The Harper Government's ambivalent attitude toward immigration deserves more thoughtful consideration than I have time for this morning, but in light of yesterday's release of a new guide for prospective Canadian Immigrants, a manual high in testosterone and shy on environmental values, I flag it here for future discussion. An immigrant himself, Contrarian left yesterday's Film Series benefit for L'Arche Cape Breton* thinking about the Senegalese immigrant cab driver at the centre of the featured movie — an ebullient character named Solo, brilliantly played by Souleymane Sy Savane, himself an immigrant to the US from the Ivory Coast.  Solo is one...

13 November, 2009

A scathing editorial in today's New York Times denounces a US appeal court for having "brushed off" a lawsuit by Canadian Maher Arar. As the paper put it,  Arar "was seized in an American airport by federal agents acting on bad information from Canadian officials," and "held incommunicado and harshly interrogated before being sent to Syria, where he was tortured. He spent almost a year in a grave-size underground cell before the Syrians let him go." Two courts, one in Italy and one in the United States, ruled recently on the Bush administration’s practice of extraordinary rendition, which is the kidnapping...

11 November, 2009

In a fit of foolishness, Elections Canada has decreed that returns from today's Cumberland Colchester Musquodoboit Valley byelection cannot be disseminated until after the polls close—in British Columbia. In a general election, this silly provision serves to assuage the patronizing concern that voters in western time zones might either (pick one): be annoyed that the winning party had been decided before they cast their vote; or be shrewd enough to use the results in eastern Canada to guide their strategic voting decisions. Heaven forefend. On a day with four byelections scattered across our vast country, it serves no purpose whatever, save perhaps to bolster...

09 November, 2009

Parks Canada is looking for a contractor to develop a çoastal beaches stewardship manual for New Brunswick. A posting on the MERX tendering website lists the following mandatory qualifications for the less-than-$25,000 contract: Recent experience (within the last 3 years) conducting research and monitoring activities and writing professional communications documents related to species at risk and ecological issues in New Brunswick. The contractor must demonstrate his/her knowledge of local community issues, as well as his/her knowledge of piping plover ecology and have experience in communicating piping plover and coastal messages in New Brunswick. Gee, do you suppose Parks Canada might have a...

09 November, 2009

Contrarian reader Jon Coates of Halifax has no trouble with the kidnapping, rendition, and indefinite detention without due process to which Omar Khadr, a Canadian juvenile, has been subjected for seven years. He writes: [caption id="attachment_3064" align="alignright" width="231" caption="Omar Ahmed Khadr at age 14, one year before his capture and removal to Guantanamo."][/caption] I believe that Khadr is a prisoner of war and should stay right where he is until the war in Afghanistan has run its course, just like any other prisoner of war. As he is also being charged with criminal activity - killing an American medic, a non-combatant...

08 November, 2009

The American Civil Liberties Union has released a video in which five former detainees talk about their treatment at the American prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. All were eventually released without charge. As you watch this troubling video, consider the Harper Government's refusal to request the release of the last citizen of a western democracy still held in Guantanamo: Canadian Omar Khadr, who has been subjected to similar treatment for seven years, since he was 15. The Conservative Government is appealing a Federal Court decision ordering it to request Khadr's release, as every other western democracy did for its citizens...

03 November, 2009

Contrarian reader Cliff White writes: I'm in Quebec at the moment and, as you can imagine, the deal with New Brunswick is playing very well here.  I can't see how this won't turn out to be a very bad deal for New Brunswick in the long term, similar to, but eventually worse then, the one Newfoundland agreed to under Smallwood. At the time Smallwood signed the Churchill Falls deal, it looked pretty good, given the cost of energy at the time.  The problem arose when energy prices went up dramatically and Quebec refused to renegotiate. The length of the agreement meant that...

30 October, 2009

[caption id="attachment_2847" align="alignright" width="350" caption="Inter-provincial power grid diagram shows the startling degree to which Nova Scotia is an energy island. This is a big obstacle to the development of local renewable energy supplies like wind and tidal, which are intermittent and therefore require robust interconnection with nearby power porducers and users. The Hydro Quebecwick deal means that any increase in our connectivity with the rest of the world will be at the mercy of the new monopoly owner of the grid, the Government of Quebec."][/caption] Premiers Shawn Graham (NB) and Jean Charest (QC) have unveiled the details of the Hydro Quebecwick...

29 October, 2009

Who said this? There is no piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by one of our soldiers at some time or another. Nevertheless much of the territory stays in the hands of the terrorists. We control the provincial centers, but we cannot maintain political control over the territory we seize. Our soldiers are not to blame. They’ve fought incredibly bravely in adverse conditions. But to occupy towns and villages temporarily has little value in such a vast land where the insurgents can just disappear into the hills...

29 October, 2009

This promises to be a continuing Contrarian topic, but I will flag it briefly: NB Power's apparently imminent sale to Hydro Quebec represents a tectonic shift in Nova Scotia's energy options. I mention this because, as is typical, the national news media seem to view the story as just another installment in Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams's (to them) clownish battles with central Canada. Such a view is as witless as it is patronizing. The sale poses huge problems for Nova Scotia and PEI, as well as Newfoundland. If Quebec can use its windfall profits from Joey Smallwood's disastrous 1969 deal on Upper...

27 October, 2009
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