Le silence est d'or

Silence is Golden.

At his first Quebec appearance since two Quebec-based soldiers died in Afghanistan, Prime Minister Stephen Harper nearly completely refrained from commenting on the mission in the war-ravaged country. Harper, who didn't use the word "Afghanistan" in the speech, wouldn't answer reporters' questions afterwards.

The Right Honorable War Monger is embarrassed by pointed questions. And he should be. He can't answer this one.

The wife of slain Vandoo Mario Mercier has said she hopes
he's the last Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan.

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Kandahar

Afghanistan

War





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Clarification

 Christian was on afghan ground for a little over a month,
when his light armoured vehicle struck a land mine. 

The fact he is dead, and how he died, his vehicle hit a land mine (not and IED, not a Taliban roadside bomb, not a suicide bomber) is less important than getting his regimental colours right.

Final Van Doos soldiers head to Afghanistan
Funerals for Master Cpl. Christian Duchesne and Master Warrant Officer Mario Mercier will be held Friday, near Valcartier.

Department of National Defence

Aug 24, 2007 17:00 ET

DND: Not Only Vandoos

MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwire - Aug. 24, 2007) - To show respect to the majority of the military personnel currently deployed in Afghanistan, who work in collaboration, but are not part of the Royal 22e Regiment, we want to specify this fact and ask the media's cooperation regarding the diffusion of complete and fair information.

Master Corporal Christian Duchesne belonged to the 5th Field Ambulance, part of the 4th Health Service Group.

The Joint Task Force - Afghanistan (JTF-Afg) Rotation 4 deployed in the summer of 2007 is comprised of approximately 2300 soldiers representing many different professions in the Canadian Forces. The majority of those troops come from over fifty different units and regiments in Canada. A third of them actually belong to the Royal 22e Regiment. Even if the core of these men and women come from Valcartier, many also come from other regions of Quebec and the rest of Canada.

For the complete list of regiments and units comprised in the JTF-Afg, you may consult the following website: http://www.5gbmc.ca/spip.php?article557

SEE:

Kandahar

Afghanistan

War





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Senator Craig's Tearoom

Senator Larry Craig who likes to have sex in public washrooms asserts he is not gay.

"Idaho Senator Asserts: 'I Never Have Been Gay'."

He may be 'technically' correct. Some 'straight' men like to have anonymous sex in public washrooms too.

For over 100 years, police surveillance and sting operations have targeted public toilets - or "tearooms" - frequented by gay men in search of sex.

But tearooms were also frequented by other classes. The washrooms of New York's subway system were "(the) meeting place for everyone," as one man put it. A businessman on his way home to his wife and children in one of the outer boroughs could engage in quick sex at the end of the workday but still not identify as gay.

And somethings never change.....

10% Of Straight Men Have Sex With Men, New York

Almost 10% of men who said they were straight had had sex with at least one man during the last twelve months, according to a new study carried out by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. 70% of them were married. Many of these men said they had not used a condom and had not been tested for HIV.

Men who have sex with men (MSM) is a term used mostly in the United States to classify male persons who engage in sex with other males, regardless of whether they self-identify as gay, bisexual, or heterosexual. The term is intended to reference a particular category of people as a risk-group for HIV, and is considered a behavioural category

In a study conducted by Preeti Pathela and colleagues (reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine) nearly 4200 New York City men were interviewed by telephone and asked 130 questions about health-related matters. Embedded in the demographic questions midway through the survey was a question about the man’s sexual orientation. Later, at the end of the survey, each man was asked about the number of men and women with whom he’d had sex during the previous 12 months.

Of the men who labeled their sexual orientation and reported having sex in the past year:

• 85.8% identified as straight and reported sex only with women
• 3.3% identified as gay and reported sex only with men
• 1.1% identified as bisexual and reported sex with men, women, or both.

But:

• 8.9% identified as straight and reported sex only with men
• 0.7% identified as straight and reported sex with women and men.

Combining the last two groups, nearly 10% of the men identified themselves as straight but had at least one male sexual partner in the previous 12 months. About 70% of these men were married. Nearly all reported having sex with only one partner in the past year.

This comment attached to the Wall Street Journal blog on Senator Craig's denial of being gay, makes the same point.

But let’s not have the discussion that America really needs to have: gay men don’t have sex in public bathrooms. They have their gay bars, clubs and websites for that. It’s the straight men traveling on “business” that play footsies in the public johns, who wouldn’t be caught dead in a gay bar or bookstore. Who’s have sex in a public restroom? Your “straight” husband is!!!! LOL I should know. I’ve had sex w/ many “straight” men who were cheating on their families, only to tell me after I took care of their needs…cheating me, their families and themselves. Wake up America. Stop shooting gay folks as scapegoats. It’s the straight men who don’t want to come out of the closet for fear of being labeled queens who are troublemakers.
http://www.williamcastillo.com

Comment by William Castillo - August 28, 2007 at 9:55 pm

However for truly anonymous sex Senator Craig might have considered sticking to the internet where you can have a relationship with a man and remain straight.

The Internet has created a space where people can experiment with their sexuality. Many heterosexual men, who have previously merely fantasized about it, take the plunge and have cyber sex with other men. These are some of the findings in Typing, Doing and Being-­A Study of Men Who Have Sex with Men and Sexuality on the Internet, a new dissertation from Malmö University College in Sweden. Michael W. Ross will defend the thesis on March 10, and the public defense will be the first ever at the Faculty of Health and Society as well as the first in the new research field of Health and Society.

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Opiate Of The Masses

Iran suffers from being the conduit for Afghanistan opium and heroin. It more than any other country is directly affected by the increased narcotic production in Afghanistan.

While the Canadian media hyped the latest UN Drug Report on the increased opium production in Afghanistan quoting the RCMP claim that we are getting more heroin from there than from the old Golden Triangle.

The Golden Triangle; Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, etc. was the result of the CIA's involvement with black ops there during the Viet Nam war as Afghanistan production is a result of CIA involvement during the anti-Soviet offensive. The fact remains that NATO and American operations against opium production in Afghanistan have been a failure because they have no real alternative to the value of this agricultural product a historic crop in the region. A product first used by British Imperialism to spread its power through out Asia in the 19th Century.

However, in Afghanistan as in other parts of the world, in Burma for example, opium has long been at stake in armed conflicts as its trade has allowed these conflicts to be prolonged. As the complex history of opium in Asia demonstrates, opium production and trade have been central to world politics and geopolitics for centuries and the role of the opium economy in Afghanistan does not represent a new trend. In many ways, history reinvents itself.

It was not until the British Empire started organizing and commercializing opium production in the 19th century that the opium poppy became entrenched in the world economy. The opium produced in British India was the first drug to become integrated into the then emerging globalization. Tea, which was then only grown in China, was bought by British merchants with silver extracted from South American mines. This triangular trade went on at least until the British Empire, together with the East India Company it had set up, created a thriving opium market in China, first through illegal smuggling and then through forced imports. The two so-called “opium wars” (1839-1842 and 1856-1860) waged by the British to impose their opium trade onto China resulted in “unfair treaties” that not only made Hong Kong a British colony but also provoked, in China, the biggest addiction ever to happen in world history. Eventually, opium consumption and addiction also spurred tremendous opium production in China. In response to the Chinese national consumption that drained its silver reserves, China became the world’s foremost opium producer.

This trend emerged first in Laos and in Burma, then in Afghanistan in what came to be known as the Golden Crescent. In both Southeast and Southwest Asia, the Central Intelligence Agency’s anti-Communist covert operations and secret wars benefited from the participation of some drug-related combat units or individual actors who, to finance their struggles, were directly involved in drug production and trade. To cite just two, the Hmong in Laos and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in Afghanistan.

Today, Afghanistan’s opium production is the direct outcome of Cold War rivalries and conflicts waged by proxies who helped develop a thriving narcotic economy in the country. Afghanistan has been the world’s leading opium-producing country for years now, with Burma and Laos ranking second and third respectively.

And NATO has not engaged the Iranians in controlling the border and transit points used by the opium producers in Afghanistan. And they will continue to fail until they engage the Iranians as allies in the fight against opium.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a major transit route for opiates smuggled from Afghanistan and through Pakistan to the Persian Gulf, Turkey, Russia, and Europe. The largest single share of opiates leaving Afghanistan (perhaps 60 percent) passes through Iran to consumers in Iran itself, Russia and Europe. There is no evidence that narcotics transiting Iran reach the United States in an amount sufficient to have a significant effect. There are some indications that opium poppy cultivation is making a comeback in Iran, after a long period during which poppy cultivation was negligible. There are an estimated 3 million opiate abusers in Iran, with 60 percent reported as addicted to various opiates and 40 percent reported as casual users. With record levels of opium production right next door in Afghanistan, the latest opiate seizure statistics from Iran continue to suggest Iran is experiencing an epidemic of drug abuse, especially among its youth.

And contrary to the RCMP reports in the press, the United States government report above states that NO Afghani opium is getting into North America. Now do ya think the RCMP may be doing a bit of PR for their pal the PM to justify his war in Afghanistan?

NATO has relied upon American forces practicing large scale opium field eradication supported by air strikes which has led to large scale civilian deaths and friendly fire deaths to NATO forces.

Joanna Nathan
International Crisis Group analyst

Aerial eradication of poppies is not the solution. While some ground-based manual eradication is important as a stick, to discourage particularly new growers, it hits the poorest hardest. Aerial eradication can be too indiscriminate and would enrage a large sector of the population possibly driving them into the arms of the insurgents. On the other hand the proposal to license opium for medicinal use is unfeasible at this stage. Most of the drugs grown in Afghanistan are in Helmand which they haven't been able to stop when it is completely illegal. How would you then insert a massive licensing bureaucracy there and stop those who continue to grow for the black market? The price differentials would be so large there would be no incentive to grow for a licensed market.

The American war on opium production, like the rest of its Afghanistan mission, has been a failure, since it is America's allies in Helmand Province that turn out to be the opium producers themselves.

Eradication in Helmand

This season, the governor of Helmand asked the AEF to eradicate in Helmand. Despite making progress due to the AEF's heavy use of mechanized eradication, insecurity and waning political will hindered the AEF's efforts. Helmand will likely continue to be Afghanistan's largest opium cultivating province. Any future eradication strategy for Helmand needs to first account for security and political will.

It should be noted that 75% of the opium poppy cultivation in Helmand is new cultivation that did not exist two years ago. By definition, then, at least 75% of the poppy in Helmand is not being grown by poor farmers who lack licit economic alternatives-two years ago these farmers were doing something else.

In other words, the vast majority of the poppy in Helmand is not being grown by poor farmers who have been growing poppy for generations and lack economic alternatives. The reality is that cultivation has expanded rapidly in the past two years as opportunists have scrambled to exploit Helmand's lawlessness for profit. Many of Helmand's poppy growers are wealthy land-owners, corrupt officials, and other opportunists. Helmand's land is fertile; infrastructure and access to markets is good, and alternatives to poppy are available. Moreover, if Helmand were a country, it would be the fifth largest recipient of U.S. development aid in the world, having received over $270 million in USAID funds in recent years. Opium poppy grown by wealthy land-owners and corrupt officials funds the insurgency. There is no reason to avoid eradicating their poppy fields aggressively.

SEE:

Two Canadians In Afghanistan

Say It Ain't So

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Outing BP

A scandal occurred this spring when the British CEO of BP, British Petroleum, the British petrol giant which branded itself as green; Beyond Petroleum 'its a start', Lord Browne was outed for being gay, and supposedly lying about it in court.

The reality is that his resignation had less to do with covering up his homosexuality then covering for BP. Which had not gone Beyond Petroleum as a result of Lord Browne's corporate decisions but had become a Bad Player in the oil business.

British Petroleum used the cover of a post-Hurricane Katrina refinery bill in Congress for a sneak attack on legal protections against supertankers in Puget Sound. Reps. Jay Inslee and Dave Reichert thwarted it.

You will remember that BP had faced a number of oil field scandals prior to the outing of Lord Browne by his Canadian lover and rent boy; Jeff Chevalier.

A long list of misfortunes has battered this venerable company, including an explosion at its Texas City, Texas, refinery that killed 15 workers and injured scores more, and protracted outages at other refineries. There was also an Alaskan oil spill resulting from a corroded pipeline, along with 2005 hurricane damage to its big Gulf of Mexico Thunder Horse production platform, which delayed that facility's production start-up.

As if that weren't enough, the company's longtime CEO Lord John Brown stepped down abruptly this spring amid allegations about his private life. And more recently, BP was pressured by Russian authorities to sell much of its stake in a big natural gas field to state-run gas company OAO Gazprom.

Lord Browne the ultimate company man was still that despite his lovers outing of him. The reality was that his corporate maneuvering of BP in the oil business had been less an economic success than a failure in protecting the environment and workers.


As they say here is the rest of the story.

Blackmail, Sex & Corporate Secrets

While much has been written in Britain about the seedier side of the scandal, the critical role that BP and its executives played in it has been largely overlooked. Company officials, for instance, reportedly encouraged the C.E.O. to out himself on one of the BBC’s most popular radio shows, a plan that fizzled when Browne lost his nerve in the studio. Before that, BP leaders were secretly enlisted to serve on the board of Chevalier’s company, which was underwritten by Browne. And in the end, the disclosure of corporate secrets was as much a concern to Browne as the revelation of his homosexuality. The threat that internal BP matters might be leaked led Browne to lie in a court statement, which in turn led to his humiliating resignation and public shaming. Among the secrets Browne wanted to protect: He was considering relocating BP overseas—a potential economic ­disaster that would have been a huge blow to Britain’s corporate psyche—and he placed a dollar value on the heads of his workers in the event that they were injured or killed in an accident. In one memo, company executives gamed out different disaster scenarios for BP, comparing them to the outcomes in The Three Little Pigs.

Now the company is trying to right ­itself under a new C.E.O., Tony Hayward, who has taken over amid a growing outcry over BP’s shoddy environmental and safety record, which Browne managed to keep as secret as his private life.
Throughout the 1990s, he made a series of acquisitions that won him enormous praise in Britain and heralded the consolidation of the major oil companies. It seemed novel then that British ­Petroleum grew not by increasing its oil exploration and development but by taking over American oil companies such as Standard Oil of Ohio and Amoco. The BP-Amoco merger was the largest of its kind and launched the company into the big leagues overnight. When Exxon bought Mobil the next year, Browne quickly retaliated by purchasing Atlantic Richfield for $32 billion.

Browne was also, like any great C.E.O., a P.R. genius. In 1997, to the horror of many of his oil-industry peers, Browne admitted in a speech that he ­believed global warming was real. He then hired a San Francisco firm to ­rebrand British Petroleum and come up with a new corporate slogan. The old BP logo was replaced with a green-and-yellow sunburst, and ads suggested that BP now stood for . . . Beyond Petroleum. It was a masterstroke: BP had only $100 million invested in solar power at the time of the renaming, compared with at least $10 billion invested in conventional energy. But thanks to BP’s green logo and green C.E.O., its reputation as a green company flourished.

Browne was not quite so popular in the U.S., where experience on the ground is more important than a taste for fine art. “They pounded their chests a lot, but they didn’t know how to run refineries,” a former Amoco employee says of the BP executives. Because refineries are among the most intricate and dangerous workplaces on the planet, the old-timers feared that the BP ­executives’ ignorance would compromise safety, especially as BP cut jobs and budgets to reduce redundancy and raise profits for shareholders. (Similar allegations would later take center stage in the Texas refinery explosion lawsuits.) Other executives were skeptical of the hierarchical management structure at BP; they particularly complained about the handpicked “turtles” (named after the mutant ninja variety), who served as interns to Browne and were supposedly fast-tracked to replace other executives. There was also something known internally as the promise: a written business plan that could be used against employees who didn’t meet their projected goals. “They would use it to cut your throat if you failed,” a former engineer explains. Gradually, the company’s culture became less about innovation than intimidation. Fearful of losing their jobs, few spoke up about deteriorating conditions at some of the refineries. Behind Browne’s back, employees nicknamed him the “elf,” an acronym for “evil little fucker.”

Browne had his critics outside the oil industry too. The company was accused of committing human rights violations while building a pipeline in Colombia, and concerns were expressed about North Sea pollution. Greenpeace selected Browne for its Best Impression of an Environmentalist award. Matt Simmons, whose Houston-based Simmons & Co. is one of the largest investment-banking businesses serving the energy sector, was deeply skeptical of Browne’s 1999 prediction that, because of a worldwide market glut, oil prices would never reach $40 a barrel. “There was a vision of unreality in John Browne’s business plan,” Simmons says. “That generally works until you slip up.”

No one would dispute that Texas City, Texas, is a very long way from St. James’s Square. It is a rough-and-tumble blue-collar town on the Gulf Coast, where people know all too well that refinery work is often life threatening but just as often the only work available. On March 23, 2005, something went very wrong at BP’s Texas City refinery, the third largest in the U.S. An aging tank used to separate gas and fluid overflowed, filling the air with flammable vapor. A driver unwittingly left his truck running, igniting a fireball that by the end of the day had killed 15 people and injured more than 200. Not surprisingly, the blast led to the launch of hundreds of multimillion-dollar lawsuits and several investigations, including one by a commission that former secretary of state James Baker headed. A probe by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board specifically blamed BP’s closed culture for the explosion. In 2006, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined the company $21.3 million, the largest penalty of its kind ever issued.

That wasn’t all that would befall BP. The next several months brought a cascade of problems, almost all blamed on lax oversight and poor management. In March, 200,000 gallons of crude leaked out of a BP pipeline at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, forcing the company to partially shut down a major field. The pipe, it turned out, hadn’t been cleaned in years. In April, the U.S. Department of Labor fined BP for unsafe operations in an Ohio refinery. Also during this time, the company was unable to capitalize on its Thunder Horse offshore oil platform—the world’s largest—which was damaged during Hurricane Dennis in 2005. And in June, the government charged some of BP’s traders in Houston with trying to manipulate the price of propane in the Midwest and Northeast.

All these incidents inevitably prompted this question: How could a company that was supposed to be a model of corporate citizenship have gone so wrong? The answer that emerged was simple, and the weakness of Browne’s highly praised policy of acquiring big companies and instituting massive cost cuts was suddenly, fatally exposed. Instead of putting excess cash into maintenance and safety, the executives in London had ordered the company to “bank the savings.” But as plaintiffs’ attorneys have alleged, a rubber band can be stretched only so far before it breaks. BP led the industry in refinery deaths from 1995 to 2005. For 10 years, there was a fire a week at the Texas City plant, and many were afraid to work there, fearing that disaster was imminent. As an employee explained in a survey, “No one here in management cares. . . . We have been very lucky so far with this.” At the same time, the arrogance of BP executives was easily recognizable. One memo, prepared for a meeting held before the Texas City explosion, insisted on cost cuts, a familiar refrain at the plant: “Which bit of 25 percent don’t you understand??? We are going to be wasting our time on Monday unless you come prepared to commit to a 25 percent cut.”

In the end, Browne lied less to save his image than to save the image of his company. It’s notable, for instance, that there was no talk of resignation when word first emerged that the press had its hands on Chevalier’s story. Only after Browne learned that the corporate secrets could leak did he finally decide to step down.

Browne’s early departure will not prevent continued legal battles for BP, but it is perhaps as close to a sacrificial act of love as Browne is capable of, and it has allowed the company to start fresh. Though Browne also resigned from the board of Goldman Sachs, he still works for Apax Partners, a global private equity firm, and goes to his office when it suits him.

And as usual in the corporate world despite his fall from grace Lord Browne has landed on his feet.

FORMER BP boss Lord Browne has walked away with a pension worth just over £1million a year.The disgraced peer tops the list of 100 leading execs who look forward to pensions of £200,000 a year or more.

The former chief executive of BP PLC Lord Browne of Madingley has resigned as non-executive chairman of the advisory board of private equity firm Apax Partners to join energy and power private equity specialists Riverstone Holdings LLC.

His appointment at Riverstone Holdings, which specialises in the energy sector, comes almost four months after he quit oil giant BP when it emerged he lied to the High Court during a battle to block stories about his private life.

Lord Browne takes on the post of managing director and managing partner of Riverstone’s European business and will be based in London, where the group is soon to open an office.

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Foot Tapping

Well I guess I won't be tapping my foot while waiting for a bowel movement or while listening to my IPod in the mens room at the Minneapolis airport. I could get busted.

...According to the police report, Craig entered a bathroom stall next to the police investigator, placed his bag against the front of the door and tapped his foot in a gesture commonly used to try to pick up men in public toilets.

"I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct," Roll Call wrote, quoting the investigator in the police incident report.

Another Republican Senator for Family Values bites the dust.

Craig is in his third term and up for re-election next year. He is a former member of the Senate's Republican leadership and played an active role in the 1998 impeachment of former President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.

In a June 2006 Senate vote, Craig voted in favour of an amendment to the Constitution to define marriage in the United States as a union between one man and one woman. The amendment was defeated by one vote.

Craig is a strong advocate for the rights of gun owners. He has a close association with the National Rifle Association and at one time sat on its board of directors.

Expect social conservatives to come out and defend Craig, in a backhanded way as they did with Senator Foley; claiming this as another example of gay bashing (sic) by Democrats.

In October last year, a gay rights activist claimed in an Internet blog that Craig had had several gay relationships. Craig's office denied it, saying the allegations were "completely ridiculous" and had "no basis in fact."

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Vote Conservative...Or Else

More Historical Revisionism with a dash of threat. Love it or Leave It. And vote Conservative or else. According to Craig Chandler, who is running to be the Alberta PC Candidate for MLA in Calgary Egmont.

"To those of you who have come to our great land from out of province, you need to remember that you came here to our home and we vote conservative. You came here to enjoy our economy, our natural beauty and more. This is our home and if you wish to live here, you must adapt to our rules and our voting patterns, or leave. Conservatism is our culture. Do not destroy what we have created."

The graphic from his web page its entitled "Wanna Fight."

I guess he can be forgiven for not knowing that Alberta was home to the founding convention of the socialist CCF, the radical industrial syndicalist union the OBU, and the original farmers workers government the UFA, it was the origin of socialized medicine in Canada, even before Tommy Douglas. Even the right wing Social Credit party was result of left wing farmer worker discontent in Alberta.Like the rest of the Conservative historical revisionists in Alberta Chandler forgets that Alberta politics were based on populism and producerism.

Like those he threatens Craig is not originally from Alberta.

Chandler moved to Alberta, and ran in the 1997 provincial election as a candidate for the Social Credit Party of Alberta, led at that time by future Alberta Alliance party leader Randy Thorsteinson. Chandler ran in the riding of Calgary West, finishing with 1,100 votes, or 7.5% of the electorate. He later rejoined the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, and endorsed United Alternative candidate Brian Pallister in the party's 1998 Progressive Conservative leadership convention.

Nor is the right wing political business lobby front group he represents.

The Progressive Group for Independent Business (PGIB) was founded in 1992, in Burlington Ontario as a voice for small 'c' conservative business owners and individuals who were rapidly becoming economic refugees in their own country.

And he is proudly paleo-conservative. Which is how he makes his money. Through setting up political front groups. Which he then services. All very Republican.

Craig Chandler is chief executive officer of Concerned Christians Canada Inc., and a former pro-merger leadership candidate for the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

You will remember him from the Conservative Party leadership Convention.

In 2003, Chandler took out a membership in the Progressive Conservative Party in order to run in that party's 2003 leadership race. He ran on a platform of creating a coalition between the PC and Alliance party caucuses. He withdrew prior to voting in order to endorse the only other candidate that was open to tangible cooperation on the right, Calgary lawyer Jim Prentice.

The night before the PC leadership convention, Chandler delivered a platform that the Canadian Press described as homophobic, fundamentalist and "neoconservative to the bone." James Muldoon, a fundraiser for front runner Peter MacKay, described Chandler as "the true black face of neoconservatism. He could live to be 100 and he'll never know the meaning of, I am my brother's keeper." Chandler's statements were called "bitter and resentful" by MacKay, whom Chandler criticized for supporting of the passage of Criminal Code of Canada amendment Bill C-250 that added homosexuals to the list of groups protected by hate crimes legislation. Chandler suggested that the amendment would lead to the banning of the Bible and other religious texts in schools and public libraries. Chandler complimented Tory MP Elsie Wayne on her "honest statements" about homosexuals, suggesting that no one has to apologize for having an opinion, even if it is not politically correct. This section of his twenty minute speech was booed by many delegates.

And his political campaign against gays and lesbians resulted in this.

Edmontonian Rob Wells was pleased when the Canadian Human Rights Commission investigated his complaint against Craig Chandler, a Calgary-based “family values” activist. But Wells is not impressed with the actions the federal body is taking to remedy the situation.

Wells had alleged that three websites linked to Chandler—freetospeak.ca, concernedchristians.ca and freedomradionetwork.ca—contained material that is “likely to expose persons of an identifiable group to hatred or contempt.”

The Canadian Human Rights Commission’s investigation, received by the complainant in early July, agreed with Wells.

Canadian broadcast standards council

PRAIRIE regional panel

Decided January 9, 2007

CBSC File # 05/06-1959 – Complaint regarding a Freedom Radio Network program which was broadcast at 6:30 pm on Saturday, July 29, 2006 on AM 1140 Radio Station CHRB from High River, Alberta.

Freedom Radio Network is a talk show broadcast on CHRB-AM (High River) on Saturday evenings. The program’s website declares that the program is produced by people who are “freedom fighters for family values” and “socially conservative”. It is hosted by Craig Chandler and, on July 29, 2006, was co-hosted by Stephen Chapman

the decision

The Prairie Regional Panel examined the complaint under the following provisions of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) Code of Ethics:

CAB Code of Ethics, Clause 2 – Human Rights

Recognizing that every person has the right to full and equal recognition and to enjoy certain fundamental rights and freedoms, broadcasters shall ensure that their programming contains no abusive or unduly discriminatory material or comment which is based on matters of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status or physical or mental disability.

CAB Code of Ethics, Clause 6 – Full, Fair and Proper Presentation

It is recognized that the full, fair and proper presentation of news, opinion, comment and editorial is the prime and fundamental responsibility of each broadcaster. This principle shall apply to all radio and television programming, whether it relates to news, public affairs, magazine, talk, call-in, interview or other broadcasting formats in which news, opinion, comment or editorial may be expressed by broadcaster employees, their invited guests or callers.

CAB Code of Ethics, Clause 7 – Controversial Public Issues

Recognizing in a democracy the necessity of presenting all sides of a public issue, it shall be the responsibility of broadcasters to treat fairly all subjects of a controversial nature. Time shall be allotted with due regard to all the other elements of balanced program schedules, and the degree of public interest in the questions presented. Recognizing that healthy controversy is essential to the maintenance of democratic institutions, broadcasters will endeavour to encourage the presentation of news and opinion on any controversy which contains an element of the public interest.

The Prairie Regional Panel Adjudicators reviewed all of the correspondence and listened to a recording of the challenged episode. The Panel concludes that the broadcast was in violation of Clauses 6 and 7 but not Clause 2.

The Panel does not find that the co-hosts fared as well in terms of Clauses 6 and 7 of the Code. To begin, essentially all of the half hour was consumed with a one-sided attack on the complainant, who was a private, not a public, individual. This constituted, in and of itself, an unanswered application of the powerful microphone which broadcasters are licensed to use for the purposes laid down in the Broadcasting Act. This opportunity creates a disparity of power between the person(s) on the transmitting side of the microphone and those on the receiving end of the radio waves. There is, therefore, a need for those whose transmissions are to all extent untrammelled to exercise their licensed authority with a particular appreciation of the responsibility that that privilege bestows upon them. In the view of the Panel, the co-hosts exceeded reasonable bounds in this episode.

Among other things, they distorted the nature of the acts of the complainant in a serious way. They said that they had been accused of a “hate crime”.

The Panel considers that the cumulative effect of the comments discussed in the previous paragraphs of this section constitutes a breach of the obligation of broadcasters to present opinion, comment and editorial matter fully, fairly and properly, as required by Clause 6 of the CAB Code of Ethics.

The Panel is also mindful of the not unrelated obligation established in Clause 7 to treat fairly all subjects of a controversial nature. In this respect, it also finds the broadcaster in breach. Not only has Freedom Radio stacked the odds against the complainant by directing virtually the entire half hour against the complainant, it has boasted that it will not only sue him and take the matter to the Supreme Court if necessary (which is their right to do), but it will not pay any fines that may be levied (in apparent disregard of the anticipated order of the duly constituted judicial authorities). It is rather arrogant to state baldly that “We won’t pay those.” The Panel considers the judicial assertions unfair and an example of electronic bullying, which is precisely the opposite of what is anticipated by the requirement of fairness in Clause 7.

Appendix A

Appendix B

After failing to lead the Conservative Party, he went back to being a third party lobbyist in the 2004 Federal Election.

Craig Chandler, chief executive officer of Concerned Christians Canada, says some of his membership are worried there won’t be any surprises behind the curtain should the Conservatives get elected.

“I’m getting lots of calls from people thinking Stephen might be abandoning them for the sake of appearing moderate,” said Chandler, who says he has faith in the Conservative leader. “I’m hearing from some people who are not going to vote. What I’m trying to tell them is that’s crazy. We’ve never been this close to getting rid of the Liberals.”

While Harper, by all accounts, doesn’t rank social issues at the top of his agenda – “He’s never ever given two hoots about social issues,” says REAL Women’s Gwen Landolt – groups like Chander’s and Landolt’s believe he will have to listen to his caucus. And their goal is to get MPs who share their beliefs elected.

“Harper is busy distancing himself from social issues, but who is in his caucus? They can put pressure on him. We have to get them in,” says Landolt, who stresses there are candidates they support in all three main parties. “Individual MPs carry more weight. He’ll have to listen to them.”

Chandler says he’s been stressing to his organization that this is an election, and that their best opportunity to influence the party’s direction will come at the policy convention.

“I tell them to get involved, become delegates and then we can make a difference,” he says. “There will be huge pressure from social conservatives at the policy convention.

“We have to stick to the game plan. It’s all in the follow through.”

Ever the political opportunist he supported the creation of the Alberta Alliance.

Alberta Alliance Party leadership election, 2005

David Crutcher

Campaign slogan: "A new Alberta"

David Crutcher, a member of the Progressive Group for Independent business, backed by Craig Chandler, ran in Calgary Egmont, and won the largerst percentage of the popular vote of any Alliance candidate in Calgary in the 2004 election.

• Supports an Alberta provincial tax on consumer goods
• Supports publicly funded alternative medicine in order to save money and resources
• Supports traditional marriage and is pro-life
• Supports Alberta's separation from Canada if the Conservative Party of Canada does not win in the upcoming federal election

Now he is running for Eddie Stelmach's Tired Old Tories. With friends like these Eddies in big trouble.




H/T to Idealist Pragmatist and Daveberta



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