or inquiry.

In Mr. Li’s world view, mixed-race people are part of a plot, contrived by the evil extraterrestrials. “By mixing the races of humans, the aliens make humans cast off gods,” he told a gathering in Switzerland in 1998.

“Mixed races” are supposedly excluded from the “truth” and “have lost their roots, as if nobody in the paradise will take care of them. They belong to nowhere, and no places would accept them . . . the higher levels do not recognize such a human race.”

According to Mr. Li, the offspring of mixed race unions are therefore “intellectually incomplete” or “with an incomplete body.” In such cases, only he, Master Li, can help and “take care of it” (i.e. resolve the “incomplete” state). However, that can be done only if “such a person wants to practice cultivation.”

Li Hongzhi also encourages hatred of homosexuals. “The disgusting homosexuality shows the dirty abnormal psychology of the gay who has lost his ability of reasoning at the present time,” Li Hongzhi wrote in Volume II of Zhuan Falun, or Turning the Law Wheel, which was translated into English in 1996.

In his talk in Switzerland, Li Hongzhi also stated that gay people would be “eliminated” by “the gods.” Asked in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1998 whether gays could practice Falun Gong, Mr. Li answered, “You can cultivate, but you must give up the bad conduct.”

 

March 5, 2009

Seal slaughter does not make dollars or sense

 

According to some figures the 2008 seal hunt yielded $7 million in revenue. Divided among the 6,000 estimated sealers, it averages to about $1,100 each, before expenses.

It’s a paltry sum next to the true costs to our national economy and our international prestige.

This year, another 300,000 defenseless seal pups, mostly less than three months old, will be clubbed to death and the highly disturbing video footage of the kills will be spread around the world making a mockery of Canada’s image as a land of enduring peace and natural beauty.

This carnage on the ice comes as Russia imposes a ban on its seal hunt and while the European Union grapples with a proposed seal products ban.

From a dollars and sense standpoint, Canada needs to put an end to this senseless slaughter now.

 

February 12, 2009

Gang Violence: Stop the blaming, start the naming!

 

Welcome to the best place to live on the planet where the authorities are all talk and the gangsters are all action.

Five shootings in six days — two at shopping malls involving gang bangers — have left the Lower Mainland reeling.

In the meantime, as promises of tighter laws, bail reform and anti-gang task forces are doled out, police have taken to pleading to the public for information.

We are being urged to shun and snitch on the gangsters.

Okay then! You want us to shun, shame and snitch on these gang bangers who have made our communities a free-for-all firing range, then arm us.

Provide the public with your police intelligence. Release the photos and gang affiliations of those arrested and charged to the media. Create a public dossier of these thugs and show us who they are and where they roam.

Don’t scurry back to the confines of privacy legislation because the gangsters do not give two hoots about our privacy.

There are precedents for these kinds of public alerts. The authorities have used a similar mechanism to shame johns who use prostitutes. They have done this with sex offenders. And they have done this with violent offenders who are being released from jail.

The time has come for a very public registry of B.C. gangsters to get the citizenry to gang up on the gangs.

Stop the blaming and start the naming. The cops need to shine a light on the thugs they want us to shun.