Photo: Afghan women students at Kabul University, 1995 By Alison@Creekside Speaking to his fellow members of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights last week at a meeting which heard that the situation for Afghan women has considerably worsened over the last two years, Lib MP Mario Silva recounted his own conversations with women’s groups in […]
Canadian politics
Canada’s favourite torturers
By Alison@Creekside CBC: “The Canadian Forces have for years arrested children suspected of working with the Taliban and handed them over to an Afghan security unit accused of torture. The document, obtained under an Access to Information request and marked ‘secret,’ shows that Defence Minister Peter MacKay was briefed on the topic of juvenile detainees […]
Dr. Martin’s diagnosis
By Alison@Creekside Retiring from politics after 17 years, MP Dr. Keith Martin, (Reform, Alliance, Ind, Lib), spoke on CBC’s The Current last week about the “serious, serious lack of democracy in Parliament . . . the tragedy of the Commons”. Martin began as a Reform MP in ’93, attracted by the Reform Party Contract which […]
Ambrose disappears Sisters in Spirit
By Alison@Creekside Last week APTN News reported that not only does the Cons’ new missing persons initiative entirely bypass Sisters In Spirit, the very group which initiated research into the nearly 600 missing and murdered FN women and girls in the first place, but SIS can no longer use the SIS name or continue their […]
Brave Steve defends Israel’s far right
By Alison@Creekside Live-blogging from the Ottawa Conference on Combating Antisemitism, the intrepid Kady does her level best to find out what The Plot — a secret exhibit from the US Anti-Defamation League that is off-limits to media — is all about. I don’t know either but I’ll lay you odds that it doesn’t include this […]
The G20: Bill Blair and “preventive detention”
By Alison@Creekside At the Public Safety Committee yesterday, Toronto Chief Bill Blair lobbed the following statement about “preventive detention” at the G20 into the proceedings [just before the 4 minute mark]: “I think you are all familiar with images of members of that group who were smashing windows, burning cars, looting stores, and generally causing […]
Potash and trout bring out the best in the Cons
By Frank Moher Perhaps Alison, the regular blogger in this space, will disagree, but it seems to me the Conservatives have actually done two things right in the last two days. That’s two things in a row. Significantly, both are liable to prove unpopular with their business base in the West, which may mean that […]
It’s called protest, Mr. Rathgeber
By Alison@Creekside Finished with the G20? Not even close. And partly because of the wanker to the left. At Wednesday’s Public Safety and Security Committee meeting into the G20 fiasco, we heard testimony from two very well-spoken students from Montreal who were arrested in their pajamas at gunpoint from the University of Toronto gymnasium, where […]
UN flop: Harper should be thanking Iggy
By Alison@Creekside … careful consideration of the reasons for Canada’s failure to gain a seat on the UN Security Council continues among the Cons and their supporters in the media. . “Canada barely escaped with its integrity intact at the United Nations”, writes Kelly McParland at NaPo, “According to reports on the voting, Canada lost […]
Canada’s UN flop is well-earned
By Alison@Creekside It would seem that such international policies as 1) unstinting support for everything Israel 2) actively undermining the Copenhagen summit climate talks 3) delaying debt relief to Africa to advance the interests of a Canadian mining company 4) flip flopping hostility to China 5) snubbing an International AIDS Conference held in Canada 6) […]
