For the on-line record, and thanks to Joey Schwartz's OCR magic, here is the start of the Sable MOU signed Monday, with the remainder after the jump. To download the official PDF version, click here and the unofficial Word version here.

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING (hereinafter referred to as "MOU)

BETWEEN

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF CANADA AS REPRESENTED BY THE MINISTER OF THE ENVIRONMENT (hereinafter referred to as "CANADA")

AND

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF NOVA SCOTIA AS REPRESENTED BY THE MINISTER OF NATURAL RESOURCES (hereinafter referred to as "NOVA SCOTIA")

RESPECTING

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A FEDERAL PROTECTED AREA ON SABLE ISLAND IN THE PROVINCE OF NOVA SCOTIA WHEREAS Sable Island is a remote island located about 160 kilometres from mainland Nova Scotia near the edge of the continental shelf;

27 January, 2010

Canada and Nova Scotia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the future of Sable Island Monday amidst considerable fanfare and media coverage.  Surprisingly, and unusually, the actual text of the agreement was not made public at the time. Normally such agreements are posted on government websites at the time of such announcements. Thanks to the communications folks at the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, Contrarian has posted a copy which you can download here. [PDF file].* The MOU confirms that the process annouced Monday will unfold in two stages, only the second of which will involve the public. First, provincial and federal...

27 January, 2010

Lots of developments in what promises to be a continuing thread here. The ineffable Zoe Lucas has started a discussion forum on the question of a National Park vs. National Wildlife Area on her wonderful Green Horse Society website, your definitive source for news and information about Sable. Discussions also continue on the Hands Off Sable Island Facebook Page, now approaching exceeding 500 members. At the department's initiative, I spoke this morning with Harold Carroll, Director of Parks for Nova Scotia Natural Resources, who explained that the consultation process announced Monday will unfold in two phases: First, federal and provincial authorities will review...

27 January, 2010

[Correction appended] Harper Environment Minister Jim Prentice wants to protect Sable Island by turning it into a national park. He has a funny notion of protection: Prentice would protect the island by ending the current ban on visitors impediments to tourism. He would protect the island by inviting the private sector to ferry tourists out to visit Sable. He would protect the island by continuing to allow oil and gas drilling off its shores. He would protect the island by permitting the slaughter of seals that whelp there. He would protect Sable by building park facilities to "take care of" the tourists he would "encourage" to...

26 January, 2010

Defenders of Harper's three-month prorogation lean heavily on the talking point that Jean Chretien and Pierre Trudeau both used prorogation without provoking a fuss. Contrarian reader C. Leonhardt thinks the analogy is flawed: Both these prime ministers had a majority in the House when they prorogued Parliament. If their decisions had been challenged, they would have won the vote in the House. Harper's party does not hold a majority of the seats in the House. He would have lost the vote. To claim that his actions repesent past practice is false. At this point one man controls this country. The last line overstates...

25 January, 2010

Last Saturday, 57-year-old Jules Paul Bouloute, got off a flight from Haiti to New York. While attempting to find his way out of  Kennedy Airport's American Airlines Terminal, he accidentally opened an emergency exit door and set off an alarm. [caption id="attachment_4221" align="alignleft" width="250" caption="Jules Paul Bouloute"][/caption] This has happened to most of  us. In confusion, inattention, or an ill-considered attempt to find a shortcut, we open a restricted door and set off an alarm. Sometimes it leads to an embarrassed chat with the on-duty Commissionaire; sometimes there are no consequences at all. In Bouloute's case, however, security officials evacuated Terminal 8 for...

22 January, 2010

Tim Bousquet's rules for using anonymous sources: The information gained through granting anonymity is not otherwise available. Or, put another way, granting anonymity is not a shortcut to doing the hard work of gathering solid information and good reporting. The anonymous source must have something to lose, should anonymity not be given: loss of a job, etc. Using an anonymous source must result in some positive public good. “Spinning” someone’s view is not a positive public good. Bousquet adds: When I was a reporter at a daily in the states, I had a publisher who wouldn't allow me to use anonymous sources at all. At...

03 January, 2010

An end of year column by the Globe's John Ibbitson proclaims Harper's prorogation of Parliament "a travesty...

02 January, 2010

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's insistence that the torture of prisoners Canada hands over to Afghan authorities is a problem for Afghanistan, not Canada, calls to mind Tom Leher's lyric about rocket scientist Wernher von Braun's apparent indifference to the consequences of his work on Germany's World War II V2 rocket: Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? 'That's not my department', says Wernher von Braun. In fact, as Bob Rae points out in the same Globe and Mail article, transferring prisoners with the expectation they may be tortured is a violation of the Geneva Conventions - a war crime,...

23 December, 2009

The clarity and detail of the rebuttal Richard Colvin filed with the House of Commons this morning stand in stark contrast to the government's flimsy response. With devastating thoroughness, Colvin documented factual errors and faulty logic underlying the testimony of government witnesses who tried to explain away Ottawa's studied indifference to the likely torture of prisoners our soldiers handed over to Afghan authorities. Download his statement—it's well worth the read—or check out Kady O'Malley's summary and the Toronto Star's account. In response, the best Dan Dugas, spokesman for Defense Minister Peter MacKay, could offer was another jingoistic attempt to portray criticism of government...

17 December, 2009
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