Assessment of Two Candidates for P.M.

Greg Weston, national politics writer for the Toronto Sun, in his April 4th column said:
"OTTAWA -- As Paul Martin heads down the final stretch into a national election campaign, probably in a matter of weeks, he is desperately trying to outrun the one person certain to dog him all the way to the finish line -- himself.
"For all the myriad improvements Martin has promised to make to the way his administration would 'do government,' he had yet to explain why he spent nine years doing it the old Liberal way.
"Martin talks up a storm about leading us all into a new era of responsible government, turning the words 'transparency and accountability' into a kind of Liberal mantra.
"Yet his record as finance minister includes blatant acts of fiscal secrecy on a scale so massive as to have repeatedly involved the wrath of Auditor General Sheila Fraser.
"Under Martin's tenure as finance minister, more than $9-billion of taxpayers' money was stashed in so-called 'independent foundations.'
"That is more than enough cash to provide free tuition to every student in the country, or almost double what the Romanow Commission figured it would take to eliminate waiting lines for health care.
"Instead, Martin & Co. set up seven foundations, and transferred mountains of public funds into their respective bank accounts which, by no coincidence, are beyond all normal scrutiny.
"Taxpayers get to see the size of the cheques going from government to the foundations, but nothing about how all that cash is ultimately spent.
"The foundations are up to their boardroom rafters in Liberal appointees, but their books are off-limits to the federal auditor general.
"The foundations throw money at all kinds of public causes previously funded by government -- everything from research grants to municipal 'greening' projects.
"But for some reason, who gets all this loot and why is all a big secret, exempted from the Access-to-Information Act and therefore beyond the reach of prying journalists.
Scathing- criticism
"In two separate audit reports while Martin was finance minister, Fraser singled out these foundations for clear and scathing criticism.
"In her first auditor general's report to Parliament in 2001, Fraser said: 'I am concerned that these huge amounts of public money are provided up front to foundations when there is such limited assurance of proper controls and accountability.'
"Two reports later, Fraser was again ringing the alarm bells: 'I am concerned that Parliament has only limited means of holding the government to account for the public policy functions performed by these foundations.'
"Where was Paul Martin, finance minister and would-be champion of transparency and accountability, while all this public money was being stuffed down these black holes?
"Defending it.
"In an interview with me the day after his last federal budget as finance minister in 2002, Martin got quite steamed on the subject, sounding as though the foundations had been among the most brilliant of his fiscal inventions.
"Asked why the auditor general would so damn such a great idea, Martin shrugged and told me: 'I don't know. You'll have to ask her.'
"Two years later, the recent budget (Martin's first as prime minister) includes $160-million more to be stashed in foundations -- $60-million more to Genome Canada; $100-million more to Canada Health Infoway. ..."
COMMENT: The very fact that when these Crown Foundations were set up by Mr. Martin in the '90s their expenditures were to be protected from access-to-information and governor-general probes, in itself casts doubt upon the probity of their establishment.

'Liberal' --Military Spending!
l The National Post, April 5, published a report captioned, "Military to use $50M on 'ridiculous' projects." A few excerpts:
"The cash-strapped Canadian Forces are being forced to spend tens of millions of dollars on programs that have little or nothing to do with military operations, according to internal documents obtained by the National Post.
"Three pre-budget assessments, prepared by the heads of the navy, army and air force and obtained through federal Access to Information legislation, outline more than $50-million in spending on environmental programs, bilingualism, historic buildings and making its barracks wheelchair accessible.
"Jay Hill, the Conservative defence critic, said it is 'ridiculous' to make the military pay for such programs at a time when it is finding it difficult to pay for ammunition and fuel for aircraft and warships.
" 'The Liberals continue to refuse to adequately fund the military - they're bleeding them dry,' he said. 'It's ridiculous that they expect the military to fund things that should be rightfully under some other ministry's budget.' ..."
COMMENT: In other words, considering the Liberals' criminal under-funding of our defence forces plus the ridiculous way they spend much of what funds they do allot, another few years of this regime and our military forces could look like this: a few thousand forsaken personnel bereft of modern weapons --- no modern artillery, tanks, helicopters, planes, ships, etc. -- but beautifully bilingual, with lovely environment and historic architecture with fine wheelchair-accessible barracks.
A most attractive target for any terrorist or enemy forces!

Harper's Conservatives: Leadership and Policy?
Credentials for leadership
Stephen Harper in 1993, at the age of 34, was elected to Parliament for the Reform Party in a Calgary riding. And for the next four years as an MP acted as a policy advisor for his party's leader, Preston Manning.
He did not run in the 1997 federal election, reportedly because of some difference with Manning over party policy. And shortly thereafter was appointed national president of the National Citizens Coalition, which position he filled until two years ago when he contested and won the leadership of the Alliance (formerly the Reform) Party -- a party at that time convulsing internally in discord and disintegration, yet with over sixty MPs the Official Opposition.

Two major accomplishments
Within very few months of assuming leadership of the Alliance, he successfuly united the party on policy and focus, to the surprise of the political establishment.
Then, without missing a beat, he established a successful liaison with Peter McKay, leader of the federal Conservative Party. And a few months ago, to the amazement of the national newsmedia and political establishment, these two parties merged into the Conservative Party of Canada.
Then, last month in a three-candidate national Leadership election of party members, Harper won a resounding victory, sweeping Western provinces by over 80% and winning in over 90% of Ontario ridings, thus becoming leader of the new Conservative Party of Canada. He immediately appointed MP Peter McKay his deputy leader to the acclaim of all segments of the party.
Silencing his critics
The newsmedia in the past has often criticized Mr. Harper's style or personality as being too 'laid-back, a bit of an introvert, not resonating with the public. But his surprising accomplishments of the past few months and his recent successful Maritime tour pretty well allay these views.
Certainly, he seems to be resonating with the Toronto Sun, which on March 28th featured the following editorial:
"In a week dominated by a lame Liberal budget, the revelation of a secret 'national unity reserve' fund from which the previous Liberal PM dispensed a half-billion dollars, and more explosive testimony about the Liberal sponsorship scandal, Conservatives didn't have much hope of making headlines.
"But Conservative leader Stephen Harper, in his first week as head of the newly united party ... certainly deserved to.
"In a compelling speech in response to Paul Martin's first budget as PM, Harper nailed precisely what makes the Martin Liberals' vows to clean up government so hard to take.
"As he noted, Martin and the Liberals have been promising to clean up government since before they came to power more than a decade ago. Why should we believe them now?
"The new budget promises, among other things, to re-establish the position of a national Comptroller General 'to rigorously oversee all government spending.'
"Good idea, said Harper, but why don't we have a comptroller general now? Who axed the position in the first place?
"Why, he said, it was none other than Paul Martin, in his first budget as finance minister, in 1994.
"The very next year, Harper said, Martin vowed to 'mark a major departure from the past' with a new system of spending controls that would 'eliminate waste and abuse and ensure value for the taxpayer's dollar.' Sound familiar?
"Martin then began a detailed program review and made deep spending cuts, especially to health care, from which the country has never recovered.
"Yet 1995 was also the year the Grits created the sponsorship program -- about which Martin says he knew nothing.
"Reiterated Harper: 'The year in which the Liberals created the sponsorship program was also the year in which the current Prime Minister first vowed to root out waste and abuse to taxpayer dollars.
" 'The year that the Liberals created the sponsorship program was also the year in which the current prime minister massively cut spending on health care.'
"He concluded: 'The Prime Minister cannot have it both ways. He cannot claim, on the one hand, to have "reformed government programs," to have "eliminated waste and abuse," and at the same time claim that he had absolutely no idea that $100-million was being shovelled into the hands of Liberal friends.' Exactly. ..."
What about Policy?
As this is being written, April 7th, it's only about three months ago the Alliance-P.C. merger brought forth the new Conservative Party, which was then immediately immersed in the leadership campaign. So the new party hasn't yet had any opportunity to consider and meet to hammer out a full policy program.
Therefore, respecting Conservative Party policy, the best we can do at this point is to piece together published words and statements attributed to Mr. Harper and other leadership personnel in his party.
While Mr. Harper was working on the merger problem with Mr. McKay he was interviewed by Linda Williamson of the Toronto Sun. Here is an excerpt from her Dec. llth column:
"Now, Harper knows as well as anyone what his chances are for the job at the moment. But he offered a remarkable vision anyway. After five years of a Harper government, he said, Canada would be 'more prosperous,' and have, among other things, a fully elected Senate, more transparent, accountable government, and a much more robust armed forces. He'd emphasize law and order and 'free enterprise solutions to public policy issues,' including health care, while ensuring 'no one will ever be denied treatment because of ability to pay.' "
The National Post, March 19, discussing this policy question, said:
"Policy pronouncements made over the course of the (leadership) campaign by Stephen Harper, Belinda Stronach and Tony Clement paint a clear picture of the party's principles.
"Common themes include lower taxes, more respect for provincial jurisdictions, stable health funding, more military spending, more co-operation with the United States on continental security, stiffer penalties for criminals, scrapping the firearms registry and democratic reforms such as an elected Senate and parliamentary review of Supreme Court appointments."
Harper on occasions has intimated that he favours, on contentious social issues, letting parliament resolve them by a free vote.
To summarize, the main planks we can expect in the Conservatives' first election platform would include:
Strengthen and improve our national medicare system.
Lower tax rates to help all Canadians and make our industry more competitive.
Adequately fund and build up our defence forces.
Establish an elected Senate.
Scrap firearms registry scheme.
Review appointment process of Supreme Court Justices.
Improve federal-provincial relations by respecting each other's jurisdictions.
Parliamentary reform; more accountability, free votes, etc.
Close U.S.-Canadian relations re. trade and defence.

A final word
The foregoing list is by no means a comprehensive summary of important issues facing government today, but it's sufficient to give some indication in the direction of Conservative policy at this time.
To those who might feel a little restless because your personal area of special interest or issue has not been yet addressed, I offer this thought: In a genuinely responsible and democratic society, a measure of patience is always necessary. Government does not move faster than its electorate is prepared to move with it. And, in any case, direction is much more important than speed. And I submit that a modest move in the direction indicated above would constitute a short, but constructive, step in the right direction.

Gibson and His Enemies

Passion Proves Gospels Still Matter
This past March 11 we received an e-mail which included this article by Steven Greenhut under the above caption:
What role would I have played in The Passion? Not the movie but the real-life drama. That's what I thought about as I watched Mel Gibson's spectacular, moving account of the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ's life on Earth.
Would I have cheered as Christ was sentenced to death? Would I have laughed as he was tormented toward the cross? It's scary to contemplate.
Gibson answered the question for himself. His only on-screen performance was of his arm and hand hammering the nail through Christ's hand. In one small dramatic act, Gibson exposed Abraham Foxman's and the Anti-Defamation League's efforts to defame the biblical account of Christ's death as anti-Semitic.
Gibson was saying, loud and clear, that he helped crucify his Lord and Saviour. It was his actions, his sins. Christ was crucified by everyone's sins. This story, quite obviously isn't about Jews per se. It's a story featuring Jews in lead roles, but it's about every human being. That's why when my teen-age daughter and I watched the movie Sunday night, there was a chorus of sniffling and crying all around us.
People understand that, even if the ethnic hate-mongers at the Anti-Defamation League don't. Some columnists are trying to suggest, outrageously, that Gibson is the equivalent of a Holocaust denier. They are sounding increasingly bitter, increasingly desperate given the success of the movie and their own irrelevance.
Liberal critics of the movie were aghast at the violence portrayed in it. Well, we finally find a movie that is too violent for these critics. Not "Kill Bill," which liberals celebrated as a hip and edgy film, but The Passion. Violence is too much for them if it is in service to a religious message they simply cannot stand.
The beauty of the film, beyond the magnificent imagery, fine acting and stunning photography, was the portrayal of the key action of our faith as a real event. This, I suppose, is a close portrayal of how the crucifixion and the hours leading up to it took place. As such, I watched and wondered. What would I have done?
That's a central question. Would I have been among the throngs of religious people yelling, "Crucify him!"? Would I have been a Roman guard tormenting the Christ as he laboured up the hill with the crucifix on his back? Or would I have simply been an onlooker, doing nothing, saying nothing, misunderstanding the significance of the event?
Would I have denied Christ to save my skin?
It was quite powerful to ponder such questions. Even more powerful to think about the likely answers.
Gibson's portrayal of Mary was magnificent. She was real woman, laughing and interacting with her child in flashbacks. Can any parent imagine what it would be like to watch our child tortured in such a way? The pain would be unbearable. Mary's suffering was immense.
I was pleased that evangelical Protestants have so freely embraced a movie that is not shy about its Marian intentions. It's time all Christians treat the Mother of God with the honour she deserves. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm a Jewish convert to Eastern Orthodoxy.)

America's eminent newscaster, Paul Harvey, on Gibson's movie
(Wednesday, February 25, 2004)
I really did not know what to expect. I was thrilled to have been invited to a private viewing of Mel Gibson's film, "The Passion," but I had also read all the cautious articles and spin. I grew up in a Jewish town and owe much of my own faith journey to the influence. I have a life-long, deeply held aversion to anything that might even indirectly encourage any form of anti-Semitic thought, language or actions.
I arrived at the private viewing for "The Passion," held in Washington, DC, and greeted some familiar faces. The environment was typically Washingtonian, with people greeting you with a smile but seeming to look beyond you, having an agenda beyond the words. The film was very briefly introduced, without fanfare, and then the room darkened.
From the gripping opening scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, to the very human and tender portrayal of the earthly ministry of Jesus, through the betrayal, the arrest, the scourging, the way of the cross, the encounter with the thieves, the surrender on the Cross, until the final scene in the empty tomb, this was not simply a movie; it was an encounter, unlike anything I have ever experienced.
In addition to being a masterpiece of film-making and an artistic triumph, "The Passion" evoked more deep reflection, sorrow and emotional reaction within me than anything since my wedding, my ordination or the birth of my children.
Frankly, I will never be the same.
When the film concluded, this "invitation only" gathering of "movers and shakers" in Washington, DC, were shaking indeed, but this time from sobbing.
I am not sure there was a dry eye in the place. The crowd that had been glad-handing before the film was now eerily silent. No one could speak because words were woefully inadequate. We had experienced a kind of art that is a rarity in life, the kind that makes heaven touch earth.
One scene in the film has now been forever etched in my mind.
A brutalized, wounded Jesus was soon to fall again under the weight of the cross. His mother had made her way along the Via Della Rosa. As she ran to him, she flashed back to a memory of Jesus as a child falling in the dirt road outside of their home. Just as she reached to protect him from the fall, she was reaching to touch his wounded adult face.
Jesus looked at her with intensely probing and passionately loving eyes (and at all of us through the screen) and said "Behold I make all things new."
These are words taken from the last Book of the New Testament, the Book of Revelation. Suddenly, the purpose of the pain was so clear and the wounds that earlier in the film had been so difficult to see in His face, His back, indeed all over His body, became intensely beautiful. They had been borne voluntarily for love.
At the end of the film, after we had all had a chance to recover, a question-and-answer period ensued. The unanimous praise for the film, from a rather diverse crowd, was as astounding as the compliments were effusive.
The questions included the one question that seems to follow this film, even though it has not yet even been released. "Why is this film considered by some to be 'anti-Semitic'?"
Frankly, having now experienced (you do not 'view' this film) "The Passion," it is a question that is impossible to answer. A law professor whom I admire sat in front of me. He raised his hand and responded: "After watching this film, I do not understand how anyone can insinuate that it even remotely presents that the Jews killed Jesus. It doesn't." He continued, "It made me realize that my sins killed Jesus."
I agree. There is not a scintilla of anti-Semitism to be found anywhere in this powerful film. If there were, I would be among the first to decry it. It faithfully tells the Gospel story in a dramatically beautiful, sensitive and profoundly engaging way.
Those who are alleging otherwise have either not seen the film or have another agenda behind their protestations. This is not a "Christian" film, in the sense that it will appeal only to those who identify themselves as followers of Jesus Christ. It is a deeply human, beautiful story that will deeply touch all men and women. It is a profound work of art. Yes, its producer is a Catholic Christian and thankfully has remained faithful to the Gospel text. If that is no longer acceptable behaviour, then we are all in trouble. History demands that we remain faithful to the story and Christians have a right to tell it. After all, we believe that it is the greatest story ever told and that its message is for all men and women...

"The Rest of the Story!"
Paul Harvey's newscasts usually end up with a little insightful item - "The Rest of the Story!". A March 17th e-mail brought us that date's revealing "rest of the Gibson story"! Here it is:
"Years ago a hard-working man took his family from New York State to Australia to take advantage of a work opportunity there. Part of this man's family was a handsome son who had aspirations of joining the circus as a trapeze artist or an actor. This young fellow, biding his time until a circus job or even as a stagehand came along, worked at the local shipyards which bordered on the worst section of town.
"Walking home from work one evening, this young man was attacked by five thugs who wanted to rob him. Instead of just giving up his money the young fellow resisted. However, they bested him easily and proceeded to beat him to a pulp.
"They mashed his face with their boots, and kicked and beat his body brutally with clubs, leaving him for dead. When the police happened to find him lying in the road they assumed he was dead and called for the Morgue Wagon. On the way to the morgue, a policeman heard him gasp for air, and they immediately took him to the emergency unit at the hospital.
"When he was placed on a gurney, a nurse remarked to her horror, that this young man no longer had a face. His eye socket was smashed, his skull, legs and arms fractured, his nose literally hanging from his face, all his teeth were gone, and his jaw was almost completely torn from his skull. Although his life was spared, he spent over a year in the hospital. When he finally left, his body may have healed but his face was disgusting to look at. He no longer was the handsome youth that everyone admired. When the young man started to look for work again, he was turned down by everyone just on account of the way he looked. One potential employer suggested to him that he join the freak show at the circus as 'The man who had no face.'
"And he did this for a while. He was still rejected by everyone and no one wanted to be seen in his company. He had thoughts of suicide. This went on for 5 years. One day he passed a church and sought some solace there. Entering the church he encountered a priest who had seen him sobbing while kneeling in a pew. The priest took pity on him and took him to the rectory where they talked at length. The priest was impressed with him to such a degree that he said that he would do everything possible for him that could be done to restore his dignity and life, if the young man would promise to be the best Catholic he could be, and trust in God's mercy to free him from his torturous life. The young man went to Mass and Communion every day, and after thanking God for saving his life, asked God to only give him peace of mind and the grace to be the best man he could ever be in His eyes. The priest, through his personal contacts was able to secure the services of the best plastic surgeon in Australia. There would be no cost to the young man, as the doctor was the priest's best friend. The doctor too was so impressed by the young man, whose outlook now on life, even though he had experienced the worst, was filled with good humor and love.
"The surgery was a miraculous success. All the best dental work was also done for him. The young man became everything he promised God he would be. He was also blessed with a wonderful wife, and many children, and success in an industry which would have been the furthest thing from his mind as a career, if not for the goodness of God and the love of the people who cared for him. This he acknowledges publicly.
"The young man was and is ... Mel Gibson. His life was the inspiration for his production of the movie "The Man Without A Face." ... And to think I admired him before I knew any of this! He is quite a man!!"

Ex-KGB men tighten their grip on Russia

Is Free Trade and War Bankrupting the USA?
The March 14th issue of the Toronto Sun carried a column by Eric Margolis captioned "Bush's war is a financial disaster." Following, is the major portion of this column.
In my view, two primary objectives drove the U.S. invasion of Iraq: oil and its support for Israel.
White House claims about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism were propaganda smoke screens. ...
The U.S. now controls Iraq, a strategic nation with the Mideast's second largest oil reserves.
The CIA estimates China's and India's surging, oil-hungry economies will cause world oil shortages by 2030, or sooner.
Accordingly, the Bush administration moved to assure America's global hegemony by seizing Mideast and Central Asian oil before the impending crisis. Doing so required occupying Iraq and Afghanistan.
The U.S. imports little oil from the Mideast or Central Asia. However, these regions are primary oil sources for Europe and Japan -- and, increasingly, for India and China.
By dominating these oil sources, the U.S. controls the economies of its main commercial and potential military rivals. Control of the Muslim world's oil is the principal pillar of America's world power.
The Pentagon plans three permanent major military bases in Iraq from which powerful garrisons of U.S. air and ground forces, backed by mercenary native troops, will police not just Iraq but the entire Mideast and guard the new "imperial lifeline" of pipelines exporting oil from Central Asia and the Arab world.
Other U.S. bases in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan, linked to bases in Bulgaria and Romania, will guard the new imperial route.
The second objective, in my view, was aiding Israel.
Influential American supporters of Israel's rightist prime minister, Ariel Sharon, played a significant role in building the case for war against Iraq.
From various positions in the White House, Pentagon, National Security Council, media and taxpayer-supported Washington think tanks, these neo-conservatives helped to orchestrate the campaign about Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction and trumpeted alleged threats from Iraq.

Mini-states
The neo-cons achieved their objective: Iraq, once the Arab world's most developed, industrialized nation, a bitter foe of Israel, was destroyed, and will likely end up split into three weak mini-states.
Israel is a primary beneficiary of the Iraq war: a potential nuclear rival was eliminated by the U.S.
Many neo-cons believed crushing Iraq would help to cement Israel's grip on the occupied West Bank and Golan, thwart a Palestinian state and force the Arab nations to accept Israel's regional hegemony.
But for the United States, Iraq was at best a pyrrhic victory. Invading and occupying Iraq has proven to be a financial disaster. The invasion cost $105-billion US in direct expenses -- the price of five complete carrier battle groups, or one million low-cost apartments.
Occupying Iraq costs $9-billion monthly.
Pre-war neo-con plans to finance the occupation by plundering Iraq's oil have been frustrated by sabotage. Congress estimates the overall cost of "pacifying" and "rebuilding" Iraq for fiscal 2003 and 2004 at a staggering $200-billion.
This money will have to be borrowed by the empty treasury, which, thanks to Bush's reckless "war" spending, is running huge deficits heading toward $400-billion (annually - Ed.), risking an explosion of inflation that threatens to undermine the long-term bond market and further weaken the dollar. ...
Iraq lies in ruins. "Rebuilding Iraq" means paying for all the damage caused by massive U.S. bombing and years of sanctions.

Puppet regime
In spite of rosy claims from the White House about handing sovereignty to Iraqis, American troops will garrison Iraq for years to guard the oil fields and maintain a "democratic" puppet regime in power in Baghdad that obeys Washington's orders.
U.S. forces will continue to face a simmering, low-grade guerrilla war that will kill or wound more American troops, and increasingly brutalize and corrupt occupation forces -- the inevitable result of a11 colonial wars. In short, America now has its own West Bank, or Lebanon.
The brazen arrogance and profound ignorance shown by the Bush administration in its crusade against Iraq has turned the world against the United States. Occupied Iraq is acting as a terrorism generator. For the next generation of young Muslims, Iraq is becoming what Afghanistan was in the 1980s, a rallying point to fight foreign occupation, battle imperialism and defend the tattered honour of the Muslim world. Bush and his men have created millions of new enemies.
Half of all U.S. ground combat forces are tied down in and around Iraq. Reserves are being mobilized for long tours. Wear and tear on overstretched U.S. forces and their heavy equipment is a grave, though little discussed, problem.
Neo-con promises of "liberation" of Iraq, of joyous, flower-tossing crowds and of rapid "democratization" have turned to dust. Iraq remains a dangerous, volatile mess seething with violence and implacable Shia political demands. Twenty resistance groups now battle U.S. and allied occupation troops. Militant Islamic jihadis are heading for Iraq to fight "Great Satan" America. Yet Bush still claims invading Iraq made America safer.
However, because of Iraq, much of the world now regards America itself as a menacing, unstable threat.

President Bush has stuck his head into a hornet's nest.
The U.S. will bleed men, money and reputation for a long time before it figures out how to get out of the first colonial misadventure of the 21st century.
Openness 'creating Dutch ghettos'
The Jan. l, 2004 National post published a report under the above caption. Here are excerpts:
"THE HAGUE - Holland's 30-year experiment in trying to create a tolerant, multicultural society has failed and led to ethnic ghettos and sink schools, according to an official parliamentary report.
"Between 70% and 80% of Dutch-born members of immigrant families import their spouse from their 'home' country, perpetuating a fast-growing Muslim subculture. ...
"While the report praised most immigrants for assimilating and for doing well at school, it attacked successive governments for stoking ethnic separatism.
"The worst mistake was to encourage children to speak Turkish, Arabic or Berber in primary schools rather than Dutch.
"The report concluded that Holland's 850,000 Muslims must become Dutch if the country were to hold together. ...
"Maxime Verhagen, the Christian Democrat leader in parliament, said one had to be 'either naive or ignorant' not to understand that the policy had led the country into a cul-de-sac. ...
"For years Holland was seen as a glowing example of multi-ethnic tolerance, making huge efforts to make immigrants feel at home. Funding was provided for ethnic diversity projects, including 700 Islamic clubs that are often run by hard-line clerics. ..."
A Feb. 18, 2004 National Post report said that 26,000 Dutch immigrant claimants would be stripped of their asylum benefits and flown back to their home countries, noting:
"A parliamentary report last month concluded the country's 30-year experiment in tolerant multi-culturalism had been a failure, ending in violence and ethnic ghettos that shun inter-marriage with the Dutch.
"It found that 70%-80% of third-generation Dutch-born immigrants import their spouse from their 'home' countries, mostly Turkey and Morocco. The consequences of this were brought home after Sept. 11, 2001, when the intelligence service discovered that al-Qaeda was 'stealthily taking root in Dutch society.' ..."
The next day, Feb. 19, the National Post, in another report on this subject, noted:
"Canada has its own 36,000 failed refugee claimants under deportation orders, yet still living and working in the country. We also give hundreds of millions annually to ethnic organizations, and rely far too heavily on family reunification rather than skills-based immigration. Intelligence services and anti-terrorism experts have warned that our lax enforcement of refugee expulsion has encouraged terrorists to set up operations in our midst."
COMMENT: In short, is open-door, indiscriminate ethnic-mixing immigration really the way to build national unity? Or is it the road to national destabilization, fragmentation, and ultimate national disintegration?

Welfare and Dope = Prosperity!

Canada: A home for terrorists?
A Feb. 17th C-FAR e-mail brought us this item:
"An alleged Tamil gangleader, labelled a 'trained terrorist assassin' by police, is being given another chance to stay in Canada. The Federal Court of Canada has granted Niranjan Claude Fabian, 36, a new hearing to prove he's not a danger to the public, as he was deemed in 1998.
"If Fabian is ruled a danger at the hearing, he will be deported to another country except Sri Lanka, where he'd be killed. If not, he will remain in Canada, his lawyer said yesterday.
"The court, in a decision obtained Friday, said Fabian was identified by a Toronto Police Tamil task force in 1998 as a former assassin for the outlawed Tamil Tigers, a known terrorist group in Sri Lanka.
"He's 'second or third in command of the VVT, a known Tamil gang active in the Toronto area,' the task force said.
"Fabian was jailed for 16 months in 1998 for fraud, councelling to commit murder and having a forged passport.
"At that time, Justice James Russell said Fabian will resort to violence to protect his interest in the illicit trade in passports.
" 'Innocent people could have been harmed,' Russell said. 'His criminal mindset discloses little respect for the law.'
"Immigration officials said Fabian can help terrorists and other criminals enter Canada through the use of his forged passports.
"Fabian told court the Tigers had issued a warrant for his death if he returned to Sri Lanka. His lawyer, Joel Sandaluk, said Fabian is being detained and will have a detention hearing in two weeks. (Toronto Sun, Feb. 16, 2004)"
COMMENT: Too bad Ernst Zundel isn't a gangster and fraudster rather than a law-abiding pacifist!

Church says bill will make Bible hate literature
The National Post, Mar. 27th, under the above caption published the following report:
Portions of the Bible are in danger of being condemned as hate literature, say religious groups opposed to changes in the Criminal Code to be debated next week by the Senate.
In a letter to Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said yesterday that Bill C-250 proposes changes that could lead to the Church being prosecuted for its teaching that "sexual conduct between people of the same sex is morally wrong."
"Participation in the current public debate on marriage has demonstrated there are individuals who believe that Catholic Church teaching on homosexual behaviour is hatred. We remain concerned that this bill as ... drafted could be used in an attempt to silence Church teaching in this regard," they said.
The Catholic bishops urged Senators to change New Democrat MP Svend Robinson's private member's bill, which includes sexual orientation in the hate propaganda section of the Criminal Code, so that no one could be prosecuted under the hate crimes provisions for publicly commenting on sexual morality.
The bishops said they have seen the impact of including sexual orientation in previous legislation and suggested they have little confidence in reassurances that the change in the Criminal Code will not affect freedom of religion.
Janet Epp Buckingham, the director of law and public policy for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, said Senators have told her they are "getting a ton of phone calls and e-mails opposing the bill," but said there is also "quite a bit of momentum for the bill to pass."
The evangelical fellowship said if C-250 is passed, it will endanger faith groups' freedom to read, preach and distribute sacred texts and to publicly discuss and comment on sexual morality.
The evangelical fellowship cited a 1997 Saskatchewan court ruling that bumper stickers including biblical passages condemning homosexual acts did expose homosexuals to hatred and ridicule.
"While this case was decided under provisions of a provincial human rights code that prohibited the promotion of hatred, a court could issue a similar ruling under the proposed legislation," it said.
COMMENT: We were given to understand that we fought both World War I and World War II in defence of freedom. But it's rather obvious that since our military victories, our politicians and governments have been incessantly capitulating on our behalf to the enemies of freedom until it now looks as though we could end up in the very totalitarian chains against which we waged two savage and costly wars. What goes here!

Finally, we win one!
"No film grant for gay take on Lolita," was the caption, and "Minister nixes $1,000" the subheading, of the following report in the March 31st issue of the Toronto Sun by its Queen's Park Bureau Chief, Antonella Artuso:
A gay version of Lolita -- in line for a $1,000 taxpayer-funded film grant -- will not be getting the money after a11, Culture Minister Madeleine Meilleur says.
Meilleur said she was "uncomfortable" with the subject matter of the film, but said the decision to reject the film was made by the board of the Independent Film-makers Co-operative of Ottawa.
Ken Takahashi's film, entitled Last Night With Jessie, dealing with man-boy sexual issues, had received the approval of the selection jury of IFCO, which receives funding from the Ontario Arts Council.
Tory MPP John Yakabuski said a film about "pedophilia relationships" is undeserving of public dollars.
"Hardly a day goes by that we don't read a story about some despicable account of sexual abuse perpetrated against Children in this province" he said.
"While our police officers go out each day and try to prevent these events from taking place, and bring the criminals to justice when they do, governments give tacit approval by funding organizations that produce and promise this kind of garbage."
Meilleur said she did not believe provincial money should flow to this type of production.
COMMENT: Ontario Culture Minister Madeleine Meilleur is to be commended, not only for saving Ontario taxpayers the $1,000 but also for saving Ontarians a bag of filth.

Only brass made a Mint
The March 3rd Toronto Sun published a report under the above caption by Maria McClintock of its Ottawa Bureau, with the sub-heading, "Layoffs hit staff." Here are excerpts:
"OTTAWA - Canada's spending watchdog has launched a probe into the money-losing Royal Canadian Mint amid allegations top officials got 45% pay raises during a wave of belt-tightening and staff layoffs, Sun Media has learned.
"A Mint whistleblower said he has been interviewed twice by the auditor general's office and has also handed over a slew of documents. ...
"Since the Mint is a Crown corporation, the results of the audits won't be made public unless it decides to do so.
"The whistleblower was laid off from his job in the Mint's human resources department on June 19, 2003. He said shortly after that, his supervisor told him 59 people were offered early retirement packages while 12 others were laid off.
"Despite those measures, the Mint's top brass continued to benefit from steady pay hikes.
"Figures from the Mint show that between 1999 and 2003 the president's salary rose from $181,700 to $240,900. Vice-presidents got a $63,000 boost to $201,000 in that time period, while directors got a similar $60,000 raise to $180,662.
"During the same period the financial fortunes of the Mint changed drastically. In 1999, it posted a $23.1-million profit. By 2003, that dropped to a $6.6-million loss.
" 'I'm expecting a full public investigation into the Royal Canadian Mint and how the place is being run,' the whistleblower said yesterday. ...
"The whistleblower said he has written Prime Minister Paul Martin and Revenue Minister Stan Keyes but has had no response."
COMMENT: Hey! Paul, just whom is this elite clique down at our Mint 'minting' for? After all, this, too, was developing during your watch!

Our criminal immigration policy
"Yanks: Canada terrorist haven," is the caption of a report in the Feb. 16th Toronto Sun. A few excerpts:
"OTTAWA -- Canada has been branded a 'favoured destination for terrorists and international criminals' by the research arm of the U.S. Congress. ...
" 'Canada has played a significant role as a base for trans-national criminal activity and terrorist activity,' the report says."
The caption of a Feb. 16th National Post report reads: "Liberalism makes Canada soft on terror, U.S. report says." Here are excerpts:
"Canada's liberalism, weak laws and long, porous border make it a haven for terrorists and a liability for the United States, a global security assessment by the U.S. government concludes.
" 'Terrorists and international organized crime groups increasingly are using Canada as an operational base and transit country en route to the United States,' says the report. 'A generous social-welfare system, lax immigration laws, infrequent prosecutions, light sentencing, and long borders and coastlines offer many points and methods of entry that facilitate movement to and from various countries, particularly to the United States.'
"The report, Nations Hospitable to Organized Crime and Terrorism, was completed by the U.S. Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency's Crime and Narcotics Centre last fall. It looks at the level of corruption, border security, immigration and political will in nations across the world to determine the risk those countries pose to global security. ..."

Scrap the refugee board
The National Post, March 3rd, published the following column by James Bissett, "a former Canadian ambassador (who) served as the head of the Canadian Immigration Service from 1985-1990."
It seems obvious that Immigration Minister Judy Sgro's March 16th announcement ending political appointments at the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) was timed as a pre-emptive strike to soften the political fallout from yet another patronage scandal. This one involved the 278 criminal charges laid against a former IRB judge, Yves Bourbonnais. The announcement was also intended as evidence of Prime Minister Paul Martin's promise to root out political patronage and corruption in government. Sadly, the changes proposed by the Minister smack more of hurried political manoeuvring than as a serious effort to reform our dysfunctional asylum system.
Most Canadians would agree that refugee decisions should not be made by people whose only expertise has been loyal service to the Liberal party. However, the new system for selecting board members leaves much to be desired. Candidates will now have to undergo a selection process involving such esoteric criteria as, "conceptual and analytical thinking" and "self control." What these so-called "skills" have to do with deciding who is or is not a genuine refugee is not explained.
To make matters worse, the initial assessment of candidates will be done by an advisory panel of lawyers, academics, refugee advocates and human resource experts! Has the Minister not heard of conflict of interest? For the most part, these advisors will be refugee activists who have a special interest in maintaining a wide-open asylum system. It is the lawyers and NGOs who are on the receiving end of the millions of dollars needed to represent and care for those who arrive to apply for asylum. Engaging them to advise her in her selection of board members is tantamount to asking a family of foxes to choose who among them will be placed in charge of the chicken coop.
Yet it is these very groups that are designated by the Minister and her department as "stakeholders." Stakeholder is the new euphemism for lobbyist, but whatever the name these are the special interest groups who have much to gain by advocating a continuation of our extravagant system. These are the "stakeholders" who appear before Parliamentary committees pressing for more relaxed asylum policies. These are the special interest groups who lobby hard to prevent any sensible reform to the system and resist any suggestions that the current process is out of control and outrageously expensive.
Because this is Canada, it is, of course, impossible to get an accurate figure for the amount of tax dollars spent on the processing and caring for the 30-to-40-thousand people who arrive each year asking for asylum. After all, the government and its stakeholders do not want Canadians to know the cost of our asylum system. The costs are hidden. They are diffused through different levels of government and cut across a number of different departments of government.
Nevertheless, it is possible to make some rough estimates based on the costs born by other asylum-receiving countries. For example, the cost of housing and support for 40,800 asylum seekers in Britain in 2002/3 was approximately $2.4-billion. During that period, Canada had roughly the same number of asylum seekers and it is safe to assume our annual costs would be comparable. Indeed our costs would likely exceed the British figure if the free legal service Canada provides asylum seekers were to be added.
Two billion dollars is roughly twice the amount of money the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has each year to support and care for over 21 million refugees in its camps around the world. Since most of these refugees are women and children, the sick and the elderly, they cannot afford to pay international criminals to smuggle them into Canada. As a result, they do not have the benefits of our generous asylum system.
No other country would accept, as Canada did last year, more than 5,000 citizens of the United States, Mexico and Costa Rica as asylum seekers. No other asylum-receiving country has an expensive refugee board to arbitrate asylum claims. Elsewhere, initial asylum decisions are made by professionally trained, career refugee officers who are civil servants and not subject to political influence. A recommendation to do away with the IRB and establish a career cadre of professional refugee officers was made to the government in 1997 in a report entitled, Not Just Numbers. This is the direction that Canada should be following, and as a first step, the refugee board should be scrapped.
Either the Minister is serious about introducing, as she put it, a "mighty wind of change" into the current process or her recent announcement is simply a red herring designed to appease the "stakeholders" and avoid having to reform the morally bankrupt charade that poses as Canada's asylum system today.
COMMENT: Well, there are the facts and the reality of our present immigration mess, from the pen of our former head of our Canadian Immigration Service.

Canada's prisoner of conscience writes from prison cell

-By Ron Gostick-
Saturday, April 24: Since sending all the material and Letter to the printer's for our May-June issue, a further insightful document has reached us respecting the Ernst Zundel case which we have covered in our recent reports, which I feel should be drawn to your attention immediately. Consequently, this unprecedented 4th supplementary section.
Our readers who have been following this incredible story already know that Mr. Zundel has been incarcerated for about 16 months, most of it in the Toronto West Detention Centre -- as yet without any specific charge but merely on the strength of a political 'Ministerial Certificate' alleging that he is possibly a threat to Canadian security! And we have already reported on the horrible, subhuman conditions, including almost non-sustainable food rations and deprivation of his regimen of vitamins and herbs with which for years he has been battling cancer. And the long series of 'kangaroo court' appearances inflicted upon him, where truth is no defence and he can't know who, let alone cross-examine, those individuals or groups who are feeding the Judge and Prosecution the stories and allegations against him.
And we do know from the public record of this prisoner-of-conscience that he resided in Canada for over 40 years with no criminal record whatsoever; that he is a pacifist and his alleged 'crime' by those promoting his persecution is being politically incorrect respecting some aspect of WWII casualties.
However, yesterday I received by post a letter from Mr. Zundel handwritten with pencil in his prison cell, dated 16-4-04, which gives one a picture of this poor, demonized -- yet brave and majestic - prisoner's mental balance and perspicacity after long months of satanic deprivation, stress and psychological intimidation.

Following, is his letter:
Dear friends Gostick! It's Friday, I was in Court on the 13th & 14th of April again and I just wanted to give you a quick update on the way I perceive things after those two days.
The Judge heard more secret evidence last week in Ottawa, and this week in Toronto before the proceedings started!
It's more than eerie, when one is told that at the outset of a court date, because invariably it means that more new accusations will have been made to the Judge; and more, possibly concocted, fabricated, but in any case unopposed and untested by the defence, testimony and documents have been given to the Judge -- which I and my lawyers have no way of even guessing what it might be!
I would have to know someone like Edgar Cayce, America's most famous somnambulist known as the "Sleeping Prophet," to even have a remote chance to divine as to what the Jewish side and their minions in government and the bureaucracy have fed to that poor Judge last week and this week in the form of lies, poison and innuendo!
You talk about Star Chamber proceedings, and that in the world of the globe-girdling Internet! To listen to the absolutely convoluted objections and the explanations of that poor Judge who has to defend the government's indefensible positions is a very sobering and very sorry sight.
One thing is certain: the New World Order System of Justice is already here!
It makes the injustices inflicted on the defendants at Nuremberg and other war-crime trials, and Soviet Show Trials, seem fair by comparison! The transcripts will reveal the utter emasculation of Anglo-Saxon legal tradition to a degree that even I thought in my most fevered nightmare I would never experience in a Canadian courtroom.

The way I see it
The Zundel team, backed by its valiant band of dedicated helpers, and many little contributions from largely pensioners and the WWII generation, has clawed its way up the ladder, rung by rung, in the judicial bureaucracy.
The final appeal in the Ontario Court of Appeal will be heard on May 10th. We lost an important appeal in the Federal Court -- with costs assessed against me, which means for insisting on my constitutional rights the court punished me with having to pay the government's legal costs!
That was already the standard procedure throughout the many appeals we filed in the Human Rights Tribunal Proceedings from 1996 - 2001!
During that time I had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the government's lawyers and others like the three political parties who had banned me from Parliament when I wanted to give a press conference in the Parliamentary Press Room.
Looking back at the press clippings of the time, names like Alfonso Gagliano, Don Boudria and others stand out -- most of whom have since fallen from grace and have been implicated in the Sponsorship and earlier Scandals!
I have a clipping file on this past Chretien Administration that would shock most decent Canadians, not only on what was done with their hard earned tax money, but also what was done by high ranking government officials and Ministers from the Prime Minister on down.
Francois Beaudoin, head of the Canadian Development Bank, a man who ran afoul of Chretien and his cronies, is illustrative of this whole process of the deterioration of Canadian Political ethics.
I was reminded of the time of Huey Long in the Deep South, and also of Maurice Duplessis in Quebec! My wife told me of the fear Quebecers had (in 1959) of a thing she called "La Pegre" which was some kind of political mafia which would come down and break any individual who opposed the big Party Machine of Mr. Duplessis at the time.
I had to think of Mr. Beaudoin and myself in that context.
We both got on the wrong side of this modern version of "La Pegre" and it certainly made our lives hell!
With all the persecution Mr. Beaudoin suffered, he at least had the benefit of a regular court, where the rules of criminal procedure and rules of evidence applied!
He could cross-examine the Chretien cronies in open court, test their evidence and documents, and rebut their testimony and their lies in open court.
The government spent via the Bank $4,333,000 to try to wreck that man's life!
Imagine how much money has been spent by the Canadian Oligarchy since 1968 at least to get me, all because I, in fact, blew the whistle on the likes of Trudeau, Marchant, Pelletier, Laurendeau, Chretien and Andre Ouellet taking over the moribund, decrepit old Liberal Party in the 1960s!
I was, of course, a young, innocent and naive idealistic German immigrant who believed that I had equal rights, and that I therefore expected and demanded equal access to the political process.
Brother! Did I have a rude awakening! Once they denied me citizenship -- without giving me a reason why -- I knew that there was an oligarchy in place that would see to it that outsiders muzzling in would suffer short shrift once they tried.
The rest of my life in Canada has basically demonstrated that fact of political life in Canada.
There has been, in fact, a vendetta against me, the outsider, since I upset them by making it to the Liberal Convention as an accredited "Dark Horse" candidate!
Their pursuit of me has been relentless, and has culminated in my present situation.
I wanted you and your many supporters who have been so generous in spirit and financially, to know that this is what happened to me.
I am not aware of one single, solitary thing I ever said, advocated or did in my almost 45 years in this country, that could be considered disloyal to Canada and its people.
If there were even a hint of disloyalty or real danger or criminality, I would have been dragged into court decades ago. For no man has been as observed, scrutinized, had his mail opened, his phones and faxes bugged, as I have!
I have lived under court-imposed gag orders -- the Globe and Mail called it "the most sweeping" gag order ever issued against a Canadian resident -- after my 1985 trial; I have been under bail orders for over ten years in the 1980s and early 1990s -- had to register my every move out of the province with the Provincial Attorney General, tell him in writing where I would be going, where I would be staying, when I would be leaving and when I would be returning. Exactly what Stalin imposed on his citizens during his reign of terror!
Soon all this will be coming to an end.
If the Canadian Supreme Court does not put an end to these clear violations of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and afford me, the dissident -- lifelong, peaceful, non-violent, non criminal dissident, I want to stress -- constitutional protection, then these protections exist on paper only, just like Soviet constitutional protections were only a chimera.
If the Canadian judicial. system, the politicians and the media, in short, if Canada's Elite fails me, they fail themselves.
Because once I have been railroaded out of this country under these abominable laws, nobody in Canada with any original, dissident thought in politics, history, even the sciences, will be safe from persecution, and the accusation that he or she is a terrorist. ...(and) Canada will walk across the threshold to a Police-Intelligence Agency and Judicial Dictatorship seen only in the old Soviet Union in modern times.
Although Communism may have disappeared in the former Soviet Union, it is alive and virulent in the halls and corridors of power!
Its adherants do not wear Red Stars on their baseball caps or T-shirts. They wear Gucci loafers, Pierre Cardin suits, and carry law degrees in their attaché cases, along with cell phones and laptop computers!
They are more dangerous to the citizens and institutions and traditions of this country than a whole army of thugs and criminals carrying Urri-Machine Guns.
My heart bleeds for this country -- a country of infinite promise, unbelievable wealth and endless opportunity.
We, the now living "Baby-Boom" generation, have failed Canada!
What we are bequeathing to our children and grandchildren is a crime-ridden society, drowning in debt, a debt which in effect amounts to perpetual interest slavery. May history record that I, Ernst Zundel, together with my valiant band of supporters, tried to stem this tide, this slide into oblivion!
Thank you my friends! If I had to do it all over again, I would do it again, only better, wiser, more passionately!
E. Zundel, in prison
COMMENT: Mr. Zundel's very forthright letter tells us much about a young German who was born during the hell of WWII and spent his earliest and teen-age years in his war-ravaged Germany. At the age of 19 he migrated to our country, at that time a most promising and vibrant land of great freedom and opportunity.
Young Mr. Zundel immediately found employment, learned our language, and then studied and enrolled in university to further his education. And while still in his 20s he became involved in Quebec politics, and then contested as a candidate for leadership of the national Liberal Party, challenging that party's power brokers to their great consternation and earning their eternal condemnation.
His next major move seems to be moving to Toronto, where he established a successful arts and publishing business. However, by this time he had become widely read and knowledgable of international politics, especially the postwar treatment of his German fatherland. And from that time on he spent an increasing amount of his time and resources in trying to restore the integrity and honour of his fatherland.
From the beginning of this undertaking, Mr. Zundel found himself at loggerheads with influential and powerful Zionist groups and Jewish leaders, resulting in several years of defending himself in court litigation respecting 'hate' charges -- cases in which he was exonerated, but apparently at the price of an ongoing, never-ending vendetta against him by Canadian and, indeed, worldwide Zionist groups and organizations.

This is corroborated and confirmed in an e-mail report by Mr. Zundel's agent, Paul Fromm, dated April 14, 2004. Following, are excerpts:
"TORONTO, April 13, 2004. Forty minutes into publisher Ernst Zundel's national certificate hearing in Toronto, this morning, defence team lead counsel Peter Lindsay dropped a bombshell when he announced that he had subpoenaed investigative journalist Andrew Mitrovica who wrote the book Covert Entry: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada's Secret Service.
"This book contains a powerful chapter exposing CSIS's wide-spread opening of the mail of Canadian populists and their special attention to Ernst Zundel in 1995. Even more shockingly the book reveals that CSIS knew a pipebomb was headed for Mr. Zundel and, while it tried to warn its mail-opening snoops not to touch packages from B.C. return addresses, it did nothing to warn postal workers, Air Canada employees or, of course, the intended victim, Ernst Zundel. ...
"Mr. Lindsay filed newspaper reports and court documents relating to the staying of charges against David Barbarash and David Thurston, accused of mailing pipebombs to people such as Ernst Zundel in 1995 and of mailing razor blades in booby-trapped envelopes to hunters and fur industry people, as well as Mr. Zundel. The charges were stayed in 2000 when the RCMP decided it would not comply with a judge's order to provide disclosure for fear of jeopardizing other investigations and informants and foreign intelligence agencies.
"Thus, the alleged perpetrators of the 1995 mailbomb assassination attempt on Ernst Zundel's life were never prosecuted. Indeed, Peter Lindsay revealed, 'Thurston's lawyer Michael Klein confirmed that they were never charged with anything relating to the attempted murder of Ernst Zundel or to mailing dangerous substances' to Canada's most famous political prisoner. ...
"When Ernst Zundel retook the witness stand, he was asked about a January 3, 1995 letter from Janice Dembo of the Toronto Mayor's Committee on Community and Race Relations. She 'was a Jewish lady from South Africa,' Mr. Zundel told the court. The letter was sent to Marion Boyd, the then-NDP Attorney-General of Ontario. 'I have never seen a letter from a bureaucrat on how to harass a person,' Mr. Zundel said. The letter complained of the 'lack of legal action against Ernst Zundel.' It recommended sales tax audits, visits by various municipal code inspectors, and removal of his mailing privileges under Sec. 43 of the Postal Act. It concluded that, as Mr. Zundel had applied for citizenship, 'deportation may be the most expedient method of ridding Canada of Mr. Zundel's noxious presence.'
" 'I do not know how to spell out an invitation to a vendetta better than this letter,' Mr. Zundel testified. 'There were dire consequences for me. For 10 years I've been hounded.' He explained that he'd initially been told that he had to remit GST only on sales of books or tapes. This ruling was cancelled and some time after Dembo's inflammatory letter, Revenue Canada told him he had to remit GST even on donations -- the bulk of his income.
"In the spring of 1995, Mr. Zundel testified, he was visited by a string of building inspectors, fire inspectors and even a soil inspector, as well as various tax auditors.
"Mr. Zundel cited a 1995 comment by Prime Minister Jean Chretien addressing a Yad Vashem meeting in Toronto: 'There's no place in Canada for holocaust deniers.'
" 'It's a vendetta,' Mr. Zundel said forcefully. 'After my house was firebombed, a policeman called from 51 Division and said: "Ernst, there's a virtual vendetta against you! Be careful when you go out. Don't go to the same restaurant twice. Go out, if you must, with bodyguards. We can't protect you all the time." '..."
FURTHER COMMENT: Well, that certainly confirms Mr. Zundel's contention that for years he has been a victim of a deliberate and orchestrated diabolical vendetta. Yet, through all of this, and a ruthless kidnapping-style of arrest and abduction, a forced deportation followed by nearly 16 months of solitary confinement under abominable conditions -- after all this, do we find a bitter man full of anger and rage? Indeed we do not! Rather, we find a 64-year-old prisoner of conscience, quiet, gentle and of simple grace, deep composure and at peace with himself and his Creator. A man of deep insight, understanding and mental clarity. Indeed, he sums up the essence of our present day conditions in Canada far more realistically than do our politicians, our judiciary or present-day historians! A man who feels sorrow for the Judge who has to administer and inflict such absurd and cruel injustice on him!
The truth is: Ernst Zundel is no security risk to our country. He is incarcerated because a certain influential minority group wants him incarcerated or otherwise eliminated.
The tragedy and shame is: That our government, in the name of Canada, has become both an accomplice and the executor of this vile criminal act.
NOTE: This 4-page report is being sent to all MPs & Senators, to over 600 Canadian newspapers, to the newsrooms of all English-language Television and Radio Stations in Canada, and to all our Universities and Colleges -- with a short personal note. Any financial help in this mailing project would be appreciated. -- Ron Gostick (Publisher)