Cabinet was only days away from releasing the cost of federal subsidies to 15 of Canada’s largest corporations when Bombardier Inc. sued to block the disclosure, records show. Bombardier has sued five times in eight years to prevent release of figures it considers confidential: “There are issues.”
Cabinet will decide by November 30 whether to repeal a requirement that federally-funded historical projects tell a “positive national story”. The Department of Canadian Heritage recommended repeal of a current policy that emphasizes “national pride”.
CMHC in a report cites “tension” in providing housing aid for welfare recipients over minimum-wage workers. The comment comes as cabinet finalizes a bill on a promised National Housing Strategy: ‘These are reflections of societal values and fairness.’
The Department of Agriculture is polling growers and food processors on Canadian labeling of genetically modified ingredients. The initiative follows the Commons’ 2017 defeat of a New Democrat bill to mandate GM labels: ‘The Canadian government is feeling that push.’
A labour department report hints cabinet should use millions in Canadians’ dormant savings accounts to finance loans and grants for charities. A similar U.K. program, the first of its kind, reported net losses in five of its first six years: “The private sector cannot solve all of society’s problems.”
Cabinet has given itself new powers to skirt public scrutiny in imposing regulations. A parliamentary committee complained the directive allows cabinet to spring new rules on the public without notice: “A citizen has nothing, zero; a small business has nothing. You’re on your own.”
Cabinet for a third time has rejected parliamentary hearings on its $4.5 billion purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline. A Liberal majority on the Commons Indigenous and northern affairs committee voted 5 to 4 against summoning the finance minister for questions: “Who would not be frustrated?”
An appliance maker is taking Health Canada to Federal Court in a bid to block public disclosure of records concerning a 2016 washing machine recall. Samsung Electronics Canada Inc. claims a right to scrutinize government records before they’re released: “Health Canada refused.”
The Canadian Armed Forces is giving preference to a Belgian sheepdog in buying new animals for its canine units. The Malinois is the same breed used by U.S. Navy Seals in the 2011 capture of Osama Bin Laden: “The dogs will not stop.”
Three years after the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris, it is not too soon for a frank analysis of what happened and what it meant. Officialdom’s immediate reaction to the murders of 12 people, including an editor and policeman, was to observe the rituals of mourning and free speech.
The Prime Minister read ghostwritten remarks calling press freedom a “cherished democratic principle”. TV networks mused over whether to broadcast Charlie cartoons: CBC French did, CBC English didn’t. The Parliamentary Press Gallery did not even mention Je suis Charlie at its first directors’ meeting after the shootings, instead debating how to hustle up corporate sponsors for its annual wine and cheese party.
Nobody asked if it could it happen here, because it already did. Tara Singh Hayer, editor of the nation’s largest Punjabi periodical, was assassinated in a $50,000 contract killing in 1998 in Surrey, B.C. Most young journalists have never heard of Hayer; fewer still have any emotional investment in press freedom whatsoever. The honest ones shrug and mutter, ‘I’m just trying to make a living.’
The University of Toronto Press wondered if we might try a little harder. The resulting After The Paris Attacks is a compilation of commentaries and thoughtful analyses from a March 9 campus conference. Organizers asked, what happened? And, what did it mean? The answers are compelling.
Charlie Hebdo is an unfunny, racist periodical sued 48 times in 22 years for defamation and hate speech. “Everyone agrees, including Charlie Hebdo, that its form of satire is offensive, rude and scurrilous,” writes Prof. Simone Chambers, director of the U of T’s Centre for Ethics; “The debate is not about the right to offend, which is largely unquestioned, but about the ethical choice to offend.”
Even this is not a capital offence, though it appears a uniquely European interpretation of journalism and good taste. Charlie Hebdo staffers aimed to provoke. In an odd epilogue, editors this month suspended a columnist who criticized Islamic fundamentalists. Charlie management declined interviews on the suspension. So much for free speech.
More interesting is the response to the shootings. “The assault quickly became elevated from a crime, or even an ordinary terrorist attack, into a symbolic attack against the French Republic itself,” says Mohammad Fadel, an associate professor in the U of T’s law faculty. Foreign heads of state attended a Paris memorial; Je suis Charlie was embraced by Twitter commentators as a summons against Muslims with guns.
Interesting, writes Fadel, but what would happen if it was a Christian gunman? What if the ideals under assault were multiculturalism, tolerance, and freedom of religion? Then what? Here the commentary is electric.
On July 22, 2011 Norwegian white supremacist Anders Breivik bombed government buildings in Oslo and shot children at a Labour Party youth camp. Breivik tracked his 72 victims like a hunter potting game. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison, the maximum in Norway, and left a hate-filled manifesto.
“Despite the magnitude of the killing, it did not produce a sense of crisis, emergency, or self-criticism among liberal European or North American political and cultural elites,” Fadel writes. There was no gathering of world leaders. Nobody Tweeted Je sui multiculturalism. The Norwegian killer’s obvious political motives were dismissed as the product of a diseased mind, and not a reflection of the white Christian community per se.
“Breivik’s attack was not taken to represent anything other than himself,” says Fadel. “There were no massive international rallies in support of Breivik’s victims, nor did international leaders fly en masse to Oslo to mourn the victims as martyrs to a noble international ideal, like multicultural tolerance, for example. While numerous articles pointed out the role that organized anti-Islam advocacy groups, particularly in the United States, played in supplying Breivik with the ideas he used to fill his 1500-page manifesto, 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, the media were not filled with hand-wringing about radicalization among young white men, nor was there a call to establish systematic surveillance of right-wing websites or intellectual networks, or to shut down their sources of funding.”
Fadel continues, “How can we account for the differences in the cultural treatment?” To ask the question is to answer it. The reaction to Charlie Hebdo was revealing, and disquieting. In France, in Norway, in Canada, it is as though officialdom “can never be sure of Muslims’ loyalty,” Fadel explains.
Now that’s free speech.
By Holly Doan
After The Paris Attacks, edited by Edward M. Iacobucci & Stephen J. Troope; University of Toronto Press; 256 pages; ISBN 9781-4426-30017; $23.00
The Department of Health predicts Canada will see a crowded market of nearly 2,000 cannabis growers, distributors and retailers once recreational marijuana is legalized October 17. Tax authorities earlier predicted a ten-fold increase in wholesalers alone by 2023: “Organized crime does not share its data with us.”
The National Research Council has given a $140,000 grant to an online news publisher for “U.S. market support”, according to accounts. The award comes as the Department of Canadian Heritage reviews a proposed $10 million-a year fund to save jobs at daily newspapers: “I think you can see the reality.”
A St. John’s woman is suing for access to her surveillance file held by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The agency’s own research shows Canadians are wary of domestic spying in the name of public safety: “Freedom of information in this country is completely destroyed at this point.”
Travelers who leave the country with a big bankroll must be prepared to account for every dollar, says a federal judge. The decision came in the case of a British Columbia man who forfeited $10,296 under the Proceeds Of Crime And Terrorist Financing Act: ‘His burden was to remove suspicion it was derived from crime.’
A new federal exhibit on refugees honours a Toronto rapper alongside a Nobel laureate and former governor general. The Canadian Museum of Immigration said it had no complaints to date over the tribute to K’naan Warsame, whose performances include explicit lyrics: “K’naan is an internationally-recognized artist and humanitarian.”
