Free Republic

Carson Ross had a financial dilemma on her hands. When the New Yorker weighed her college options back in 2009, she could have picked destinations like Tufts in Boston or Washington University in St. Louis, and racked up what she estimated would be over $40,000 a year in tuition and fees. Or she could take a more dramatic step,head north to Canada for her education. That's exactly what she did. "It's less than half of what I'd be paying at most top American schools," says Ross, now 21, who picked Montreal's McGill University majoring in international development studies. "It's definitely...

The registry isn’t entirely gone .... But Wednesday’s vote in the House of Commons, where the bill to scrap the registry and delete its record passed third reading — with two NDP MPs breaking ranks with their party to vote with the government — means it’s all over but for the crying .... This is a major victory for the Tories, who have been gunning for the registry (pun not intended, but acknowledged) since the day it was enacted. Some would argue its demise is a good thing for Canadians. But anyone can see that it’s a good thing for...

OTTAWA — The Conservative government says its MPs will celebrate after a historic vote to end the long-gun registry Wednesday evening, despite vehement opposition to the move in Quebec and much of urban Canada. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told reporters Wednesday, hours before the vote, that the government’s actions are long overdue. “It does nothing to help put an end to gun crimes, nor has it saved one Canadian life,” he said. “It criminalizes hard-working and law-abiding citizens such as farmers and sport shooters, and it has been a billion-dollar boondoggle left to us by the previous Liberal government.”

Two NDP MPs broke party ranks to vote with the government Wednesday night in the final House of Commons vote in favour of scrapping the long-gun registry. Bruce Hyer, MP for Thunder Bay-Superior North, and John Rafferty, MP for Thunder Bay-Rainy River, voted with the Conservative Party on a bill that will end the long-gun registration requirement. Bill C-19 passed 159 to 130 and now goes to the Senate for another round of votes and committee hearings. Rafferty and Hyer broke party ranks during a vote on the bill in November and were disciplined by interim leader Nycole Turmel at...

Just because a person from a racial minority gets into a nasty argument over the provision of a service does not mean he has been discriminated against, the Ontario Divisional Court has ruled, in the case of a librarian who asked two black lawyers for identification in a courthouse library. The ruling on alleged racial profiling, rare because it does not involve police, clarifies that discrimination must be proven, not just assumed because the complainant is part of a minority. “A complainant cannot merely point to his or her membership in a racialized group and an unpleasant interaction to establish...

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The son of one of the greatest defenders of Canadian unity, former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, has stirred up a hornets' nest by speculating about backing Quebec separatism if the country moves too far right. Trudeau's 40-year-old son, Justin, now a Liberal member of Parliament, said in an interview with the French-language service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp on Sunday that he was enormously saddened by the direction of the country under Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He said that at some point he might even back independence for his home province, French-speaking Quebec. Referendums in Quebec...

A left-wing freebie newspaper in Toronto, called NOW magazine, has published a photoshopped picture of the conservative mayor, Rob Ford, pointing a gun to his head. This from a magazine that claims to be against guns and gun violence. NOW magazine is unimportant to most people, but there is an important point buried amidst its smut: Liberals don’t mind promiscuous suggestions of gun crime, if it’s someone they hate in the crosshairs. It’s like when the movie, Death of a President, came to the Toronto International Film Festival. It wasn’t about a historical assassination. It was a Hollywood liberal fantasy...

From the kicking-puppies dept: Up in Canada, they're pushing for a new "lawful access" bill, which is basically a "government can spy on your internet usage" bill. Michael Geist has a full and complete run down about the new effort and why it's crazy. But, the insane part came out of the introduction when Public Safety Minister Vic Toews apparently told people: "You can stand with us, or you can stand with the child pornographers," according to Dale Smith, a journalist who was present. In other words, like Lamar Smith here in the US, he's trying to push through a...

Energy: While our president sleeps on the Keystone XL pipeline, Canada’s prime minister is in Beijing signing a series of trade deals to ship additional petroleum to China. Halftime in America? We need a new quarterback. While Clint Eastwood, in that thinly disguised infomercial for President Obama's re-election campaign, was promising that the world would soon hear the roar of our engines, China's economy will soon be revving up with petroleum that should and could be flowing south in a pipeline the Obama administration won't build. Prime Minister Steven Harper is making good on his warning that Canada would seek...

An Ontario teachers' union is calling for an end to new Wi-Fi setups in the province's 1,400-plus Catholic schools. The Ontario English Catholic Teacher's Association says computers in all new schools should be hardwired instead of setting up wireless networks. It also says Wi-Fi should not be installed in any more classrooms. In a position paper released on Monday, the union — which represents 45,000 teachers — cites research by the World Health Organization. Last year the global health agency warned about a possible link between radiation from wireless devices such as cellphones and cancer. Some believe wireless access to...

EDITORIAL If it were not the dog days of summer when the Harper government nixed the long-form census nearly 18 months ago, it would not have turned into apocalyptic news similar to the sky is falling. Dog days are usually slow news days -- people on holidays, workaholics going on the wagon, news agencies working with sparse staff -- until something to pounce upon comes along. Toss in the very-public resignation of Statistics Canada chief Munir Sheikh over the scrapping of a mandatory long form, and the media -- us excluded -- went into a frenzy. What has this hell...

DAWSON CITY, Yukon - There are a lot of problems that can befall trail markers — treacherous conditions, dangerous overflow, deep snow and trails littered with fallen brush. But an unexpected challenge for the Canadian Rangers who broke the Yukon Quest trail in Canada? Wolves stealing trail markers.

Newt Gingrich has a promise for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper: If you wait for the U.S. elections, Republicans will come through for you on the Keystone XL pipeline. “My message to Prime Minister Harper: ‘You do not need a partnership with the Chinese,’” Gingrich said during his turn in the Conservative Political Action Conference spotlight Friday afternoon. “If you give us a few months, … when we beat Obama on election night, we will approve [the Keystone XL pipeline] on Jan. 20.” Gingrich said he would sign an executive order approving Keystone on his first day in office. Harper’s...

About three weeks ago, Barack Obama nixed the Keystone XL pipeline that would have transported 900,000 barrels of oil per day from the Canadian tar sands to the gulf coast region of the U.S.  The pipeline project would also create 20,000 direct jobs and potentially hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs according to economic analysis.   Spurned by Obama's rejection, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated that if Canada's next door neighbor and close ally didn't want Canada's oil, then he'd pursue other markets to "diversify" the market for Canada's natural resources.  It didn't take him long. Harper was in Beijing...

The Montreal police Child Sexual Exploitation Investigations Section has announced the arrest of six young men in a case of human trafficking and prostitution. Two underage girls allegedly met the suspects in February 2011 and were forced into prostitution. The girls told police that they managed to flee to their freedom a week later. Police have arrested Abdul Karim Nassereddine, 20, Naib Ali Soilihi, 20 and Mohammed Rami Taha, 19. Mezri Mehdi Mohamed Hamza, 21, turned himself in Thursday after being sought by authorities.

Professor Ian Clark just does not see any evidence of oil sands contributing to global warming. That’s quite a stand to take in the face of a global environmental community that considers the development of the Canadian heavy oil industry tantamount to hastening the end of the world.But Prof. Clark can claim to know a bit more about the science behind climate change than the average person. As a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa, he focuses on paleoclimatology — the study of changes in climate taken on the scale of the entire history...

Saying terrorism remained a significant threat, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews unveiled a national counter-terrorism strategy Thursday that put the emphasis on confronting the indoctrination that has led some Canadians to radical violence. The strategy, meant to guide federal counter-terrorism efforts, identified Sunni Islamist extremism as Canada’s top security threat and committed the government to making communities more “resilient” to the influence of extremist ideologues. “To succeed, the government’s counter-terrorism efforts cannot be limited to operations directed at groups or individuals already involved in terrorist activities. They must also be reinforced by preventive measures, aimed at keeping vulnerable individuals from...

The man killed in Calgary's first homicide of the year was breaking into an Erin Woods home when someone shot him. Police had previously said Joseph Lesley Talbot, 35, died last weekend following a break-in at a home on Erin Circle S.E. Investigators haven't officially disclosed Talbot's role in the events, but a source said Wednesday he was breaking into the home when someone inside shot him. Family members of Talbot's in Ontario have said on social media websites that the killing is the second homicide in the family in recent months. Relatives said Talbot's younger brother, 20-year-old David Arbuckle,...

Canada's prime minister on Friday made his strongest comments yet in support of a proposed pipeline from oil-rich Alberta to the Pacific coast, saying his government was committed to ensuring the controversial project went ahead. snip "We have abundant supplies of virtually every form of energy. And you know, we want to sell our energy to people who want to buy our energy -- it's that simple," Harper told a business dinner in Guangzhou.

Last month we discussed the rather alarming news that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was planning a trip to China to discuss possible natural resources deals with the economic superpower. It seemed no coincidence that the trip was announced close on the heels of Barack Obama's decision to kick the can down the road on the Keystone XL pipeline yet again. But at that time, I retained some hope that perhaps this was just a warning siren to Obama which would remind him that Canada had plenty of other options should we decide not to do business with them.Apparently Harper...

Dear (ShadowAce), Energy and jobs are two things that Americans need to survive. The Keystone XL Pipeline would provide both, free of cost to American taxpayers. That is why this week, I introduced the bipartisan Keystone for a Secure Tomorrow Act (K-FAST) to allow Congress to act immediately and approve the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline. Congress has the obligation and the legal ability to say yes. In fact, in 1973, after years of delay, Congress took similar action and passed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act in order to build the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The Keystone XL Pipeline is a...

China and Canada declared Thursday that bilateral relations have reached "a new level" following a series of multibillion-dollar trade and business agreements to ship additional Canadian petroleum, uranium and other products to the Asian superpower. ..................................................... Harper has said building pipelines to the West Coast — such as the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway oilsands pipeline and a separate one for liquefied natural gas — is a national priority as Canada looks to ship its vast resources to Asia. Enbridge CEO Pat Daniel said the commitment by the Chinese and Canadian governments for a strategic energy partnership will allow Canada to...

The law governing the right to defend yourself and make a citizen's arrest is sailing through Parliament on a calm sea of cross party support. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson appeared at a House of Commons committee Tuesday to discuss Bill C-26 -- the Citizen's Arrest and Self Defence Act -- and faced tame questions from MPs. "He was defending his own house and property and he still had to hire a lawyer and go to through the court process when he was defending his home and family, how would C-26 make this different?" asked Liberal MP Judy Sgro, referencing one...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Canadians used to being ignored by the American political system might be surprised to see just how much the Great White North will be discussed this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference. CPAC, the premier gathering of conservative-minded Americans, kicks off Thursday in D.C. and right-leaning individuals appear to be looking north for inspiration. It's not just about the Keystone pipeline either. "Canada is more conservative than the United States?" mega-blogger Andrew Breitbart said, in a tone somewhere between a question and a quizzical statement. Breitbart, like others on the American right, has been noticing Canada...

They didn't win all of the battles but the Conservatives are poised to win the war over the long gun registry. Bill C-19, an act to end the long gun registry, passed one of the final hurdles in the House of Commons Tuesday night after several attempts by the Opposition to amend it. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, angry that debate had been shortened, led the charge along with the NDP, Liberal and Bloc members to make changes. Voting took hours. The Tories, however, have a majority and eventually squashed all of the efforts. "When are we going to have...

A half-century has passed since the last person in Canada was executed, but a recent public opinion poll suggests Canadians are warming to the idea of a return to capital punishment. The survey conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion in partnership with the Toronto Star found that 63 percent of the 1,002 Canadians surveyed across the country believe the death penalty is sometimes appropriate. Sixty-one percent said capital punishment, which was abolished in Canada in 1976, is warranted for murder. “I think people might be warming to the idea of having it as an option on the table, if anything...

When defending their monopoly to defend us, the authorities often shoot themselves in the foot. In Saturday’s National Post, Rex Murphy recalled the case of a shopkeeper in Toronto’s Chinatown who was charged with kidnapping for nabbing a shoplifter and holding him for the police. The story had a happy ending: The lawmen looked as foolish in court as they deserved to look, and the shopkeeper was acquitted. Undaunted, though, the authorities press on. Currently, prosecutors are making fools of themselves over a citizen named Ian Thomson, whose warning shots scared away three men trying to firebomb his farm house...

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper insisted he is not preparing the Canadian public for war with Iran but, in his starkest warning yet, he said he fears the regime in Tehran is prepared to use nuclear weapons, if it manages to produce them. In an interview with the National Post and Postmedia News, Mr. Harper said Iran’s quest to develop weapons of mass destruction is “a grave threat to peace and security.” “For the first time in history, we are facing a regime that not only wants to attain nuclear weapons but a regime that has, compared to virtually...

Following are excerpts from an interview with US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which aired on Al-Hayat TV on January 30, 2012. Ruth Bader Ginsburg: It is a very inspiring time - that you have overthrown a dictator, and that you are striving to achieve a genuine democracy. So I think people in the United States are hoping that this transition will work, and that there will genuinely be a government of, by, and for the people. [...] I met with the head of the elections commission. I think that the first step has gone well, and that elections...

Video at Link.

The story is grisly: a husband and wife murdering their three young daughters, ages 19, 17 and 13, by drowning them along with their stepmother. The couple was assisted by their 21-year-old son. All were found guilty of first-degree murder in Ontario, Canada. They were sentenced to life in prison. Mohammad Shafia and his wife, Tooba, immigrated to Canada from Afghanistan in 2007. Being Muslims, they believe in Sharia law, which in some cases allows so-called "honor killings" -- that is, if a family member deviates from strict Muslim teachings, other family members can execute them. Of course, that's insane....

If Canada’s “green” media covered the Costa Concordia disaster in Europe the same way they are Europe’s green energy disaster, we’d never have heard of it. That’s because they, along with the federal opposition parties, spent so long shilling for green energy without knowing what they were talking about, the reality of what’s happening is just too embarrassing for them to admit. So they stubbornly ignore the story. But the stories keep coming. To wit: (1) “Solar Subsidy Cuts Sought by German Minister As Demand Wanes” (Bloomberg, Jan. 6): “Clean-energy subsidies should be cut in Germany, the second biggest solar...

The Shafias will appeal their first-degree murder convictions based on what their lawyers consider prejudicial evidence presented at their trial. Hamed Shafia’s lawyer, Patrick McCann, has already filed application with the Ontario Court of Appeal on behalf of his client and told CBC the other two lawyers involved with the case will likely do the same. “He is quite determined to pursue it and continue the fight, so to speak,” McCann said Tuesday. Echoing reports made in his closing arguments in the trial, the Ottawa-based lawyer said statements from the victims made to their boyfriends and teachers, who testified in...

A now-retired Catholic principal from Mississauga is facing a complaint to the Ontario College of Teachers after she denied students’ requests for a gay-straight alliance last year. Former Ottawa teacher Thomas McCue, who now lives with his male partner in Montreal, alleges Frances Jacques, the former principal of St. Joseph Catholic High School, committed professional misconduct when she refused to allow Leanne Iskander and other teens to form the controversial club, according to the Toronto Star. The Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board said at the time that Jacques had offered Iskander’s group numerous options that were in line with the Catholic...

The latest chapter in Canada’s quest to become a full-blown oil superpower unfolded this month in a village gym on the British Columbia coast. Here, several hundred people gathered for hearings on whether a pipeline should be laid from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific in order to deliver oil to Asia, chiefly energy-hungry China. The stakes are particularly high for the village of Kitamaat and its neighbors, because the pipeline would terminate here and a port would be built to handle 220 tankers a year and 525,000 barrels of oil a day. But the planned Northern Gateway Pipeline...

Family Convicted in Canada 'Honor Murders' Paula Newton. January 29, 2012 A Canadian jury Sunday convicted three members of a family of Afghan immigrants of the "honor" murders of four female relatives whose bodies were found in an Ontario canal. Mohammed Shafia, 58; his wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42; and their son, Hamed, 21, were found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of Shafia's three teenage daughters and his first wife in his polygamous marriage. Sunday's verdicts followed a three-month trial, in which jurors heard wiretaps of Shafia referring to his daughters as "whores" and ranting about their behavior....

KINGSTON, Ontario – A jury on Sunday found an Afghan father, his wife and their son guilty of killing three teenage sisters and a co-wife in what the judge described as "cold-blooded, shameful murders" resulting from a "twisted concept of honor." The jury took 15 hours to find Mohammad Shafia, 58; his wife Tooba Yahya, 42; and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in a case that shocked and riveted Canadians from coast to coast.

There is a "new Canada" just over the horizon — home to a diversity of skin tones, birth countries, languages and religious faiths unprecedented in the nation's history. By 2031, at least one in four people in this country will have been born elsewhere, new population projections from Statistics Canada suggest, and just half the working-age population will belong to families that have lived in Canada for at least three generations. "You look at the statistics and you can see it: who's the bulk of the new population, who's going to be our future," says Henry Yu, an associate history...

Alleged Rwandan war criminal Leon Mugesera played Canada's ponderously slow judicial and immigration systems like a concert violinist, but now he is finally where he should have been more than a decade ago. And that's in Rwanda, and a jail cell in Kigali. We trust his accommodations are suitable. Rwanda, in turn, has promised Canada that Mugesera would get a fair trial on charges that he incited the 1993-94 genocide of millions of the Tutsi minority by marauding Hutu militiamen. Canada, in turn, should promise Canadians to speed up the system to that no alleged war criminal can ever again...

Moscow police have detained a Canadian national named Michael Jackson on charges of attempting to steal a wallet from a woman in the capital’s underground, the police reported on its website. The 50-year-old was caught red-handed at an underground station in southeastern Moscow on Monday as he pulled the wallet from the woman’s pocket, the report said. An investigation is under way. If found guilty, Jackson faces a fine of up to 200,000 rubles ($6,500) and a prison term of up to five years.

If Canada’s “green” media — especially in the Parliamentary Press Gallery — demanded the same standards of accountability of themselves as they do of politicians, they would be killing entire forests right now apologizing to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Why? Because in sidestepping the economically suicidal stampede onto the green energy bandwagon which they relentlessly shilled for, Harper was right and they — along with the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens — were wrong. Today, so-called “green” energy is in retreat all over the developed world, as taxpayers and consumers in countries that blindly raced into it are in open...

Hypocrisy: As the great investor's secretary sat with the first lady at the State of the Union, the president spoke of economic "fairness." Is it fair to make a supporter wealthier at the expense of the American people? During the 2008 campaign, candidate Barack Obama cited billionaire Warren Buffett as one of his economic muses. In the 2012 State of the Union address Tuesday night, the president returned to his advocacy of the "Buffett rule," a proposed minimum tax on millionaires and billionaires. To highlight his theme of "fairness," there in the first lady's box sat Buffett's secretary, Debbie Bosanek,...

Last week, an Iranian Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence for computer programmer Saeed Malekpour, whose photography program was used without his knowledge, to upload pornography to the internet.

Reports of the death of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline to supply Alberta crude oil to Texas refineries appear to be greatly exaggerated. Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed his "profound disappointment" to President Barack Obama for rejecting TransCanada's proposed $7 billion pipeline. Obama was up against a political deadline for approving the project opposed by environmentalists and wanted more time for further reviews of the plans. In a phone call to Harper, Obama said TransCanada can submit an amended plan to reroute the pipeline around an environmentally sensitive aquifer in Nebraska. "This outcome is one of the scenarios we anticipated,"...

It’s well known that America’s dependence on foreign oil forces us to partner with some pretty unsavory regimes. Take, for instance, the country that provides by far the largest share of our petroleum imports. Its regime, in thrall to big oil interests, has grown increasingly bellicose, labeling environmental activists “radicals” and “terrorists” and is considering a crackdown on nonprofits that oppose its policies. It blames political dissent on the influence of “foreigners,” while steamrolling domestic opposition to oil projects bankrolled entirely by overseas investors. Meanwhile, its skyrocketing oil exports have sent the value of its currency soaring, enriching energy industry...

Canada needs to look beyond its southern neighbour for markets because the United States economy is unlikely to ever fully recover, Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney said Sunday [January 22, 2012]. In an interview with CTV's Question Period, Carney said that it is vital for Canada to look for new trading partners in the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere to prevent the economy from being dragged down by the U.S. "It's going to take a number of years before they get back to the U.S. that we used to know -- in fact, they are not, in our opinion, ultimately...

Keystone must watch

It is the crime of the century that America, home to some of the world’s greatest reserves of coal, natural gas and oil, is being deliberately destroyed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior as they do everything in their power to restrict access and drive energy producers out of business. It is common sense that a nation that cannot produce sufficient electricity to turn on its lights and power its manufacturing sector will be destroyed if current Obama administration regulations and actions continue. Our vital transportation sector and all others that utilize petroleum-based products will...

HONOLULU: Canada, Mexico and at least two other countries have expressed interest in joining US-led talks for a pan-Pacific trade pact, a US Republican lawmaker said on Friday after Japan asked to take part. “There’s a good deal of momentum for the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership),” Representative Kevin Brady said after meetings with members of President Barack Obama’s administration at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. That momentum was evidenced by Japan’s announcement earlier on Friday that it was interested in joining the talks “and what seem to be very solid inquiries from Canada, Mexico and a few others,” Brady...

It's been 18 years since the late dictator Hastings Kamuzu Banda's "indecency in dress" laws were repealed in Malawi, but mobs of men and boys in the largely conservative southern African country have recently been publicly stripping women of their miniskirts and pants. ... Other African nations, including neighboring South Africa, have seen similar attacks and harassment of women. Last year, women and men held "SlutWalks" in South Africa, joining an international campaign against the notion that a woman's appearance can excuse attacks. "SlutWalks" originated in Toronto, Canada, where they were sparked by a police officer's remark that women could...