Good riddance.

Vern White is leaving the Ottawa Police force in February.

It's one of those good news, bad news situation.

Many are glad to see him go; he's been named by Stevie Spiteful to the Senate to ensure the Hard-On Crime Bill C-10 makes it through.

It appears that some of some of PMSHithead's patronage Con appointees may not support C-10.

Chief White will do Harper's bidding; under his watch he allowed bully rogue cops to do pretty much as they wanted.

More Contempt from the Cons

Another verse of "They lie they lie they lie THEY LIE!"

Senator Pierre-Hughes Boisvenu, the poster Con Job for victims' rights & the Hard-On Crime Bill has been challenged regarding the truthiness of the claims he made on Radio-Canada, by no less than the Law Society of Québec. Here is an ad hoc translation of the sternly worded letter that was sent to Boisvenu:

During your interview, you stated, to an audience of several thousand people, that our interventions in the study of Bill C-10 were motivated by corporate interests. Specifically, you said: "The Law Society has about 80% of defense lawyers. These people say they are against a Bill that will affect their clients and it is quite normal. I defend the Senate, not the interests of criminals, but those of the victims ... "

As Director General of the Bar Association of Québec, it is my duty to tell you that you have misled the audience with incorrect information.

The Law Society has approximately 24,000 members. Among these members, only about 5% are lawyers arguing in court in criminal cases. The diversity of practices among our members is vast: corporate lawyers, government lawyers, lawyers in private practice working in over 140 areas of law such as business law, civil law, family law and human rights, etc..

Our interventions, made through the Conseil du barreau, reflect the position of our professional association. This position is recommended by a committee which consists of Crown prosecutors, university professors and defense lawyers who are experts in criminal law and who reviewed the bill through the lens of their professional commitment, but also in terms of respect for the rule of law.

Our position is similar to that of the Minister of Justice of Québec, and aims to promote prevention and rehabilitation rather than an approach based on indiscriminate repression. Rehabilitation, believes the Law Society, is also a means of protection for the people, and we believe it is important to remind the public of that recourse.

Our position is detailed, thorough and accurate. We respect the fact that you do not share it, but we are indignant that you dismiss our position as a "corporatist interpretation" and, moreover, that you present it in a wrong context by questioning the legitimacy and credibility of our profession. It is an offense to the professional system and to citizens who listen to you and who put their trust in you.

That was a lovely letter, a polite way of saying: Fuck you Pierre-Hughes Boisvenu and the fucking Contempt Party that rides you.

Friends of the Cons

Yet another installment in the ongoing saga of which moneyed interests are bankrolling, lobbying and cozying up to Stevie Spiteful's Contempt Party.

*Gold Card* Baird recently flew to Libya. Did Rusty commandeer luxury travel arrangements for himself and the ConservaTories cronies in his entourage?

John Baird brought Canadian funding for efforts to build democracy and control weapons in Libya, but it was the guest list for his trip to Tripoli that pointed to another priority: Executives from big Canadian companies travelled with him.

The foreign minister flew to the Libyan capital with heavy security and secrecy, but also executives from Montreal engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, Alberta oil giant Suncor and Calgary-based pipeline-technology firm Pure Technologies.

From here.

SNC-Lavalin ... oh yes. The Cons recently sold the commercial operations of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. to the Montreal-based engineering giant for $15 million.

As well, the RCMP raided their Ontario office, in the course of investigating whether bribes were involved in the award of a large construction project in Bangladesh.

More here (in French so use Google translation to get the goods).

SNC-Lavalin has a MASSIVE Public Works contract to maintain government buildings across Canada; accounting forensic probes led by Price-Waterhouse indicate that the current government has approved irregular and over-priced invoices from the engineering firm.

Not surprisingly, the CEO of SNC-Lavalin dismisses public demands for an official inquiry regarding corruption in the construction industry in Québec. One does wonder if he has received *coaching* from Dimitri Soudas in how to handle inconvenient media queries.

Anyone taking bets on whether SNC-Lavalin might have an inside track on building those mega-prisons that PMSHithead's *Hard-On Crime* Omnibus bill will foster?

Contempt Party and femicide

This is DJ's ongoing reflection regarding the Contempt Party government & its *Hard-On Crime* Omnibus Bill.

I believe that it will encourage police forces and the court system to shift resources away from investigating and prosecuting crimes against women and children. Since the Cons' Crime Bill will significantly reward cops for the number of arrests leading to convictions, they will only pursue criminals that are "easy" to catch.

Did you see *Justice* minister Nicholson's weasel performance a couple of weeks ago?

He evaded questions regarding costs and priorities but kept using buzz words to create the impression that the Cons care about preventing violence against women.

The inevitable result of this re-engineering of the legal system will be a vicious circle of fewer and fewer women reporting criminal assaults that are inflicted upon them, and less investigations and prosecutions of their assailants. These violent men will get the message they can and they will continue to sexually terrorize and harm women and children.

Consider what is happening in the US. With diminished funding and resources, the states and the municipalities are trying to dump the responsibility for charging spouses with *domestic abuse* on the other jurisdiction, which means violent criminals walk, unchallenged.

[...]domestic violence advocates in Topeka say it’s already putting vulnerable people at increased risk. Since the county stopped prosecuting the crimes on September 8th, it has turned back 30 domestic violence cases. Sixteen people have been arrested for misdemeanor domestic battery and then released from the county jail after charges weren’t filed. “Letting abusive partners out of jail with no consequences puts victims in incredibly dangerous positions,” said Becky Dickinson of the YWCA. “The abuser will often become more violent in an attempt to regain control.” The YMCA also said that some survivors associated with their Center for Safety and Empowerment were afraid for their safety if the dispute wasn’t resolved soon.

PMSHithead and his party of Cons have taken the craft of lying to new depths. Under their watch, expect the usual deliberate obfuscation and political theatre that focuses on so-called "honour" killings and disregards systemic violence against women and children.

Update: Kevin Page, Parliament's independent budget officer has some choice words about the cost of the Cons' *Hard-On Crime* bill.

The Conservatives say their massive new crime bill, which includes nine separate pieces of legislation, will cost $78.5 million over five years, part of bigger justice agenda the government says will cost $2.7 billion.

But Page, who has been asked by the Opposition parties to cost out the bill by mid-November, told The Canadian Press the government estimate includes no methodology, no supporting information and no provincial costs. Nor can Page find the $2.7 billion expenditure listed in any federal budget of the past two years.

Women are punished for rapists' crimes.

Thanks to the Contempt Party government Obnibulating Crime Bill, female victims of crime can expect to be treated like this.

Kainat Soomro is a 17-year-old Pakistani girl who has become a local celebrity of sorts in her battle for justice in the Pakistani courts, a daring move for a woman of any age in this country, let alone a teenager.

She is fighting to get justice for a gang rape that she insists happened four years ago in Mehar, a small town in Pakistan.

We first met her in the office of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. A colorful traditional Pakistani shawl covered her head. Her father sat next to her as she recounted the 2007 incident.

"I was walking home from my school and I went to the store to buy a toy for my niece," she said, staring at the floor of the office. "While I was looking at things a guy pressed a handkerchief on my nose. I fainted and was kidnapped. Then four men gang raped me."

As she shared details of her days in captivity and multiple rapes, she kept repeating, "I want justice, I will not stop until I get justice."

After all the Con bluster and clusterf***ing Hard-On Crime subsides, the privatized penitentiaries built and operated by Friends of the Contempt Party will fill to the rafters with pot-growers while child rapists get to spend a few days in the comfort of provincial jails.