"I can't take 'eminently criticizable' to the bank,"

O Canada beating warning 'figure of speech'

Jul 17, 2009 04:30 AM

SUSSEX, N.B.–A provincial court judge reserved decision yesterday in the trial of a New Brunswick man accused of threatening the principal of a school where the daily singing of "O Canada" had been stopped.

Bradley Howland said he went to Belleisle Elementary School in Springfield, N.B., on Jan. 31 to ask when the anthem would be played, and told principal Erik Millett someone should beat some sense into him.

He told the judge the expression was just "a figure of speech."

But Millett told the court in Sussex that Howland said if a secretary wasn't there, he would drag him to the parking lot and beat him senseless.

Howland, 43, is charged with uttering threats to cause serious harm to Millett and causing him to fear personal injury would come to him. Judge Henrik Tonning is expected to deliver his verdict next Thursday.

The charges stem from a confrontation between the two men behind the closed door of Millett's office.

The principal had garnered attention after a decision to scale back the daily singing of the anthem to special events only.

Millett made the change because two families objected to their children participating for religious reasons. Last month, the province amended legislation to direct all schools to play the anthem every day.

Millett told the court yesterday he had received "harassing" phone messages and emails in late January, even though the decision had been made 18 months earlier.

Millett said he had welcomed Howland into his office.

"Mr. Howland said, `You are an embarrassment to the community, and you should be ashamed of yourself,'" Millett testified.

"He then said, `If your secretary wasn't out there in the office, I'd drag you by your collar to the parking lot and beat you senseless.'"

Yesterday, Howland testified he went to the school – where his daughter was enrolled in kindergarten – to ask when the anthem would be played.

He said the principal said the issue had to be resolved by a human rights commission.

The Canadian Press

Feb 21, 2009 04:30 AM

Thomas Walkom

Canadians going gaga over Barack Obama need to get a grip. He is not going to change the world. He is not going to right all wrongs. Indeed, his whirlwind visit to Ottawa this week underlines the new U.S. president's innate conservatism.

Take the one concrete measure that came out of his Thursday meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper – a Canada-U.S. decision to look into carbon capture as a solution to global warming.

This does not signify Harper's willingness to endorse an Obama-sponsored get-tough approach to climate change. Rather, it represents the opposite – Obama's willingness to sign on to Harper's search (much criticized by Canadian environmentalists) for a miraculous new technology that would allow oil refineries and coal plants to keep polluting and then permanently store the resultant carbon emissions underground.

The U.S. president, in a veiled criticism of the Kyoto Accord on climate change, also noted that no solution to global warming can be found unless China and India are drawn in.

This has been Harper's position all along. It was also that of former U.S. president George W. Bush.

None of this is to say that Obama is Bush redux. He isn't. But the differences between the two have been greatly overdrawn.

The war on terror: Obama isn't backing away from Bush's decision to define terrorism as war, a crucial label that gives the president constitutional authority to operate with few Congressional constraints. The key difference is that the new president wants to shift the focus of that war to Afghanistan.

True, he has changed its parameters by ordering the Guantanamo Bay prison closed. He's also banned the use of torture by U.S. officials.

But at the same time, his administration has quietly indicated that it plans to continue the practice of so-called extraordinary rendition: capturing suspected terrorists anywhere in the world and shipping them off to countries such as Egypt to be tortured.

And Obama is continuing to use national security as an excuse to keep those that have been illegally incarcerated from getting redress in U.S. courts.

As for Afghanistan, Obama is working on a new strategy that he'll reveal soon. We'll find out then what he wants Canada to do.

But, like Bush, he is continuing to widen the war by bombing suspected Taliban targets in Pakistan.

The economic crisis: Obama's $787 billion (U.S.) stimulus package of tax cuts and government spending is almost certainly different from anything Bush might have devised.

But a parallel $2 trillion (U.S.) attempt to solve the financial crisis is more Bushian. While Obama is willing to lavish unprecedented amounts of public money on the U.S. financial system, like Bush he seems congenitally unwilling to give taxpayers a role in determining how these funds are used.

Instead, his various schemes – including this week's $275 billion (U.S.) mortgage bailout plan – involve attempts to bribe private financiers, through so-called incentive payments, to act in the public interest.

Obama is even planning to offer billions in subsidies to the very hedge funds that provoked the current crisis, in the hope that this time they'll use the money well.

Oddly enough, even Harper's Conservative government is more willing to endorse direct state intervention in financial markets. It has given $200 billion to crown corporations such as Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation, Export Development Canada and the Business Development Bank to do just that.



Canada-U.S. relations: The basic bargain made after 9/11 still holds – Ottawa takes account of American security concerns; in return, Washington recognizes Canada's need for access to U.S. markets.

That's what Harper was talking about when, at a press conference Thursday, he veered into an impassioned soliloquy on Canada's commitment to border security.

Obama says he still wants to write labour and environmental safeguards into the main North American Free Trade Agreement. We'll see how far he pushes that. It's worth noting, though, that Harper has dropped the apocalyptic language he once used when this topic came up.

For Harper, however, the real benefit of an Obama presidency goes beyond specifics such as trade. It is that Obama's popularity here makes it easier for his government to align itself with the U.S. on an entire range of issues – from drug regulation to defence.

Indeed, those who used to call the prime minister a Bush sycophant missed the point. As this week's events demonstrate, Harper is willing to fawn over any U.S. president.

Like his predecessors Paul Martin and Brian Mulroney, this prime minister wants Canada cemented more firmly into America's orbit – regardless of who is in the White House – in the hope that this will produce economic rewards.

Now, thanks to Obama's charm, the adoration of the public and Canada's star-struck media, that task is considerably easier.

Thomas Walkom's column appears Wednesday and Saturday.

Jan 26, 2009 06:38 PM

Andy Blatchford
THE CANADIAN PRESS

MONTREAL – Montreal police have asked the city to empower local officers to crack down on insult-hurling citizens – likely with a blow to their pocketbooks.

Mayor Gerald Tremblay said today his public security committee is mulling the request to slap offenders with fines, a suggestion first brought forward by Montreal's police brotherhood.

The union wants Tremblay to make it illegal for members of the public to call cops profanity-laced nicknames, or to call them names like ``pig" and "doughnut-eater."

"It's something that will be addressed – we know that other cities have passed some bylaws considering that subject," said Tremblay, stressing the city has not made any concrete decisions about banning indignities directed at police.

Chief-Insp. Paul Chablo, communications director for Montreal's police force, said lawyers from the department and the city are examining the feasibility of such a rule.

"The key factor is ensuring that it becomes a useful tool for the officers involved, but at the same time it doesn't infringe on anybody's rights," he said.

Chablo said several municipalities across Quebec – including Quebec City – have some variation of a law that prohibits citizens from spewing slurs at police officers.

The 28-year veteran of the force said the law could keep police interventions involving violent citizens from getting out of hand.

"There are cases where people are either intoxicated, or for other reasons extremely aggressive and very injurious," he said.

"In these cases, this tool might be something that's practical."

But while city council digests the demand to prevent civilians from mouthing off at cops, some experts question whether punishing Montrealers for launching jeers infringes on one's right to expression.

"There are an awful lot of words that are borderline and it's highly subjective – it's too vague," Ronald Sklar, a McGill University law professor, said of the police union's proposal .

"I don't think the police should be any different than anybody else as far as insults go because it doesn't affect their ability to do their duty.

"It's questionable policy."

Sklar said words can be punishable, but they must threaten bodily harm or incite disorder.

Montreal was also expected to pass a motion Monday night to meet another police request.

The city is considering a bylaw amendment that would prohibit protesters from covering their faces during demonstrations.

Claude Dauphin, Montreal's executive member in charge of public security, said there would be exceptions to the rule.

For example, demonstrators would have the right to don headgear resembling a particular politician whose position is the target of a rally, or slip on a ski mask when the temperature dips to -25 C.

"But when you're in the month of July, and you wear a ski mask or a gas mask, there might be a problem," he said.

"Maybe their intention is not to have a peaceful demonstration."

Chablo said police would use common sense in applying the law.

"Whenever there's a protest where people cover their faces with masks or any type of cloth, usually it results in violence or there's an intention to commit violence," he said.

"It will be applied where there is a high-risk factor."

But Sklar said citizens have a right to wear a mask during protests, regardless of what the weather's like.

"At a political demonstration, I think there's a right of privacy – I have a right to cover my face if I don't want to be seen," he said.