To hear the Minister of Family Values and Random Diddling, Vic Toews tell it, he’s responsible for the overall drop in Canada’s crime rate even though it has been declining steadily since 1992. Well, if Toews is to claim credit for the by now predictable drop in overall crime, surely that
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Montreal Simon: Omar Khadr and the Invisible Kid
I love this UNICEF message. It's one of the best messages against bullying and violence against children I have ever seen. But for some reason it also makes me think of our invisible kid, Omar Khadr. And makes me wonder who will protect him from the depravity of Vic Toews? Read more
Continue readingCANADIAN PROGRESSIVE WORLD: RCMP’s Misogynistic Response to Gillford Sexual Harassment Claim
In May, Corporal Catherine Galliford filed a claim of being sexually harassed by her male superiors during her 16 year career with our national police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Predictably, the responses from the four accused Mounties is denial. But, in this country famous for compassion, how
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Memo to Vic Toews
The gun violence in Toronto at a party that tragically ended up with 2 people being dead and being possibly gang-related did not occur because gang members saw that judges had struck down mandatory minimums in the courts… nor would it have deterred them if the courts had ruled in
Continue readingImpolitical: Toews’ comments on mandatory minimums
In the wake of the Toronto shootings on Monday night, Vic Toews took the opportunity to criticize the courts for rejecting his government’s mandatory minimum sentences of late: Mr. Toews said Tuesday, during an interview on Golden West Radio, which operates a number of stations across the prairies, that he
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: No shock here on the Conservative foot-dragging on Omar Khadr
A column in the Star today about how the Canadian government has been doing nothing to live up to its agreement it made with the US and Omar Khadr’s lawyers to bring Khadr home and out of the Guantanamo gulag: Various United States officials have complained that Canada’s insolence is
Continue readingCANADIAN PROGRESSIVE WORLD: Bill C10: Vic Toews Met With Lobbyist for U.S. Prisons Profiteer GEO
During the heated public debates on the omnibus crime Bill C-10, Canadian progressives argued that the Harper Government’s controversial legislation was the beginning of the privatization of Canada’s prison system. Turns out that a leading U.S. prison profiteering company lobbied the federal Public Safety Minister and other Canadian officials. So
Continue readingOpenMedia.ca: CBC News: CSIS advising Toews on online surveillance bill
CSIS has expressed interest in adding their own provisions to the online spying bill, in the hopes that it will be passed through government. Letting the security lobby write its own laws is not a step in the right direction. In fact, it suggests how dysfunctional the law-making process has
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Vic Toews and the Case of Luka Magnotta
About a month ago I made this little photoshop, because I was sure that Vic Toews would try to use the Luka Magnotta case to peddle his internet snooping bill. For a Con zombie is a Con zombie, and there is nothing Toews wouldn't do to rummage stumble through our
Continue readingOpenMedia.ca: Winnipeg Free Press – A judgeship for Toews
Looks like Toews is looking for an escape route after insulting Canadians with his warrantless online spying plan (Bill C-30). We’re continuing to press on with our StopSpying.ca campaign, but as for Toews the jury isn’t out just yet. We’ll be keeping a watchful eye to see what he does
Continue readingLeDaro: Vic Toews to be appointed judge?
Winnipeg Free Press story. Long live the patronage!
Continue readingCANADIAN PROGRESSIVE WORLD: Harper’s Crime Bill C-10: Breaking Down The Cost
The Harper government’s flagship tough on crime omnibus legislation will cost Canadian taxpayers at least $15-billion to implement. Bill C-10 is a suite of crime legislation that will radically stir the Canadian justice system away from the preventive and restorative measures which have proven to be more humane, effective and
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Omar Khadr and the Gitmo Cons
It's a Canadian horror story. A young boy is taken from his Toronto home by his Jihadi father, to a place he never should have been. He is riddled with shrapnel, shot twice in the back. The bullets exploding out of his chest and exposing his beating heart. He is
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Cons and the Prison State
Remember when Vic Toews claimed that even though Bill C-10 will swell our overcrowded jails to the bursting point, the Cons wouldn't have to build any new prisons? Toews opened his speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Ottawa by saying he wanted to dispel "egregious myths" and "blatant
Continue readingImpolitical: Toews and all his eavesdropping
We have learned this week that the Canada Border Services Agency, under the leadership of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, will be seeking to audio record what travellers are saying in their cars at border crossings and in person at airports. See this report in the Toronto Star yesterday, for
Continue readingCANADIAN PROGRESSIVE WORLD: Harper’s Canada “Making Up Terror Identities”
In Stephen Harper’s Canada, we’re all potential terror threats. Until proven otherwise. So suggests a recent study by Queens University’s Jeffrey Monaghan and Kevin Walby, published in the journal Policing and Society. Welcome to Multi Issue Extremism (MIE), Canada’s new classification of so-called domestic terror threats. We saw it coming.
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Terror is in the Eye of the Beholder: Alberta’s Counterterrorism Unit to Protect Oil and Gas Industry
Picture 2.png In January, during the week before Canada’s federal hearing on the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, the Harper government and Ethical Oil Institute launched an unprecedented attack on environmental organizations opposed to the pipeline and accelerated expansion of the tar sands. Resurrecting Cold War-style ‘terrorist’ rhetoric, conservative politicians like
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Vic Toews and the Missing Women
Is there any truth Stephen Harper's Con regime won't try to deny? Is there anyone they won't try to muzzle? The federal public safety minister’s office tried to scale back an apology the RCMP delivered earlier this year to the families of serial killer Robert Pickton’s victims, Postmedia News has
Continue readingCANADIAN PROGRESSIVE WORLD: Vic Toews To Use Magnotta Murder Case To Revive Internet Surveillance Bill C-30
In dictatorial regimes, tyrants rule by manipulating prevailing public emotions. They use the smallest emotional opportunity to create draconian laws that take away the people’s rights and freedoms. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has certainly learned a thing or two from this modus operandi. He wants to use Luka Rocco
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Vic Toews and the Bill that Wouldn’t Die
OMG. That'll teach me to stroll through a graveyard in Con Canada, when a Harper moon is in the sky. First I read that Vic Toews' internet snooping bill had quietly died. The Internet surveillance legislation sponsored by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has disappeared down a dark legislative hole. For
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