Posted on 04/24/2007 10:31:28 AM PDT by GMMAC
Western Standard: sneak preview Monday, April 23, 2007
Here's a sneak preview of our new issue, just off the presses this morning: cover ; column ; story .
Normally we hold back on publishing to the Internet so that our home subscribers get the good stuff first. But this is a special case: one of the subjects of our cover story, an MP named Mark Holland, has threatened us with a lawsuit if we keep talking about him and the Liberal theft of Conservative personnel files. That's called libel chill -- an attempt to bully journalists (including bloggers) so that they stop talking about things.
We don't react well to libel chill over here at the Western Standard -- not from the Libranos, not from rioting anti-cartoon radicals. The proper response is to make sure our facts are accurate and our comments are fair, and then publish freely. Hence our cover story. Read it and tell us what you think. Feel free to post a comment. You, too, Mark.
Posted by Ezra Levant on April 23, 2007 | Permalink
Above - formerly PDF - links converted &
copied as html for viewing convenience:
Column:
FROM THE DESK of Ezra Levant (Publisher)
CAUGHT RED-HANDED
A new generation of Liberals is proving itself no better than the last
ITS NOT QUITE WATERGATE, BUT THE LIBERAL theft of Conservative files is serious business a violation of privacy laws and the Criminal Code (see cover story, page 26).
Its less serious than Watergate in that the Liberal party did not actively break and enter into their opponents locked offices. Instead, when the Liberals swapped offices with the Conservatives after losing the election last year, Liberal staff took 30 boxes of files the Conservatives had packed for Parliaments movers. Its still theft, but it wasnt particularly premeditated.
In other ways, though, its more serious than Watergate. To this day, the Liberal party has no compunction about what it did. Liberal operatives brag about how they spent a year going through the documentsincluding 174 personnel files of Conservative staff. The Liberals held a press conference to describe their "research" and made a video of the whole affair, brazenly posted to the official Liberal website. The video highlights various confidential personnel files, revealing the names of some of the staff who had their most private matters inspected for political grist. Perhaps a secretary was having problems at work because she was going through a divorce; perhaps a clerk asked for help in dealing with a substance abuse problem. Whatever private details were contained in those human resources files were read by voyeuristic Liberal "researchers" looking for dirt. Thats not called being Her Majestys Loyal Opposition. Thats called being a Peeping Tom.
The Liberals chose 32-year-old MP Mark Holland as their point man for the press conference and the star of the video. Thats because Holland has consistently shown poor judgment as an MP, and doesnt demur from dirty politics. Western Standard readers will remember Holland as the one who threatened Alberta oil companies if they didnt obey his particular environmental plans. Less well known is that, on the eve of Hollands showboating tour to the oilsands, someone leaked a report by the House of Commons natural resources committee, breaching parliamentary confidentiality. Every MP on that committee was asked to swear an oath that they were not the one who broke the rules; Holland and one other refused to swear that oath.
"Hollands legal threat is an important part of this story:
when the Liberals are caught doing something wrong,
their instinct is to bully their opponents"
That rough touch was what the Liberals needed and Holland complied, telling reporters that he felt "absolutely" no obligation to return the files.
As I write, the Speaker of the House is considering a complaint against Holland by Scott Reid, a Conservative MP whose files were amongst those rifled by the Liberals. But Holland isnt the root of the problem, hes just a branch; it was the Liberal leaders staff who worked through the files for a year.
You would think that the party of Adscam would have found a new moral compass by now. That a young Liberal MP thinks the best way to get ahead is through unethical behaviour suggests the new generation of Liberals is no better than the last.
When I wrote a column about Holland in the Calgary Sun and Toronto Sun, he threatened them and the Western Standard with a defamation lawsuit, though his chief quibble was that he didnt personally rifle through all the stolen filesLiberal staff did and then briefed him on their findings. Thats hardly an excuse. Imagine a corporate CEO blaming his underlings that way. But Hollands legal threat is an important part of this story: when the Liberals are caught doing something wrong, their instinct is to bully their opponents. Which brings us to Hollands threatened suit against this magazine.
The Western Standard didnt cower before much scarier Liberals like Alfonso Gagliano and Jean Chrétien when we published our cover story in 2005 about the Libranos. And we didnt go wobbly in 2006 when Muslim radicals threatened to murder anyone who reprinted the Danish cartoons of Mohammed.Were still fighting against two "human rights" complaints in the cartoon kerfuffle, thanks to our readers support for our legal fund.
When an MP brags about 30 boxes of stolen documents, our readers can expect a news story about it. And if that MP tries to censor us with a lawsuit, well that just makes the story a little bit more interesting.
With your appetite now hopefully whetted,
follow the links to the full story as well as Holland's
brazenly arrogant: threatened us with a lawsuit
That’s it. I’m buying a Western Standard subscription. I am damn curious, and they have a lot of great writers.
wasn’t it Ambrose Bierce who said “never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel”?
I wish we had a fearless publication like this in the states.
BUMP!
That alone is sufficient to prosecute him. I realize that Canuckistan operates under a different set of laws, as becomes a country quite recently a "dominion".
Conspiracy, aiding-and-abetting crimes must surely exist in your country.
The individuals, whose privacy were grossly violated can certainly sue his ass, no?
As an aside, the brain-dead conservatives who allowed the crime to be committed should also be prosecuted for incompetence.
Is it too much to expect that this idiocy will never be repeated?
I know, we have our own problems in the US. A certain senator was never prosecuted for stealing almost a thousand FBI files on individuals when she was Mrs. First Rapist. I completely believe that some residual political benefits are still being enjoyed by our resident criminals. But we're working on that, seeking backbone and ball transplants for our domestic Republicans.
Just saying.
Liberal audacity and boldness in committing crimes
know no bounds.
Absolutely stunning that everyone involved have not
been arrested yet.
The Clinton lesson.
We are the Librano$ the laws that apply to normal people do not apply to THE NATURAL GOVERNING PARTY OF CANADA! We are a law unto ourselves and the Canadian people had better understand that, or else!
Laws don’t apply to liberals, do they?
The part that gets me is the fact that the Liberal Party don not believe that they did anything wrong. It is as they always say “business as usual”. That should scare the heck out of Canadians because they have as much as said that they respect no ones private property not even the governing Party. If they have no respect for the office and do not view this as theft then what is it that they would find acceptable for the information of the average Canadian.
Same with our own. The problem is very damn few Repulicans ever fight back.
Sadly its the only conservative publication in Canada - aside from Fraser Institute which is more of a research organization, and the moderately conservative National Post.
Fraser Institute is a think tank. But there are others like it. C.D. Howe is pro free-market. More staid and centrist, though. Atlantic Institute of Market Studies is very pro free-market but concentrates on the east coast. Royal Canadian Military Institute is pro-military. So is CDFAI, CISS, and a few others. There are a bunch, if you’re tied to the academic community. Institute of Canadian Values is new (relatively...1 or 2 years old), but it is a think tank that is pro social conservatism. It’s director is a big figure in Canadian Christianity and its deputy influential amongst Canadian Jews (Ben-Ami). Canadian Coalition for Democracies is a pro-democracy lobby group. There are tons more if you know where to look.
The Sun and Free Press series of newspapers often have a conservative populist slant. One of the Montreal newspapers is conservative. I forget which. I am sure there are other conservative publications in Canada if you look.
Thanks for the info. Yes, of course, there are some more conservative local papers, like the Calgary Sun.
No problem.
If that little p.o.s. Holland had a file that belonged to me, I would go and take it back.
Believe me.
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