Islamism and the Toronto Star

An email to Toronto Star columnist Haroon Siddiqui, and his reply. 

Dear Haroon Siddiqui:

In your column of February 14, you attempt to neutralize Islamic violence by pointing out the violence of non-Islamic people. Your observation "given Christian European history" does not excuse Islamic history. My bad behaviour does not justify the bad behaviour of my neighbour.

You state that Pope Benedict's "pronouncements are all the more shocking coming from an otherwise well-regarded religious scholar."  Damning with feint praise is high school rhetoric gleaned from Mark Anthony's "honourable men" funeral oration. Attacking the messenger does not produce quality argument. Perhaps the Pope had in mind the Christians being persecuted in many Muslim countries today. Follow this for a few weeks: www.persecution.net.

You describe the Pope's statement as a "bigoted view of Islam." Nor does name calling further any discussion. In his Regensburg speech (to which I presume you refer), Benedict quoted the Byzantine emperor Manuel II. The emperor feared another Ottoman invasion (they had failed twice already), and was pleading for European assistance, when he said, "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

What could have motivated Manual to say that? Starting with Mohammed's command to conquer (Qu'ran passim), and up to Manuel's time (1391), Muslims had invaded, occupied, colonized, pillaged or raided for slaves, Christian Palestine, Egypt, North Africa, Spain, France, Cyprus, Crete, Rhodes, Sicily, Malta, Sardinia, Cartage, Pisa, Armenia, Anatolia, Gallipoli, Kosovo, Southern Italy, Rome, and Thessalonica where they captured 30,000 Christians for their slave markets.

You object to the police "spying on law-abiding Muslims." During World War Two, law-abiding Germans, Austrians, Italians and suspected sympathizers, were spied on, investigated, finger printed, and interrogated at home and at places of employment. The government used its authority to detain anyone acting "in any manner prejudicial to the public safety or the safety of the state." As a result, many law-abiding citizens, some Canadian-born, were interned for the duration of the war.

The work of CSIS cannot be dismissed as uncovering only "few dozen at best" jihadists in Canada. It is fewer than "a few dozen"  who are currently in jail for conspiracy to blow up buildings in downtown Toronto. It was fewer that "a few dozen" who destroyed the World Trade Center and attacked the Pentagon. It was fewer than "a few dozen" who blew up the Madrid and London subways. 

Given recent history, death is more than an "infinitesimal" possibility.

Yes, let's rid ourselves of "clichés and misconceptions," and be welcoming, but keeping history in mind. 

Siddiqui's verbatim reply: "It is not an excuse. It is a fact of European history. You defending the Pope's statement that he himself has recanted and apologized for and mostly reversed himself on? But I do thank you for reading."

Entrepreneurial Stealth

Average citizens have the means of expressing disapproval should they believe their government is corrupt or over-taxing them.

 In Spain, there is a growing stealth economy, that is, out of government sight. Clandestine restaurants are springing up in hidden places, such as basements, garages, lofts and warehouses.

In one case, the proprietor buys his supplies in bulk from friends in wholesale markets. All transactions are in cash. Diners are warned, should the police raid the place, to clap hands and sing Happy Birthday, thus creating the illusion of a gathering of friends. To enhance the deception, family photographs grace the walls, and there's a toothbrush in the bathroom. He numbers among his clientele bargain-hunting police officers.

Other Spaniards have converted their apartments into jazz clubs. They have no listed address, and are found only through word of mouth, Facebook or Twitter.

Economists estimate these unlicenced places are depriving the already financially battered government of some 30 billion Euros ($50 billion) in taxes each year. That amounts to 20 percent of Spain's gross domestic product.

Meanwhile, in tax-strapped Greece, citizens have resorted to scavenging for wood for their fireplaces. All that to avoid the taxes on heating oil which the government increased last fall by 450 percent. It's not working as planned. Heating oil sales have plunged 70 percent from a year earlier. The cost to the government is about $190 million.

This has spawned a new businesses of selling wood.The source of some of the wood is illegal logging in national parks, and thefts of trees and limbs from city parks. Air pollution has been measured at three times normal levels. The deforestation is occurring at a rate not seen since the German occupation in the Second World War. (Source, The New York Times, Feb. 10, 2013)

In less harassed France, le systèm D thrives. "D" for se débrouiller which means to work it out for yourself. The citizenry do it in spades. Inventive Parisians we once knew did it this way.

To avoid paying for a licence for his television, the existence of which was disclosed by an aerial on the roof, (or possibly to avoid the cost of the aerial itself), the owner installed a wire mesh covering the entire ceiling of his bedroom. Somehow, this gave him adequate reception.

Another "D" neighbour,  from time to time drove to Germany to purchase exotic fish eggs. These he hatched in his apartment by placing the eggs in receptacles that filled almost every flat surface of his home. When grown, the fish were sold to local collectors, for cash, of course.

Meanwhile, his wife operated a knitting machine. The clothing she produced was exchanged for groceries with the merchant down the street.

The neighbour across the street worked for the post office. I regularly saw him stop his post office truck, and deposit his wife and a load of groceries.

And so the big wheel keeps turning under the government radar.

Think Before You Lend

Do not lend to anyone stronger than yourself. If you do, resign yourself to loss -- Ecclesiasticus 8:13.

To wage war against England, Phillip IV of France became deeply indebted to the Knights Templar in 1307. To shed the debt, Phillip accused the knights of heresy, and ordered them burned at the stake.

To wage war against France, Edward III of England borrowed money from the banks of the Bardi and Peruzzi families. His defaults in 1343 and 1346 destroyed both banks, and that brought down a third bank. (Later, to borrow money, Edward had to leave his queen and children as security.)

In 15th century France, merchant and financier Jacques Coeur of Bourges was believed to be the richest man in the world. Charles VII and other powerful people were indebted to him. To rid themselves of this burden, Charles and his associates falsely accused Coeur of various crimes, including the murder of the king's mistress. Wrongly convicted, he was fined, and his property confiscated, mostly by the king.

The London bank of the Medici closed in 1472 because it could not recoup its loan to King Edward IV. (Pesky bunch, those Edwards.) The Medici family bank in Bruges lost money because Charles the Bold of Burgundy refused to repay. Other defaulted loans to the powerful caused this bank to be liquidated. As a bank manager of the time said, "No ever become embroiled with great lords without losing his feathers in the end."

We have today's version of this type of financing. The client lends money to a bank through a Guaranteed Investment Certificate (GIC). Its fixed-period allows the bank to arrange its affairs to its own schedule and needs.

On the other hand, a bank lends money by way of a call loan. The borrowed money must be returned immediately the bank demands it. Whether borrowing or lending, the bank is in control, not the client.

It gets worse. By way of financial legerdemain, the Government of Cyprus, in 2013, shifted the enormous debt of the nation's banks onto the shoulders of depositors. According to the Toronto Star, the Canadian version of this manoeuvre entails the government placing a bank's debt on not just stockholders, but on anyone who has made a loan such as a GIC, paid into a mutual fund, or even deposited money into a savings account.

Rights case exposes yet another legal defect

Letter to the Toronto Star published January 31, 2013

Re Human rights tribunal probes illegal 'rent deposits,' Jan. 28:

This case points out a serious flaw in our human rights legislation. The complainant, a would-be tenant, was asked to pay a year's rent in advance. This violated the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act. Rather than bring court action against the landlord, the complainant appealed to the Human Rights Tribunal.

In this way, the complainant's costs will be borne by taxpayers, while the defendant must pay for his own defence. Should the complaint fail, the defendant cannot claim costs from the complainant. Should the complaint succeed, the defendant must pay at least the $10,000 the complainant demands.

The defect in this procedure lies in the financial incentive to bring such actions to the Human Rights Tribunal rather than to court where they belong. Also, if the awards were paid to the government, many complaints would wither away.

On March 7, a settlement announced, but not the details. Such secrecy exposes one more defect. The tribunal decision should not be secret. It affects all landlords.

For more examples of misguided thinking, click "human rights" below.

LCBO Sniffing Alcohol Fumes

When not price-gouging beer, wine and spirits purchasers, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) indulges in its own brand of fuzzy thinking. The recently harmonized sales tax lowers the tax rate on LCBO products from the current 12 percent to eight percent. This indicated a lower retail price.

Now begins the mixed message known as fuzzy thinking: Prices increased. Big Brother LCBO claimed a "social responsibility" preventing it from lowering prices to a level that would encourage alcohol abuse. As if lowering prices a few pennies would produce more drunk drivers, more broken homes or more productive hours lost. The Board did not explain how it determined the price level that would discourage alcohol abuse.

Yet at the same time, the LCBO sold wines and spirits at discount prices of up to four dollars. In February 2013, a slick 16-page insert in daily newspapers, screamed: "Discover savings in every aisle", "Collect more all month long", "Bold value", "Save $6.00" on cognac, $3.95 on rum (increased to $5 in 2014) and so on for 12 pages. And the following week, a 40-page booklet extolled the social importance of hosting a party "like a bon vivant" with Southern Cocktails. And radio advertising with a women's dulcet tones promising the good life.

How does lowering prices by a few pennies discourage alcohol abuse, while much larger discounts do not? According to the Ontario Finance Minister, the smaller price decrease would be reckless. No word what he thought about the steeper discount prices, and the ceaseless promotion.

Purportedly for "social responsibility" reasons, the Board has also increased its mark-up on imported wines from 64 to 71.5 percent, and on domestic wines from 58 to 65.5 percent. This is the business ruse of using a new system to increase profits, as occurred when Canada went metric, as currently occurring while the one-cent coin is withdrawn from circulation.

Fuzzy thinking is elevated to an art form when the LCBO hides behinds the skirts of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The Board claims a close association with organizations formed to promote safe consumption of alcohol. How does it explain to mothers the discounts and promotions?

Premier Dalton McGuinty did not deny the charge of price gauging. This will all look good for LCBO nabobs when they next demand fat pay increases or bonuses.

Switzerland Taxes Believability

A Reuters report informs us that Switzerland "intends to take a tougher stance on multinational companies which have minimized their tax bills by channelling revenues through low-tax jurisdictions."

This comes from one of the many little nations whose economies float on the dirty money of the world. In its secret accounts, this mountainous region hides billions of dollars for tin-pot dictators, drug dealers, money launderers and just ordinary tax-dodging rich people.

In Switzerland, tax avoidance evasion is a national pastime, but only when done against foreign nations. When the victim is the Swiss government itself, righteousness sets in.

The Magic Box Appears in Toronto, One More Time

During the 1950s when feelings of nationalism were stirring among many Africans, some people decided to capitalize on the situation. They went about the countryside selling "independence boxes".

They convinced purchasers that the boxes contained all the wonders of independence -- freedom, security, success, comfort, and perhaps an improvement in the weather. Your problems and anxieties will disappear, they promised, but on condition you do not open the box until the day of independence.

In 1973, a fund-raiser for the separatist party rolled into Quebec and sold $800,000 worth of boxes containing "completed things", "a culture and a country", "something good and creative", with the promise "you have nothing to lose."

In 1989, the box emerged in Toronto. It contained the multi-purpose SkyDome that would cost the taxpayer not one cent. In the hope of a return on their investment, Ontario citizens shelled out $360 million towards the building's cost of $578 million.  When the box was opened, fifteen years later, this financial boondoggle was sold to Rogers Communication for $25 million.

The magic box has reappeared in the form of a casino proposed by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation.  The Toronto Taxpayers Coalition promises that the box is loaded with wondrous things -- $400 million for a "fully funded subway expansion", one kilometre of subway tunnelling annually, and "the cornerstone of a fully funded subway expansion plan that doesn't raise taxes one cent."

The Coalition report promotes the casino as an opportunity the city "cannot afford to pass up". The mission statement of this three-year old group says, in part, "While taxes are a fact of life, properly tendering contracts and prudent fiscal planning, budgeting, and spending will dramatically reduce the tax burdon (sic) on our residents."

The taxpayer will not know what's at the bottom of the box until the casino is in operation. OLG CEO Paul Godfrey admits Toronto's share of the income will not know until after Toronto Council has made its decision. Sign a blank cheque, he urges. Only when it's too late will the income and tax and social burden be known.

Dirty Money In Little Countries and their Abettors

In September 2010, CBC-TV reported that 1,785 Canadians are hiding money in HSBC Bank in Switzerland. The Opposition in Parliament demanded the government press criminal charges against those named in documents received leaked by a former bank employee.

The Tax Justice Network (TJN) has designated Switzerland the least transparent, that is the most secretive, in financial matters, in the world. What is this mountainous region hiding?

Despite evidence of wrong doing, the Canadian government is about (October 2010) to sign an agreement with the Swiss government which allows Canadian accounts to remain hidden. In the future, if the government presents credible evidence of Canadian laws being violated, application may be made to the bankers in yodel land. Thus, the victim must apply to the perpetrator-enabler who will decide if the evidence is credible.

The Swiss government said it would agree to exchange information with other countries on a case-by-case basis for "specific and justified" requests. In the land that gave us the cuckoo clock, tax evasion is a national pastime. (This nation's actions in moving Nazi-confiscated money during the Second World Was are part of its glorious history.)

The United States Department of Justice has exposed fraud abetted by UBS, Switzerland's largest bank. There are an estimated 52,000 tax-dodging Americans hiding about $15-billion in UBS accounts. Rather than face prosecution for conspiracy to defraud the American people, the bank agreed to open its books and pay a $780-million penalty.

It paid the fine.  By October 2010, the bank still refused to open its books claiming that release of clients' names would place their employees in danger of prosecution. Well yes, that's the idea. The 60 staff members knowingly involved in the scam deserve punishment.

The bank also contends that release of clients' names violates Swiss privacy laws and constitution. Thus the government is complicit in what would be a crime in any other country.

Counting on the public's short-term memory, in January 2011, UBS ran a series of feel-good ads in The New York Times.

British tax authorities plan to chase 50-billion Euros in unpaid tax on money sent abroad to Switzerland and Luxembourg.

The Swiss government is involved in this global conspiracy. It enjoys the taxes paid by banks on its revenue from these accounts amounting annually to about $120 million. In return, the government enacts laws designed to protect this globally harmful practice.

This is particularly strange. In 1991, Switzerland's Federal Banking Commission announced that the country would abolish "most" of its anonymous accounts. This, in a bid to rehabilitate the nation's reputation by forcing tax dodgers to hide their money elsewhere. More than twenty years later, little has changed.

U.S. prosecutors have also launched a criminal investigation into American clients of HSBC with accounts in Asia. In a similar probe, German authorities have raided all 13 branches of Credit Suisse. This bank harbours an estimated 80 billion dirty dollars. Britain has joined the hunt for untaxed earnings held by 6,000 of its richest and most powerful.

The Boston Consulting Group says that nine trillion (yes, trillion) of untaxed money is stashed in these accounts. Switzerland accounts for at least $1.8 trillion of it.

It's time to punish nations such as Switzerland whose economies float on the dirty money of the world (listed below). Some of these pieces of land would not even exist as nations were it not for their destructive banking services. Honest people do not need accounts hidden from legitimate scrutiny. 

The civilized world must boycott nations offering safe haven for the ill-got proceeds of tax dodgers, tin-pot dictators, tyrants and Ponzi scheme operators. According to the Canadian Centre for Policy alternatives, these people annually evade taxes amounting to more than $250 billion.

Yasser Arafat tucked away $5-billion in Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands. Auditors have traced to Swiss banks $240-million in the names of the sons of deposed Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. Augusto Pinochet of Chile hid $25-million in foreign banks. How much of the Ugandan treasury did Idi Amin stow in such accounts? Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines? Suharto of Indonesia? Gaddafi of Libya? The deposed Shah of Iran siphoned off millions into foreign banks.  Moussa Traoré has stashed away much of  the wealth of Mali. How much of the Afghanistan treasury has the Karzai family moved to Swiss banks? 

Taxes estimated at $35-billion annually are lost to the debt-stricken Greek economy by 2,059 of its wealthiest citizens.  Their $3.3 billion is in the Geneva branch of HSBC.  

In October 2010, the names of these Greek tax evaders (the Lagarde list) was given to the former Greek finance minister.  He is accused of removing from the list the names of three of his relatives, claiming that someone else had erased the names.  In October 2012, the list was published by an independent magazine. The journalist, Costas Vaxevanis, was arrested and charged with invasion of privacy. His lawyers have informed him of other pending charges. "The case was a top story in the international press," Vaxevanis said, "but not in the country where it took place." 

Owners of hidden accounts do not receive interest.  Rather, they pay an annual fee.  Therefore, if the access number should die with the tyrant, the Swiss bank will eventually take the entire account.  In the meantime, have free use of that money for its own purposes.

Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier is a special case. In the decade before his ouster, he embezzled at least $500 million which he deposited with UBS. By January 2011, Duvalier learned that chateau living is expensive, so his hoard had dwindled to $6 million. So, Baby Doc returned to Haiti in hopes of getting more. Haitians also wonder where the $300 million, Duvalier's friends stole from the treasury of that impoverished island has been deposited. The issue remains unsettled.

Where would these little countries be without money from deposed Liberian president Charles Taylor, Zimbabwe's blood-diamonds Robert Mugabe, the self-serving war lord Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan? Fingers also point to corrupt leaders of Ukraine as Swiss bank patrons.

Word is that Libya's Gadhafi family have billions of dollars salted away in Dubai. A probe into the assets of deposed (January 2011) Tunisian leader Ben Ali and his 33 of his family extends to Switzerland.

The world must also condemn nations whose banks and governments benefit from blood diamonds, weapons dealers, drug lords, slave traders, crime syndicates and money launderers, as well as garden variety tax evaders.

American authorities have obtained documents showing that the bank runs similar operations for about 5,000 Canadians and the $5.6-billion they have hidden in UBS. The Canadian government must follow the American lead and expose our home-grown tax evaders, drug dealers and other criminals.

Wealthy Americans have now (2011) withdrawn almost completely from Swiss banks. This, as a result of the global clampdown on tax evasion and that dispute between U.S. authorities and UBS.

 July 23, 2012

Research by TJN states that offshore havens are currently hiding $32 trillion in non-taxed wealth. It sets the amount of lost annual tax revenue to national governments at $280 billion. This does not include non-financial assets such as real estate, yachts, gold, diamonds and racehorses.

This ability to hide money especially harms the economies of 139 developing countries, the report continues. It estimates that since the 1970s, the richest citizens of these countries had amassed $7.3 to $9.3 trillion of "unrecorded offshore wealth".  This represents "a huge black hole in the world economy", according to TJN economist James Henry. 

November 2, 2012

A letter to the Globe and Mail from a Liberal Senator reads in part: "The case of Canadians with secret bank accounts in Liechtenstein is well-known. A list of 106 Canadians with accounts totalling more than $100-million was given to Ottawa in 2007. Five years later, less than one-third of the money owing has been collected. And not a single charge."

January 5, 2013

The United States has been pursuing tax dodgers through a combination of pressure on offshore havens  and amnesty programs at home.  In December, UK-based HSBC Holdings (Europe's largest bank by assets)  paid US$1.9-billion settlement with the American government for its activities in money laundering in aid of drug traffickers.

To that same end, Switzerland's oldest bank, Weglin, paid U.S. authorities $57.8 million for its conspiracy to help Americans evade taxes. The bank's managing partner said its behaviour is common in Swiss banking. The bank went out of business permanently, telling is, in effect, its entire operation was of this nature.  

Switzerland's State Secretariat for International Financial Matters is negotiating with U.S. officials for an industry-wide settlement. This tends to confirm the suspicion that every Swiss bank is in the business of sheltering the world's dirty money. 

Of the 8O  tax havens in the world, places that provide legal and financial secrecy, the Tax Justice Network lists the  ten worst offenders. In TJN order:  Maldives, Nauru, Antigua and Barbuda, Netherlands Antilles, Bermuda, Brunei Dar es Salaam,  Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, Guatemala, St. Kitts and Nevis, Lebanon, St. Lucia, Liechtenstein, Liberia, Marshall Islands, Macau, Montserrat, Seychelles, Turks & Caicos, Samoa, British Virgin Islands.

March 19, 2013

The Argentine government has accused HSBC Holdings PLC of conspiracy to hide bank accounts, thereby helping private companies to evade tax payments and launder money.

Guns and Rights

The Portage County District Library of Ohio posted this notice on its website: 

It is illegal to carry a firearm, deadly weapon, or dangerous ordinance anywhere on library premises, pursuant to the Ohio Revised Code.

On March 2, 2010, the US Supreme Court declared that a state law banning the carrying of guns constitutes a violation of citizens' right to defend themselves against criminals.  Never mind that the United States has more hand-gun deaths than the rest of the world combined.

The Second Amendment, on which this decision is based, reads: A well regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. 

Under the jack-boot of the American gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA), courts have contorted the obvious meaning of this amendment into the virtually uncontrolled use of firearms, or have been paid off since judges run for office down there.  The "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" clause in the US Constitution is also invoked by the NRA.

This is another example of the limitation of law.  Rather than debating the social benefits of carrying guns or not, the matter rests on whether or not a ban violates the Constitution.  No thought is given to the value of a document that permits such behaviour, or to rescinding the Second Amendment.

More gun-related reports from the USA:

In January 2014, pre-eminent gun journalist lost his job with Guns and Ammo magazine, lost his job as star of a gun television show, and lost the income from gun endorsements. The October 2013 issue of the magazine ran his column titled "Let's talk limits" in which Dick Metcalf  suggested there be a debate on US gun laws. The former Cornell and Yale history professor wrote, "The fact is all constitutional rights are regulated, always have been and need to be."  

The wrath of almost every gun-toting American descended on him, as well as e-mail death threats. Similar happened to Jerry Tsai, editor of Recoil magazine for writing that body-piercing ammunition was "unavailable to civilians and for good reason."   And in 2007, author of 23 hunting books, Jim Zimbo, was punished for suggesting that military-style rifles were "terrorists" weapons.

States that have official weapons:
Utah --  the Browning MI911
Arizona -- the Colt revolver
Tennessee -- the Barrett .50-calibre rifle
Pennsylvania -- Pennsylvania Long Rifle
West Virginia --  1819 flintlock rifle 

Also from gun-addled Arizona comes a report that state legislators want to arm university professors and students.  The argument runs that they should have the fire power to ward off the next deranged campus invader. It is difficult to image teachers becoming gun-slingers when many in our police forces fail accuracy tests. [See Guns label below.]

In August 2012, a three-year-old deaf boy in Nebraska was ordered to change the way he signs his name.  School authorities claim that his hand gestures may look like a gun.  School policy forbids any "instrument" that "looks like a weapon".

In January 2013, a six-year-old Maryland boy was suspended from school for pointing his finger like a gun and saying "pow".  Earlier, he was accused of pretending scissors were a gun.  A school official characterized these actions as threats to shoot a student.  The family's lawyer is trying to get the school system to remove the incident from the boy's permanent record.  Such reports may be used against the youngster for the rest of his life.

Thus, in the United States, it is legal to carry a loaded assault rifle into a school.  It is not illegal until the perpetrator actually shoots someone.  But should a youngster make an imitative gesture, retribution will follow.

The Law versus Public Interest

We, "the great unwashed outside the law" continue to marvel at the "entanglements of the law".

The current case in point concerns a company that polluted the ground, and then vacated the site. A court said the the public must pay the estimated $50-100 million to repair the corporation's damage to the environment.

In its decision, seven of the nine Supreme Court of Canada Justices bowed to the legal mumbo-jumbo that lets corporations hide behind the law, regardless of public interest.

The Court majority ruled that the province of Newfoundland and Labrador must get in line with other creditors, and share in whatever may be left in the coffers of insolvent AbitibiBowater Inc. In other words, public interest -- the taxpayer -- has no more status than corporate debtors.

One of the Justices wrote, "[T]he province's position would result not only in a super-priority, but in the acceptance of a 'third party pay' principle".  Absolutely correct, and that would be a good thing.

The law must be reformed to establish a common sense hierarchy for the droppings of fugitive corporations. The first claim on the remaining assets belongs to workers, regardless, whether in the form of wages, pensions or other entitlements. Next in line is the tax-paying public as represented by the government. After that, the banks and other corporate lenders. At the end of the line are shareholders.

Note. "The great unwashed outside of the law" was how a law school dean once described to me his opinion of the  general public. "Entanglements of the law" was Winston Churchill's description of the law process.

Feb. 2, 2013.  In the unrelated case of Indalex Ltd., the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the pensions of the firm's retirees were entitled to a share of the the remaining assets.This, because the company had breached its duties to its retirees by failing to keep its pension plans fully funded, and failing to give proper notice that it was seeking bankruptcy protection.

The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) did not like that decision, and reversed it on the grounds of hardship for the company to re-define itself. While some lawyers cheered this socially immoral decision, another described it as "leaving more room for potential abuse of the bankruptcy system."  A former Indalex executive, whose pension was cut in half by the SCC claimed, "To allow this pension plan to be underfunded  is an indictment of the whole system."

The same might be said of former employees of the late Nortel Networks Corp. who were left with little after the firm went bankrupt due to corporate malfeasance for which no one was punished except employees and shareholders.

More Residential Schools Misinformation

Emails sent December 4, 2012

To the National Post. Published December 6, 2012

It would be conducive to enlightened conversation of the National Post presented all available facts concerning our Residential Schools. It is not true that "about 150,000 native children were taken from their families and sent to church-run schools under a deliberate policy of 'civilizing' First Nations" (Residential schools inquiry turns to courts, Dec.3).

Hundreds of native elders and chiefs agreed, and signed the many treaties which created the schools. They voluntarily enrolled their children in the government-sponsored schools. The James Bay Treaty bears the names of more than 70 of these native representatives.

To refer collectively to all students as "victims" violates not only the truth but common sense. Punishment meted out in these schools differed little from that in public schools of the time.

What abuse occurred in some of these schools was a crime. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee is currently in the process of determining how much of that abuse was inflicted by older students and by community leaders themselves.
  
Email to The Globe and Mail. Not published 

While in no way condoning the evils that occurred in some of our residential schools, some objectivity would better inform your readers (Ottawa taken to court over residential-schools documents, Dec.3). This report repeats the old canard of "the forced assimilation of more than 150,000 first nations, Innuit and Métis children at the schools".

Native leaders wanted their children educated in European ways, knowing full well it would change their culture. For example, The James Bay Treaty bears the marks and signatures of more than 70 elders and chiefs. To claim they did not know what they were doing amounts to condescension of the worst order.

There was no "forced assimilation". They wanted their children to learn English -- the only language common among the various tribes and nations represented at the schools. As for abuse, a Globe and Mail report (Truth commission confronts unexpected issue: student-on-student abuse, September 22, 2009) stated, "Some of the alleged abusers are community leaders even family members."

Worker Oppression Continues

"We appreciate our staff" bragged the banks in the 1940s, when they closed their branches on Saturdays. Banks then operated six days a week. With the new policy, employees enjoyed a full weekend.

Sometime in the 1970s, the banks withdrew staff appreciation, and replaced it with Saturday service "for customer convenience". 

In February 2011, the banks announced Sunday openings.  Research showed that "customers were looking for banking hours to better suit their lifestyle", TD-Canada Trust half-apologized.  "Being open Sundays is about working around peoples' lives."

In its current ad campaign, TD proclaims, "Banking can be this comfortable".   Perhaps, but not for staff whose family weekends have been destroyed.   Six days a week, evening hours and 24-hour ATMs are not enough for customer lifestyles?  

With high unemployment, jobs, salaries and benefits are at the discretion (read mercy) of corporate bosses.   Bank employees no longer receive extra pay for weekend work.   What's to complain?  Staff will enjoy their Tuesday-Wednesday week.  That's just great for family weekends. 

TD chief executive Ed Clark worries about bank costs. "Politically it's difficult" to raise fees," he contends. His gaze drifts to his staff.  But fear not.  "We are not going to do this on the backs of the average employee," he promises. Is he aware that that's how the did it in the recent past? One suggestion might be to close operations on weekends, and return staff to their families. Clark's fear was not shared by CIBC who have just announced a banking fee increase.

September 2011 brought word that Loblaw Companies, the grocery people, would also destroy employee family weekends.  Staff must work Sundays at regular pay.  If they object, they are told their replacements are knocking at the door.   

John Steinbeck's masterful The Grapes of Wrath is not history but contemporary -- the business plan where the unemployed are played off one against the other, or the under-paid against those at the door.  Comes to mind Target's take-over of  Zellers whose former staff were invited to apply for their old jobs  at reduced salaries.

The August 2011 issue of Harper's magazine reported that 75 per cent of the increase in US corporate profits since 2001 has come from depressed wages.  Doubtless, the same holds true for Canada.  This explains the gap between the rich and the working poor.

In the 1950s, my father worked for the Loblaw Companies.  He was told to work on Saturdays or be fired. He quit, and soon got another job.  In today's world of downsizing, rationalizing, part-time or temporary work, low wages, and no benefits, workers no longer enjoy the freedom of earlier generations. 

When my generation finished university in the fifties and sixties, companies invited us their their hospitality suites to explain their employment benefits.  All that changed in the seventies and eighties.

As our standard of living declines, corporate profits soar.  Trickle down is code for urinated on.

Formerly, it was called the Personnel Department where humans were deemed persons.  Now it's Human Resources on the same level as Natural Resources, that is, something to be exploited. Humans have become commodities. Dare we fear the next stage of this degradation -- employees described as human cargo or livestock? 

Pope Benedict XVI described this situation in its most brutal form:  "Man is nowadays considered in predominately biological terms or as 'human capital', a 'resource', part of a dominant or financial mechanism." 

 The sword of Damocles hanging over our world is not the atomic bomb; it is the depersonalization of man. -- Anton Pegis,  The Wisdom of Catholicism.

Nordic Madness and Lingering Nazism

It may be the Nordic air, but certain Swedish officials have inhaled something strange. This government has declared homeschooling a crime. For attempting to homeschool their son, a couple were arrested as they sat in a plane returning to India. The government placed their son in foster care where he has remained for three years. His parents can visit him for one hour every two weeks, later every five weeks. A court later dissolved their parental rights completely. They are no longer permitted to have any contact whatsoever with their son.

Another Indian couple lost custody of their two children because they fed them by hand, and had them sleep with them.One Swedish family fled to the United States where they were granted refugee status, thus deeming the homeschooling laws as persecution.

Yet another Indian couple became victims of Norway's "state-sponsored kidnapping", as it has become known. They scolded their son for urinating on himself and stealing toys from his classmates. The government placed the boy in custody for one month where he was cross-examined to obtain more evidence against his parents. (A technique developed by the Nazis.)  The mother was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment, the father 18 months, under the Nordic infamous child protection system.

Such "kidnappings" have become so common that foreigners victimized by the system have resorted to the services of a private investigator to rescue their children from foster care and smuggle them out of the country.

The case followed numerous other cases of children taken from foreigners on questionable grounds by the governments of Norway and Sweden. Indian parents appeared to be a major target.

Opponents of government child protective services claim an economic motive to the system. Foster parents receive tens of thousands of dollars from the government for caring for the children.

This Nordic madness continued.

The New York Times reported that in a Stockholm pre-school, teachers must avoid saying boys and girls, referring to all as friends. Also banned are masculine and feminine references such as him and her. These are replaced by the pronoun hen, an artificial and genderless word "popular in some gay and feminist circles."

The school library allows a few classic fairy tales such as Snow White and Cinderella. On the other hand, "there are many stories that deal with single parents, adopted children or same-sex couples."  Under the rubric of equal opportunity, girls are urged not to play with toy kitchens; blocks are not considered toys for boys; everyone plays with dolls.

The Times report continued: "... this taxpayer-financed school ... is perhaps one of the more compelling examples of the country's efforts to blur the gender lines."  A local university professor calls this "gender madness".

A toy retailer joined in the madness. In 2008, the merchant was reprimanded by the Swedish advertising ombudsman for gender stereotyping in its sales catalogue. The current version of the catalogue neuters the sexes.

Perhaps, it's more than Nordic air, but continental air that is at fault. Germany still enforces a law enacted by the Nazis criminalizing homeschooling. A Dutch member of the European Parliament has proposed banning school curriculum materials which depict the traditional family. He would censor such classics as Paddington Bear, Peter Pan, and Enid Blyton's Famous Five Stories.

Note. The United States Supreme Court has written that terminating parental visits is the Family Court equivalent of the death penalty. Every party to such an action, the court wrote in Stanley vs. Illinois, must be afforded every procedural and substantive due process protection. In American courts this means that clear and convincing evidence, the civil equivalent of beyond reasonable doubt, is necessary before parental rights are terminated.

Toronto Star vs. Conrad Black

The Toronto Star continues its vendetta against Conrad Black. The latest salvo was the publishing (October 30, 2012) of a Star-sponsored survey purporting to show that a majority of Canadians want Black stripped of his Order of Canada. As if the Order were a popularity contest.

The poll was conducted by Lorne Bozinoff of Forum Research Inc. whose website describes itself as "Canada's most  unique (sic) research firm."

As most people know, poll results depend to a great extent on the wording of the questions. The Star informed its readers of neither the pertinent question nor or any other questions likely posed at the same time.

The report then morphed Bozinoff into a critic of Black's recent appearances on British television. Needless to say, he did not like them.

The report ended with unrestrained delight: "Black was stymied last week in a court bid to present arguments why he should remain a member of the Order of Canada, and told to submit a written proposal like everyone else."

For the Toronto Star, "everyone else" does not include Henry Morgentaler. As pointed out in my earlier post, Morgentaler's appointment to the Order of Canada violated the advisory committee's own rules. The Star did not complain because Morgentaler is that newspaper's abortion poster boy.

Follow up. In his National Post column of December 8, 2012, Conrad Black aptly wrote this aside, "(unlike these jokey polls the Toronto Star likes to cite, including in matters related to me, in which recorded telephone conversations are randomly launched in small numbers around metropolitan areas, producing whatever results the Star seeks)."

Enlightened Alberta and Wrong-Headed Ontario

A letter to the National Post published October 26, 2012

Re Alberta affirms homeschool rights, Oct. 25:

Enlightened Alberta has got its educational priorities correct. Ontario has much to learn in this regard. The new Alberta Educational Act states that "a parent has the prior right to choose  the kind of education that shall be provided to the parent's child, and as a partner in education, has responsibility to act as primary guide and decision-maker with respect to the child's education."

Ontario is heading in the opposite direction with regard to parental rights. Teachers deem themselves as "co-parents." Toronto school boards refuse to tell parents when objectionable material will be taught. The government itself recently enacted its own agenda, against parents' vociferous complaints, and they call that transperancy.
   
It is not difficult to see the next step in Ontario's quest for complete control of our children's education. Following the lead of Sweden and Germany, it will declare homeschooling illegal. Over there, parents have gone to jail and had their children made wards of the state. The Ontario Human Rights Commission has authority to censor homeschooling teaching materials.

In forcing their version of mind control on our children, abolishing parental authority is the aim of Big Brother and Big Sister in Queen's Park.

Order of Canada Special Pleading

Email to the Toronto Star, October 28, 2102. Unpublished. Re Court orders Black to play by the rules, Oct. 26: "It can no longer be said that Orders of Canada are awarded as a result  of an impartial consideration of merit," according to Michael Bliss,  professor emeritus, University of Toronto. Dr. Bliss was informed,  "Once a candidate has been  considered and judged not suitable,  the file is only re-opened if there are significant new achievements that justify reconsideration."  He was referring to the reconsideration given to Dr. Henry  Morgentaler after the doctor's first nomination had been rejected. He  made no new achievements, unless one considers more abortions as adding to his oeuvre. Yet, he was awarded the Order on second appeal. In violating its own rules, the advisory committee indulged  in the "politicization of the process". This comes to mind in the advisory committee's rejection of Conrad  Black's request to make oral submission to defend his Order of Canada.The refusal was based on the advisory committee's rules. Dare we deem the committee applies its rules when politically expedient? *  *  * The complete letter of Dr. Bliss in the July 5, 2008 issue of The  Globe and Mail: Your good coverage of the Morgentaler appointment to the Order of  Canada misses a vital procedural issue. It appears that the advisory  committee reopened the Morgentaler file and reversed previous  decisions by earlier advisory committees. In the course of trying to nominate people for the Order of Canada,  I have been told that once a candidate has been considered and  judged not suitable, the file is only reopened if there are significant new achievements that justify reconsideration (such as a novelist adding significantly to a body of work). It is fairly obvious that there are no significant new achievements in the Morgentaler case. Instead, it appears the advisory committee has singled him out for reconsideration, violating past procedures and discriminating against other worthy Canadians whose files are closed, and that it has done this in response to an intense lobbying effort. The result, is, prima facie, a politicization of the process. It can no longer be said that Orders of Canada are awarded as a result of an impartial consideration of merit. Instead, getting honoured depends on who you know and getting lucky in the committee position of the advisory committee. Michael Bliss, professor emeritus, University of Toronto

Toronto is Great by Our Own Efforts

Allan Levine claims that Toronto "does not quite measure up to the truly great cities of the world like London, Paris and Rome." (Hogtown's badass side, National Post October 2, 2012).

Each of these cities was once the capital of an empire. They had colonies to exploit. The magnificent vistas, monuments, galleries and museums we see today in many European cities were paid for by their colonies, one of which was Canada.

Toronto, in contrast to the "truly great cities of the world" has always paid its own way. Everything we see and enjoy in our city today we bought and paid for by our own efforts.

Translating Tapestries -- Something Like That

"Translation from one language to another is like looking at a tapestry from the wrong side." When Miguel de Cervantes put these words into the mouth of his protagonist, Don Quixote, he was speaking for me and countless others.

I first read Death in Venice by Thomas Mann in 1973, in English. As is my habit, I made margin notes which I transcribed to the inside back cover. About ten years later, I read a later English translation of this German masterpiece.

During this second reading, I kept waiting for remembered turns of phrase and certain metaphors to make their appearance. In vain. What I was searching for was the work of the translator. A 1952 translation reads, "His steps followed the promptings of the demon who delights in treading human reason and dignity underfoot." In 1954, this became, ""His footsteps guided the demonic power whose pastime it is to trample on human reason and dignity." I prefer the earlier rendering.

At best, we hope for a translation to convey the thought or idea of the author into our language. Witness the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Among the English translations of Omar's insights, the best known being that of Edward Fitzgerald. It's a magical blending of the poet's thought and the translator's formidable command of the English language.

One of my English professors was critical of the only (I believe) English translation of the French gem The Little Prince by the lamented Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Much meaning has been missed. He urged us to read the original. I did, and noted significant differences.

The English dedication says that the author's friend needs "cheering up". The French states that he "a besoin d'être consolée." Not the same at all. More than merely cheering up, the dedicatee needs to be made more comfortable. After all, it's the dark days of the Second World War. The friend is cold and hungry in German-occupied France. The author is warm and well fed in New York.

All this comes to mind as I consolidate, as it were, two translations of Baldesare Castiglione's Renaissance work of sheer delight, The Book of the Courtier. Comparing two editions, "a salutary craft" becomes "a healthy deception", "a grossness of dull wits" reads "obtuse insensitivity" and "subtleties" is "sophistries". Unless we check the front of the tapestry, we will never know which translation approaches closest to the author's intent.

Each new translation conveys a variation from earlier translations. This perhaps illustrates the awesome growth and changes in the English language. Even staying within our beautiful language, we have problems.

The various editions of the works of William Shakespeare present problems. We can accept "tainted" in one edition becoming "diseased" in another. But can be see "the all-binding law" as "the all-building law"? In Measure for Measure, Angelo has been transformed from "precise" to "prenzie". What is the difference between "headstrong jades" and "headstrong weeds" when they both mean rogue horses?

Given all this, perhaps Cervantes did not write the opening observation of this essay. I may simply have quoted one of his many translators.

Media Hysteria

A  2012 survey by The Environics Institute revealed that Canadian trust of the mass media to be at an all-time low of six per cent.

Comes to mind last month's much ado about nothing involving a Toronto Blue Jays shortstop, Yunel Escobar, who wrote in ungrammatical Spanish on his adhesive facial patches Tu ere maricon.  According to José Latour, a Cuban-Canadian author writing in The Globe and Mail of Oct 3, this common expression in Cuba means a number of things: You are a homosexual, fool, coward, cheapskate, wife-abuser, deceitful, and despicable.

No one in the media asked the accused which meaning he attached to the word. Lack of research did not hamper knee-jerk reactions, and presentation of the event as would best create an issue and attract readership. Newspapers used gallons of ink to condemn this multi-meaning word, choosing of course that meaning which created the greatest media stir, the homosexual angle.

Editorials and opinion pieces proliferated, along with reports, think-pieces, the usual word peddling, and letters, some verging on the hysterical. Long after the story was no longer newsworthy, the Toronto Star kept stirring the ashes of a superficial issue gone cold.

Escobar was vilified, condemned and everything but crucified at the goading of the media. A normally calm CBC morning radio sports reporter raged that he be "fired". He seemed unaware that the Blue Jays organization cannot fire Escobar with multi-million-dollar contract. He can only traded to a club with equally deep pockets. [Along with five other Jays, in a purely business deal, he was later traded to Miami.]

Will readers, viewers or listeners trust the media when they report something truly and not fictively offensive? Or will believers remain limited to that six per cent?

Society versus the Child

Our secular society believes that children exist for the parents. The reverse is true.

A year or so back, the Toronto Star featured a report of a pregnant woman living in Canada and of Indian heritage. Amniocentesis indicated the mother was carrying a girl. The woman wanted the girl, but her parents wanted to send her to India for an abortion. There was not a peep from pro-choice feminists defending the prospective mother's choice. Pro-choice is secondary to pro-abortion.

Our values have become so warped that some people now speak of "gender disappointment" and "gender grief" in the birth of a child whose sex is not of the parents' choosing. They claim there's even a "stigma" about it.

The Toronto Globe and Mail (Sept 21, 2012) describes this "disappointment" as "a private feeling of shock and dejection [that] washes over some parents when they envision the life with a boy or a girl, only to give birth to a child of the opposite sex". This misguided feeling has spawned in the U.S. a business where doctors promise "family balancing", that is, abort until you get what you want.

A University of Alberta law professor, Timothy Caulfield, is quoted," If someone has three boys and they want a girl, is the harm such that the state should ban choice?"  We wonder to what other mischief the professor exposes his students.