Free Republic

KABUL (Reuters) - NATO countries have agreed to send more troops to the volatile south of Afghanistan, Canada's foreign minister said on Saturday, and another 200 Canadian troops could also be deployed. Canada has some 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan, most of them stationed in the southern province of Kandahar where they have suffered one of the worst casualty rates fighting a resilient Taliban insurgency. "We've been talking with our NATO allies and in fact we do now have commitments to increase the number of troops particularly in the Kandahar region," Canadian Foreign Minister David Emerson told a news conference in...

Your daily routine -- switching on a light, cooking a meal, driving down the street -- would generate less greenhouse gases under a first-of-its-kind regional strategy to curb global warming unveiled Wednesday at the state Capitol in Salem. The strategy emerged from the Western Climate Initiative, an alliance of Western states -- including Oregon and Washington -- and Canadian provinces trying to jump ahead of any federal move to regulate greenhouse gases. Large utility companies and factory owners would feel the effects first, followed by fuel distributors, as they face limits on their greenhouse gas emissions. Individual Oregonians would not...

July 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Campaign Life Coalition Canada (CLC) is hosting and co-sponsoring the International Pro-Life Conference, "Creating a Culture of Life Around the Globe," in Toronto October 2-4 with Life Canada and the International Right to Life Federation (IRTLF). Among the many notable speakers at this major conference will be Father Gerard Wilberforce, the great, great grandson of slavery abolitionist William Wilberforce. Jim Hughes, International Right to Life vice-president and president of Campaign Life Coalition Canada told LifeSiteNews that the conference is expected to be as exciting as the 2002 International conference with speakers from around the world....

Attacking a Jewish girl and the friends who came to her rescue has landed a Muslim man a one-year jail sentence. Mustafa Taj must also serve a year of probation following his release for what provincial court Judge Bill Cummings ruled was a racially motivated assault. "In this case, I'm satisfied that imprisonment is necessary," Cummings said in accepting the Crown's bid for a jail term. Prosecutors Ken McCaffrey and Inayat Jetha had sought a sentence of up to two years for the hate crime. Taj, 21, was convicted in May of attacking four teenagers the night of Nov. 3,...

Do as Al says, not as Al doesOn Thursday, former U. S. vice-president Al Gore delivered a major address calling on his country to abandon all fossil fuels within 10 years. By 2018, U. S. electricity and fuel should come entirely from "renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources," he said. Tickets to the event encouraged attendees to "please use public transit, bicycling or other climate-friendly means" to reach the lecture hall. So how did Mr. Gore and his retinue arrive? In two Lincoln Town Cars and a full-sized SUV that sat idling with the air conditioners blasting while the...

July 24, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "My God is a Goddess with golden breasts, dripping milk and honey. A suckling baby am I, nursing at the golden breast." So writes Dr. Henry Morgentaler, Canada's father of abortion, in one of the poems found in his self-published book of poetry, "Freedom is my Passion."With Morgentaler having burst once again onto the public stage in recent weeks, after being awarded Canada's highest civilian honor, the Order of Canada, many people are questioning who exactly Henry Morgentaler is, and what his legacy has been.While news coverage of the abortion doctor over the years...

As proud Canadians we open our doors to people from all over the world. Honest, hard-working people. And sometimes, to those who are not. Therein lies the problem. The Khadr family for example. The patriarch, Ahmed Khadr, immigrated to Canada in 1977. He was an active terrorist and friend of Osama bin Laden. In the '90s Khadr was sent to a foreign prison for the blowing up an Egyptian embassy, but with the help of Jean Chretien he was brought back to Canada. He reportedly applied for and received a Canadian disability pension and later returned to the Middle East...

Nearly eight in 10 Canadians who saw Omar Khadr's interrogation video say it did not change their opinions of his case, according to a new poll. The survey, conducted by Ipsos Reid for the National Post, suggests 52% of Canadians have viewed clips of the seven-hour video since it was made public last week. Among those who have seen the footage, 78% said it had not altered their views on Mr. Khadr while just 22% said it did have an effect. The tape shows Mr. Khadr being questioned at the U. S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by Canadian...

Jonathan Kay on Shawn Brant and Julian Fantino: This has got to be the most ridiculous 'scandal' in recent memory2008 has seen some truly lame “scandals.� (Anyone remember Cadmanscam?) But that’s what you get when news is slow, and you’ve got a left-wing Toronto media looking to sink a Conservative minority government. Even by the prevailing low standards, however, I am amazed that news editors can keep their faces straight as they breathlessly pimp this week’s concocted pseudo-scandal involving OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino. The story involves Shawn Brant — a man routinely described in the media as a “Mowhawk leader,�...

In front of me stand 120 marijuana plants whose thick bushy leaves cover the strong stems. John explains nonchalantly that this is just a small growing operation, or grow-ops. Every two to three months, John harvests 8lbs, worth about $20,000. Inspector Brian Cantera of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) believes that John's small grow-op is one of 20,000 to be found in residential houses around the province. That figure excludes the larger grow-ops in industrial locations, not to mention the huge dope farms that are scattered around British Columbia's vast interior. The striking aspect of BC's marijuana trade is...

CALGARY — A white supremacist group that is offering to help pay the rent of new members as part of its "relocation program - destination Calgary" has raised the ire of the city's mayor. "The Aryan Guard is always seeking new brothers and sisters, if you are interested in relocating to our Calgary area, we will pay the damage deposit for your residence," a local member of Aryan Guard has posted on stormfront.org, a chat group that promotes "white pride." "We believe that through fortifying our current locations with more White Nationlists [sic] we can spread the world more efficiently...

On Friday, another Canadian was killed in Afghanistan. Corporal James Arnal, 25, was the 89th brave Canadian -- 88 soldiers and one diplomat -- to have died there since our mission began six years ago. He was killed by a roadside bomb while out on foot patrol in southern Afghanistan. It was only natural that, over time, the shock of Canadian combat deaths would wear off, and so news of Canadian fatalities would begin to slip from the front pages. Yet each death of a young soldier killed in the line of duty is tragic, and none more so than...

The Company Muslims KeepCanada's Islamic community has nothing to gain by allying itself with human rights censorsLast week, at Toronto's Noor Centre --a cultural organization for liberal Muslims --I participated in a panel discussion on the question of whether the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) is justified in bringing human rights complaints against Maclean's magazine for publishing Mark Steyn's (now famous) cover article, The Future Belongs to Islam. What follows is adapted from my opening remarks. No, I don't think the CIC's complaints have any merit. In fact, I find it quite creepy that government officials even take the case seriously....

The leader of one of Canada's largest Islamic groups accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday of being indifferent to Omar Khadr's plight because he's "brown-skinned" and a Muslim. In an opinion piece released to the media, Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, wrote that Harper is "callously" unconcerned about the 21-year-old Khadr, who faces trial before a U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in October. "In this case, Mr. Harper is playing politics because of the backdrop of Islamophobia in this country," Elmasry said. "This is where a leader comes in, to say this is...

There are no electrici-treesLakeview generating station won't be replaced. Do the Grits have a magic plan for power?Today, class, we are studying the existential theory of electricity. You don't have to generate it. It just exists. How else can you explain the stunning announcement by the province's new energy minister, George Smitherman, that the site of the old Lakeview coal-fired generating plant in Mississauga will not be home to a new gas-fired plant. By caving in to a local residents' group, Smitherman has taken NIMBYism to a whole new level. Those people bought their homes knowing there was a coal-fired...

Canadian Soldier Killed in AfghanistanCEFCOM NR–08.027 - July 19, 2008OTTAWA – Yesterday, a Canadian soldier was killed just before midnight Kandahar time. The soldier was killed by an Improvised Explosive Device while on a foot patrol in Panjwayi District. The fallen soldier is Corporal James (Jim) Hayward Arnal of the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, based in Shilo, Manitoba. First aid was administered to Corporal Arnal immediately following the incident. He was evacuated by helicopter to Kandahar Air Field’s Role 3 Multi-National Medical Facility, but sadly was pronounced dead upon arrival. All members of Task Force Kandahar are...

The best, the most pointed and comprehensive opinion on the award of the Order of Canada pin to Henry Morgentaler, in the course of this long grim week, was by Ian Hunter in the National Post: “In old Canada, Morgentaler was prosecuted and sent to jail for performing illegal abortions. But that was in another era and, as far as I'm concerned, another country -- a country as dead as any of the recipients of Morgentaler’s attentions.” I shall say something about that award tomorrow. For today I want to focus on the New Canada -- the one that is...

The UK has officially ratified the European Union's Lisbon Treaty. The documents were deposited with the Italian foreign affairs ministry in Rome on Wednesday. The move came despite doubts over its future after the "no" vote in the Irish referendum. All EU states must ratify the treaty for it to come into force.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission hits a new low by investigating a stand-up comic who heckled hecklers.

Army News video: New multi-operations box replaces barracks boxEdmonton, AB – Members of Task Force 1-08 are the first to be issued this new piece of kit.

Army News video: Artillery conducts fire mission during exerciseWainwright, AB – Exercise Maple Guardian prepares artillery team before they deploy to Afghanistan

WASHINGTON, July 17, 2008 – War fighters from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom are testing new battlefield systems that can discern friend from foe during the “Bold Quest Plus” joint military demonstration conducted at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. The demonstration’s purpose is to provide warfighters with combat-identification technologies that maximize mission effectiveness while minimizing the chances of fratricide, John Miller, operations manager for coalition combat identification at U.S. Joint Forces Command, based at Norfolk, Va., said today during a conference-call interview with reporters. The command is sponsoring the demonstration at Eglin, which began July 11. Miller...

A Canadian boy was rescued after being kidnapped, hidden in a car's trunk and forced into an oil drum, officials said. The abduction took place when a man grabbed the 8-year-old boy off a street Tuesday in the Canadian province of Quebec, the Gazette, Montreal reported Thursday. A witness called authorities and other people gave information to police as the abductor drove around Levis with the boy, the newspaper said. One onlooker said they saw the boy in the trunk while stopped at a traffic light, and another said they saw the man remove the boy from the car and...

INGRESS — Interoperable Griffon Reconnaissance Escort Surveillance System: Two Contract Award Press Releases ________________________________________ INGRESS – New Electro-Optical Eyes for the Griffons but any Afghan Deployment?A contract has been awarded to L-3 Wescam to supply 19 MX-15 True HD to satisfy DND’s INGRESS (Inter- operable Griffon Reconnaissance Escort Surveillance System ) Project. The MX-15 True HD electro-optical/ infrared sensor offers full high-definition video (ie: 1080 lines of vertical resolution vs other HD systems’ 720 p ). The 19 INGRESS MX-15 True HD systems will replace obsolescent AN/AAQ-501 E/O turrets (left) now in use on Canadian Forces CH-146 Griffon utility helicopters....

What is to be done with Omar Khadr, the Canadian currently being held at the Americans' detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? Notwithstanding his teary-eyed performances in strategically edited interrogation recordings released by his lawyers on Tuesday in Edmonton, Mr. Khadr is accused of serious crimes against soldiers of our closest ally, the United States. Should the government of Canada bring him home and try him here -- as the opposition Liberals are clamouring for -- or permit him to be tried this October by a U. S. military tribunal, as scheduled? There is evidence -- including eyewitness testimony-- that...

Nice new F-22 vid.

A preoccupation with Albertans' embrace of separatism appears to have grasped the country lately. An Ipsos Reid poll released this week revealed that after Quebec, Albertans are most likely to support the notion of provincial sovereignty. Some 35% of Quebec respondents to the poll would have their province opt out of Canada. Albertans were next in line to take the train to Splitsville, with 18% in favour of leaving Confederation. It's not clear why the poll was done in the first place, but it likely has something to do with the firestorm of protest out of Alberta following the unveiling...

Canadians kill Taliban commander in Kandahar Victory marred by insurgent attacksMASUM GHAR, Afghanistan -- Canadian military officials claimed a major victory on Wednesday with the death of the second-in-command of Taliban forces in Kandahar province in an airstrike. The governor of Kandahar and the Canadian military held a joint news conference to announce the death of Mullah Mahmoud who was said to be in command of 250 fighters in the region. "Let there be no doubt, our troops have the initiative in Kandahar province," said Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, commander of Canadian soldiers in Kandahar. "Afghan troops and ISAF soldiers are...

One feels almost ashamed to be setting out upon the 10,000th editorial written about the compromising effects of political correctness and short-fused indignation on the arts of humour, irony and satire. What, after all, did the first 9,999 accomplish? You can't win the argument because there is never anyone to take the other side. No one on Earth thinks of themselves as being humourless, or as being an enemy of art and wit. Who knows, maybe there is a singularly honest feminist out there who thinks that the world really would be better off without funny. But for the most...

The owner of a Montreal cafe where patrons can smoke a psychoactive variety of sage says he will close up shop next month. Matthew Liscomb told the Montreal Gazette that Les Mentheurs would go out of business on Aug. 23 due to legal battles and changes in provincial tobacco laws. On top of that, he said, business insurance has been increasingly difficult to get. It's not been easy getting insured and it's not legal to operate a business without proper insurance, he told the Gazette. The closure will mark the end of a stormy history for Les Mentheurs, a 30-seat...

Pauline Kael & trash cinema Will Smith's films are the endgame of a critic's take on Bonnie and Clyde Robert Fulford, National Post Published: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 Happy as a clam, rich as a minor Rockefeller, Will Smith turned up recently on a 60 Minutes update of an item from last December. He was there to promote his current movie, Hancock, but his main theme was his huge success and the way he's engineered it. He left me thinking sad and rueful thoughts about, of all people, the late Pauline Kael, the most passionate, stimulating and argument-starting critic in...

A retired U.S. soldier who was ambushed by armed fighters holed up in the mud compound where Omar Khadr was captured said on Tuesday the Canadian deserves to be at Guantanamo Bay. Sergeant Layne Morris said he had not seen the dramatic interrogation video released by Mr. Khadr's lawyers, in which the young detainee cries for help, but he brushed off the footage as a public relations exercise. Sgt. Morris said the defence lawyers' strategy seemed to be to win sympathy for their client, and that he found it "troublesome" the public had to be constantly reminded of what Mr....

Stephane Dion is learning the old adage about what happens while the cat's away. In recent days, the Liberal leader has been doing the editorial board circuit and touring western Canada, trying to sell Canadians on his Green Shift carbon tax scheme. In his absence, three members of his caucus have been undermining the boss's message. Though they've put themselves in Mr. Dion's bad books, the trio has inadvertently done Canadians a service by deflating their leader's misleading PR. To be sure, the Green Shift would be hard to defend. Nowhere in its nearly 50 pages do the Liberals actually...

A US soldier who deserted to Canada and sought refugee status for opposing the war in Iraq has been extradited to the United States, officials said, in Canada's first such case since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. "I can confirm that he has been expelled from Canada and returned to his country of origin," Shakila Manzoor, a spokeswoman for the Canada Border Services Agency (ASFC) said. US citizen Robin Long, 25, fled to Canada in 2005 and demanded refugee status, claiming he would suffer irreparable harm if he were sent back to the United States. He also argued that he...

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 15 (Reuters) - Canada deported on Tuesday the first of some 200 Americans who deserted the U.S. military and sought refugee status to protest against the Iraq War. Robin Long, 25, was removed a day after a Federal Court judge in Vancouver rejected his claim that he would suffer irreparable harm if returned to the United States. He fled across the border in 2005 as his army tank unit was preparing to deploy to Iraq. The Canada Border Services Agency confirmed Long's removal, but declined to give other details, citing privacy laws. Long's refugee claim had...

VANCOUVER - A U.S. Army deserter who fled to Canada three years ago has been deported back to America to face possible court martial. The Canada Border Services Agency confirmed Robin Long was removed from Canada Tuesday. Long claimed refugee status in Canada, saying he didn't want to take part in a U.S. war in Iraq he called "an illegal war of aggression." Sarah Bjoknas, a co-ordinator for the War Resisters Support Campaign, says Long will be returned to his unit based in Fort Knox, Kentucky. She says Long's punishment for deserting will be up to the company commander and...

(CNN) -- A 16-year-old Canadian prisoner weeps and buries his face in his hands in an interrogation video that provides the first public look at such an interview at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The video was released Tuesday by attorneys for Omar Khadr, now 21, whom Canadian intelligence agents questioned in 2003 and 2004 at Guantanamo. The video segment released Tuesday is from 2003. Khadr was 15 in 2002 when he was taken into U.S. custody in Afghanistan and accused of killing an American soldier. He was one of about eight juveniles at the prison, although...

Excerpt - A teenage Omar Khadr sobs uncontrollably as Canadian spy agents question him at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a brief video excerpt released via the internet early Tuesday morning. The 10-minute video posted just after 5 a.m. ET is of poor quality and the voices are often inaudible, as it was never intended to be viewed by the public. But it shows Khadr, 16 at the time, being interviewed by Canadian officials in late February 2003. ~ snip ~

Our Constitution is one of our greatest assets in the fight against terrorism. A free-flowing marketplace of ideas, protected by the First Amendment, enables the ideals of democracy to defeat the totalitarian vision of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. That free marketplace faces a threat. Individuals with alleged connections to terrorist activity are filing libel suits and winning judgments in foreign courts against American researchers who publish on these matters. These suits intimidate and even silence writers and publishers. Under American law, a libel plaintiff must prove that defamatory material is false. In England, the burden is reversed....Consequently, English...

VANCOUVERM -- A federal court judge has ordered the removal of a U.S. Army deserter from Canada, a decision that signals this country is no longer a safe haven for American soldiers who decide to evade military service at home and abroad. Should he be deported Tuesday as ordered, Robin Long, 25, becomes the first U.S. deserter to be removed from Canada since the U.S.-led war in Iraq began five years ago. Several other U.S. deserters have sought refuge in Canada and while some have lost their court appeals, they remain in this country, pending further deportation procedures. Madame Justice...

VANCOUVER — U.S. army deserter Robin Long is slated to be deported back to his army base in Fort Knox, Ky., Tuesday, which would make him the first resister to the U.S. war effort in Iraq to be sent out of Canada. Madam Justice Anne Mactavish of the Federal Court of Canada cleared the way for the deportation late Monday, dismissing a last-ditch attempt to delay the process while the 25-year-old pursued further appeals.

Two fatal highway collisions with moose in recent weeks serve as a frightening reminder of the dangers of driving in this province.On June 30, a 58-year-old male was killed on Route 8 in Lavillette when his vehicle struck a moose. Just a day later, a 66-year-old female died after hitting a moose near Duff Lake on Highway 11 in Atholville.Dwayne Sabine, a fish and wildlife biologist with the Department of Natural Resources, said moose are moving around a lot this time of year so it's important to be on the lookout."They can be on the road any time of year...

Chaim Shmuel Golubchuk, a"h, has gone to his Eternal reward. But the issues that pitted his children Percy Golubchuk and Miriam Geller against Grace General Hospital in Winnipeg over the last seven months will long be with us. After being informed by their father's doctors that they intended to end his life by removing his ventilation and feeding tube, the Golubchuk children sought an injunction against the hospital. They argued that their father would adamantly oppose any attempt to shorten his life, which is forbidden by Jewish law. After the entry of a temporary injunction, the hospital pursued an aggressive...

On the surface, a Winnipeg mother who risks losing her two children to the state because of her neo-Nazi beliefs might not seem to have much in common with Omar Khadr, the Canadian who has spent nearly six years at Guantanamo Bay after being captured on an Afghanistan battlefield. But both cases essentially are about the indoctrination of young people into despicable, fascistic ideologies, and the question of how our society treats them. Let us start with the Winnipeg family, whose identity remains undisclosed in the media. The mother drew a swastika on her seven-year-old daughter's arm be-fore sending her...

The judge in Momin Khawaja's terrorism trial has ruled that "sinister and chilling" e-mails - where the software designer talks about the need to kill "innocent human beings" to achieve "economic jihad" against America - can be considered as evidence. In a ruling coming as the Crown wraps up its case against the Orleans man, Ontario Superior Court Justice Douglas Rutherford said excerpts from an Oct. 24, 2003 e-mail sent by Khawaja to Zeba Khan in Islamabad were "not likely to shock and influence ... the rational capacity" of the trial judge to determine the e-mails' weight in light of...

CARDINAL, Ontario -- Mark Murray has seen more than his share of battles. The decorated former soldier spent 10 years in the line of fire in more places than he can remember, but now he's involved in a fight of another kind. After years of proudly flying a Canadian flag from his ground-floor balcony in Cardinal, east of Prescott, Murray's landlords have told him it has to go to coincide with uniform property standards. But this, he promised, is one order he will not follow -- especially at a time of war in Afghanistan. "I never had a problem before...

For those few Americans who decided to desert their comrades by running off to Canada prior to their deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan and who thought that the Canadian government would give them a safe haven from US prosecution, I've got some great news; you aren't welcome there. Unlike the role the Canadian government played during the Viet Nam War when thousands of young deserters and draft dodgers were welcomed with open arms, this time around it's a different story. The government of Prime Minister Harper has taken the position that these Americans are not refugees which the Canadians define...

If you are confused about the Kyoto Accord, climate change, greenhouse gases, the deleterious effects of carbon dioxide (CO), and assorted environmental threats as outlined in Al Gore's Academy Award and Nobel Prize winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, I have a solution. Go on the Internet to www.friendsofscience.org, the University of Calgary-based non-profit volunteer organization of atmospheric and other scientists who challenge politically inspired concepts that the planet is threatened by climate change due to man's irresponsible misuse of the environment. The website is replete with data that differs considerably from the Chicken Little "Sky is Falling!" convictions of the...

We won't know until later this month when the federal Department of Finance releases its fiscal monitor for April and May whether Ottawa has continued to pile up huge budget surpluses through the spring, even as the national economy softened slightly. But from the last fiscal monitor -- a month-by-month accounting of federal revenues and expenditures -- we learned that the federal government had a surplus at the end of March of over $10-billion, despite the international credit crisis, the soaring cost of fuel, the decline of our manufacturing sector and $2.5-billion in spur-of-the-moment spending on infrastructure, policing and stimulus...

The BBC has raised the possibility that Iran may target NATO forces in Afghanistan, which include several thousand Canadian troops stationed in the province of Kandahar, with short-range missiles. Those who focused on the possibility of Iran and Israel going to war or a strike against the U. S. Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf have overlooked the chance that attacking elsewhere might also serve Iran's strategic interests, the BBC said in an article on its Web site last week.