You, Me and the SPP

You'll remember Paul Manly as the guy who shot the video exposing 3 rock-toting Quebec police provocateurs at the Montebello SPP protest in Aug. 2007.

Paul's full-length feature film : ‘You, Me, and the S.P.P: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule’, exposes "the latest manifestation of a corporatist agenda that is undermining the democratic authority of the citizens of North America".

Quotes from the trailer :

Naomi Klein :
"… after the shock of Sept 11 … that crisis was expertly manipulated by our political leaders to push through a range of policies they actually had wanted to push through before Sept 11, but didn’t have the political conditions that made that possible."

Gordon Laxer, Director, The Parkland Institute, Alberta :
"…if we go along with the Americans on their military, on their human rights, on their Patriot Act, on immigration and refugee policy, on energy, on all kinds of regulations over pesticides or whatever, then they will allow us access to their markets."

Murray Dobbin, Canadian author, journalist :
"… what the SPP really represents is a parallel government, so that the important decisions are either made outside of parliament and outside of legislatures or they make it impossible for those kinds of decisions to be made in those legislative bodies, so that democracy is slowly being gutted."

with more from Peter Julian, Michael Byers, and Maude Barlow

To purchase your own copy of the whole film - $20 well spent - and for listings of local screenings, visit Paul's website at manlymedia.com. If we want this quality of reporting from independent journalists, we're going to have to support it. If you can't afford to buy it, get your local library to buy one, leave him a message of encouragement, and pass on the word.

As Paul says : I made this film for all of you.

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Water truckin'

You may remember Michael Byers as the UBC International Law prof who asked prior to the last election why extraordinary rendition wasn't an election issue and who also red-flagged our Afghan detainee transfer deal in the national press over a whole freakin year ago.

Byers has a book out - "Intent for a Nation : What is Canada for?" - and The Tyee has an excerpt :

"In 2004, the Canadian actor Paul Gross starred in a made-for-TV drama entitled H2O. Gross plays Tom McLaughlin, the charismatic son of a murdered Canadian prime minister, who takes over Canada at the behest of a group of international financiers eager to sell our fresh water to an increasingly thirsty United States."

Did you see this movie? I hadn't so I looked it up at IMDb. Some of the user comments about the unlikelihood of the plot's basic premise were kind of sad. At the time this movie aired, the GATT agricultural provisions regarding water were two decades old, and NAFTA, including the dreaded Annex Tariff Item 22.01: water: all natural water other than sea water, whether or not clarified or purified, had already passed its tenth birthday. Five years before this movie was even a twinkle in CBC's eye, the NDP were standing on the floor of the HoC demanding a clarification on water sovereignty under NAFTA - and it was denied.

While conceding that Canada's legal position on control of her water is at the very least muddy, Byers warns against setting any bulk water trading precedents:

"A single act of trading water on a bulk basis would arguably transform the resource into a tradable good that was legally indistinguishable from softwood lumber, potash or oil, rendering subsequent attempts to prevent or limit further exports illegal. For this reason, it is imperative that Canada takes water off the free trade table, quickly and decisively -- now, before it's too late."

Well another attempt was made two weeks ago, this time in the form of a motion asking the Cons to request a clarification from Mexico and the US on their position on Canada's water, and it was again denied.

Byers' excerpt concludes:

"On water, as on so many other issues, our conciliatory, don't-rock-the-boat approach to Canada-U.S. relations has failed. Unless we stand up for our own interests, Canadian fresh water could soon be irrigating crops, watering golf courses and filling backyard swimming pools in the south western United States.

It's time to dissuade Americans of the notion that we're going to rescue them from the consequences of their short-sighted, profligate ways by allowing them to mess with our environment, too. It's time to make it absolutely clear that bulk water exports are not covered by NAFTA."

In the meantime someone please let me know how that H2O movie turned out.
Tyee link from Jennifer at Runesmith's Canadian Content

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O'Connor's "Bumps along the road and little glitches"

Just a couple of guys who were both the victims of bad intelligence.

On the heels of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor's apology for misleading the House with assurances that the Red Cross would report any mistreatment of Afghan prisoners to Canadian authorities, the Globe and Mail reports today that O'Connor was the victim of bad intelligence from his policy advisors."

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The group, led by assistant deputy minister for policy Vincent Rigby, first advised Mr. O'Connor last May that "if pressed" in the Commons with questions about detainee follow-up, he should respond by saying: "If the ICRC advised us of some problems with transferred detainees, we would discuss the issue with the government of Afghanistan."

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This has certainly been Mr Rigby's own preferred response when pressed :

Rigby, addressing the Standing Committee on National Defence on Dec 11, 2006:

"With respect to the International Committee of the Red Cross, again, they have an international mandate to follow up in this regard with detainees who are transferred to Afghan authorities. Our relationship with the ICRC has been excellent. They have all the information we've provided to them, and certainly they've had access and have been following up with detainees we've transferred to Afghan authorities."

and

"We're very comfortable with the role of the International Committee of the Red Cross, with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, and with our access to prisons as required. We've had absolutely no information passed to us directly by the ICRC or the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission or Afghan authorities themselves as to mistreatment of detainees passed on to Afghan authorities by Canadian Forces."

There's lots more quotes like this from Rigby but you get the gist : he never actually states that we're depending on the ICRC to report back to us about the prisoners we hand over; he just mentions them in the same sentence every time it comes up.

The previous May, O'Connor was deferring all such questions regarding prisoners to Rigby.

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From the Standing Committee on National Defence, May 30, 2006 :

"NDP Ms Dawn Black: I've had a lot of interest and questions about the detainee transfer agreement with Afghanistan. Has NATO concluded a detainee transfer agreement with Afghanistan, and when will that agreement be made public? I would assume that it will be, if indeed there is an agreement with NATO, and that it would govern Canadian transfers once NATO assumes control through ISAF in the south.

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Hon. Gordon O'Connor: I don't know that, ma'am. I'm going to have to ask Mr. Rigby.

Is there such a thing as a NATO agreement for detainees?

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Mr. Vincent Rigby (Acting Assistant Deputy Minister (Policy), Department of National Defence): We're certainly working on that right now, Ms. Black, in a NATO context. Certainly Canada is very involved in Brussels in helping draft that document, but it's not finished yet. I'm not aware of exactly how.... One of the issues is how it will relate to the Canadian detainee arrangement and the other detainee arrangements that NATO allies have right now, so it's still a work in progress; we still have a little ways to go.

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NDP MP Ms Dawn Black: Essentially, are Canadian soldiers instructed to give minimal protections because this is not an international conflict, or do we give the full prisoner-of-war protections, such as preventing prisoners from being humiliated or being put as public curiosities and photographed?

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Hon. Gordon O'Connor: My understanding is the latter--that we maintain the highest standards.

I'll ask Mr. Rigby to confirm that."

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Yeah, ok, that's enough of that. You get the idea. O'Connor doesn't appear to know anything about prisoners and repeatedly cues Rigby up to "imply".

And it was all going just swimmingly until O'Connor stood in Parliament - without Rigby - and made that one small causative embellishment on Rigby's usual series of passive-voice obfuscations :

"The Red Cross or the Red Crescent is responsible to supervise their treatment once the prisoners are in the hands of the Afghan authorities. If there is something wrong with their treatment, the Red Cross or Red Crescent would inform us and we would take action."

and another time :

"The process is that if Canadian soldiers capture insurgents or terrorists they hand them over to the Afghan authorities and then the International Red Cross or Red Crescent supervise the detainees. If there is any problem, the Red Cross or Red Crescent would inform us and then we would become involved."

At which point the ICRC was forced to say that no, they wouldn't, because it was not in their mandate to report back to third parties.

The US State Dept, Louise Arbor at the UN, Amir Attaran, Michael Byers, and the Afghan International Human Rights Committee have all described torture of detainees in Afghanistan as "routine".

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But O'Connor's getting his advice from a guy who once described Canada's decision to stay out of Iraq and the US Ballistic Missile Defense Program as "bumps along the road and little glitches".

That was Vincent Rigby in his powerpoint presentation to the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

You can watch it here.

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UPDATE : Well now look - you guys have pissed Dave off with your Bushwhackery.

That link to Rigby's Dec 2006 appearance before the National Defence Standing Committee keeps going down so here it is in a cached pdf

And I forgot to thank Audacious Ontology for the G&M link.

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The Great Parliamentary Afghanistan Debate

Harper wasn't there. Neither was Duceppe.
Not only was there no vote, there was no debate either.
Attendence : Out of a possible 308 MPs:

• 58 Conservative MPs, dropping to 14 after O'Connor finished
• 21 Liberals but dropped to 102
• 2Bloc Quebecois
• 8 NDP, rising to 20

Fucking shameful.
Especially as Canadians are divided about 50/50 over whether we should be there at all.

Here is one reason we are just a bit concerned:"
"Canadian soldiers could be charged with war crimes in the International Criminal Court because of an agreement the government approved on the handling of detainees captured in Afghanistan," warns UBC international law professor Michael Byers.
University of Ottawa Prof. Amir Attaran, a constitutional human rights law specialist, agrees.

Under international law Canada has an obligation to ensure any detainee is protected against torture, not only when they are transferred into Afghan custody but if they are sent onwards to a third nation, such as the U.S.

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor said last week he is satisfied with the pact, as is Opposition leader Bill Graham, who was the Liberal's defence minister when the agreement was signed in Kabul in December.
Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier signed the agreement even though the Afghan government's own human rights commission warned in 2004 that the torture of prisoners is "routine."
So far, more than 100 detainees from Iraq and Afghanistan have died in U.S. custody.
Canadian military officers, however, have continually said they are confident any detainees turned over to the U.S. would be treated humanely."

Here's another reason, from the Government of Canada National Defense website :
"On November 29, 2005, Camp Julien, which was the Canadian base of operations in Kabul, officially closed. Canadian Forces personnel in Afghanistan, were relocated to Kandahar in the southern region of Afghanistan as part of the United States-led campaign against terrorism known as Operation ENDURING FREEDOM ( OEF )."

And Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor had the unmitigated gall to open the proceedings with Bush's "Fly-paper" analogy :
"Fighting terrorists in Afghanistan is better than waiting until they show up in Vancouver, Montreal or Ottawa, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor told the Commons on Monday."Canada is in Afghanistan because it is in our national interest,'' he said. "Our security begins very far from our borders.'' "