Stephen Harper has curtailed his trip to
Resolute for the Operation Nanook arctic exercises in the wake of the First Air plane crash that happened over the weekend. That exercise has been cancelled, which
also means that Harper likely won’t have his annual arctic photo op, with ships
from the Coast Guard, the Navy, and CF-18s flying overhead as he has the past
few years (at an exorbitant price tag for that bit of vanity, one might add).
Speaking of the military, an outgoing
general has penned a report that looks at ways that DND can save a billion
dollars out of their budget, which has a lot to do with fighting the bloated
civilian bureaucracy at headquarters, and finding a better use for a lot of
military personnel there that serve little useful purpose.
Paul Wells from Macleans’ looks at the whole Jason Kenney vs. Amnesty International
fracas, and while Wells feels that Kenney has a point on the substance of his
argument, he also takes the time to look at the problems associated with “Most
Wanted” programmes (like the time when people in Toronto thought that 9/11
hijackers used to live in their building and were afraid for their lives,
except those hijackers never did live in Canada), some of the criticisms levelled against Amnesty International by others (especially with regards to
their “mandate creep”), and the interesting connection between one of the
Amnesty critics who is close to Kenney who was also involved in the whole
Rights and Democracy debacle. Plenty to think about, even if Wells did seem to
miss the point about the government calling people “war criminals” when this
hasn’t been proven in a court of law.
Despite overwhelming testimony opposed to
the idea, the government is pressing ahead with plans to raise the cost of
getting a pardon to $631 (from the current $150, already a huge jump from the
$50 it used to be). Because
helping people move on from their past in order to get jobs and become
productive members of society needs even more barriers than currently exist.
And mere days after I wrote my story on how
queer history will be treated by the Canadian Human Rights Museum, the Globe and Mail has a lengthy piece on
the Museum’s history and challenges.
