Will Bush Cancel This Trip, Too?

An astute reader brought this to my attention yesterday:

Today, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Canadian Centre for International Justice (CCIJ) lodged a detailed and lengthy indictment setting forth the case against former U.S. president George W. Bush with the Attorney General of Canada, urging him to open a criminal investigation against Bush for his role in authorizing and overseeing his administration’s well-documented torture program. Bush will visit Surrey, British Columbia on October 20th, as a paid speaker at the Surrey Regional Economic Summit at the invitation of Surrey Mayor Diane Watts.

If the arc of this story sounds familiar, it's because it is. In February, we reported on a trip Bush canceled to Switzerland.  And linked to this bit from the Huffingtonpost:

Former U.S. President George W. Bush has cancelled a visit to Switzerland, where he was to address a Jewish charity gala, due to the risk of legal action against him for alleged torture, rights groups said on Saturday.

The CCR was among those groups:

On February 7, 2011, two torture victims were to have filed criminal complaints for torture against former president George W. Bush in Geneva, who was due to speak at an event there on February 12th. On the eve of the filing of the complaints, George Bush cancelled his trip. Swiss law requires the presence of the alleged torturer on Swiss soil before a preliminary investigation can be open. The complaints could not be filed after Bush cancelled, as the basis for jurisdiction no longer existed.

This time it's Canada:

“George Bush has openly admitted that he approved the use of torture against men held in U.S. custody,” said Katherine Gallagher, Senior Staff Attorney at CCR. “Despite this admission, no country has been willing to investigate and prosecute Bush’s criminal acts, leaving the victims of his torture policies without any justice or accountability. Canada is a signatory to the Convention Against Torture, and has an obligation to investigate Bush for his leadership role in the U.S. torture program. Torturers – even if they are former presidents of the United States – must be held to account and prosecuted. We urge Canada to put an end to impunity for Bush.”

“Canada has a strong legal framework and there is absolutely no ambiguity in our criminal code when it comes to committing or allowing torture,” said Matt Eisenbrandt, Legal Director of CCIJ. “There is grave evidence that former President Bush sanctioned and authorized acts of torture, not only in violation of Canadian laws, but also of international treaties that Canada has ratified. It is therefore clear that our government has both the jurisdiction and the obligation to prosecute Bush should he set foot again on Canadian territory.”

You can read the indictment here.

Section II (page 34) spells out the Canadian Jurisdiction over tortuers. Pointing out that torture is illegal in Canada.  It also points out (page 36) that:

Notwithstanding anything in this Act or any other Act, every one who, outside Canada, commits an act or omission that, if committed in Canada, would constitute an offence against, a conspiracy or an attempt to commit an offence against, being an accessory after the fact in relation to an offence against, or any counselling in relation to an offence against, section 269.1 shall be deemed to commit that act or omission in Canada if...(d) the complainant is a Canadian citizen; or (e) the person who commits the act or omission is, after the commission thereof, present in Canada. [emphasis added.]

And Bush is scheduled to be there on October 20.

Maybe Canadian law will do what the Obama Administration has so far refused to do, prosecute the Bush torture.  To do so would be to merely follow the law.

Yes, it is that simple.

Palin Used Socialist Canadian Health Care System

From HuffPo:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- who has gone to great lengths to hype the supposed dangers of a big government takeover of American health care -- admitted over the weekend that she used to get her treatment in Canada's single-payer system.

"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. "And I think now, isn't that ironic?"

How could her parents subject her to the death panels? But, I guess she did learn a valuable lesson in how to hustle...
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Don't Know Much Geography...

For all of Richard Mellon Scaife's money, you'd think his editorial board would have a map or two lying around the office.

From today's "Thursday Wrap":

Confessions of an architect: You probably never heard of Claude Castonguay. He's the fella who designed Canada's government-run health care program. And it's a monumental failure. So much so that Mr. Castonguay now is advocating contracting out services to the private sector and returning to private health insurance. Reminds Manhattan Institute scholar David Gratzer, "The problem is that government bureaucrats simply can't centrally plan their way to better health care." It's something bureaucrats never learn.

Castonguay released a report last February advocating changes in Quebec's health care program - not Canada's. Here's a description of Monsieur Castonguay from Canada's National Review of Medicine:

The report's author, Claude Castonguay, is the former Liberal health minister who helped bring universal healthcare to Quebec in the 70s. Known as "the father of Quebec medicare," he went on to work as an insurance executive and serve as a Tory Senator. He's famous in Quebec for his change of heart about the viability of universal healthcare. He now feels that Quebecers expect too much from the system and that current demands have made it unsustainable. [emphasis added.]

Doesn't the Trib Editorial Board know the difference between Canada and Quebec? That mistake alone should invalidate everything that comes after it but , let's look at Castonguay's report (which can be found here, in the event you wanted to read it) anyway. Here's how the NRM sees it:

[The] commission's report, officially titled Getting Our Money's Worth, proposes to control costs by tying healthcare spending grown to GDP growth, about 3.8% per year (last year health spending went up 5.8%). The government has embraced that idea, even though Quebec spent less on healthcare than any other province last year, according to a 2007 report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

Other cost-saving measures include reviewing the scope of public insurance coverage, expanding the role of the private sector in the delivery of care and permitting people to buy private insurance for publicly insured procedures (beyond the currently allowed hip, knee and cataract surgeries). The government has refused to support that last suggestion.

The recommendation to allow physicians to run "mixed" public-private practices, which are currently prohibited, was initially panned by Dr Couillard but he has since changed his mind, saying the idea is possible — but only after the current physician shortage is alleviated.

The recommendation that's been getting the most attention is the modified user fee. The report suggests a $25 to $65 fee per visit to be charged at year's end, with low-income families exempt. The report also suggested the government raise the provincial sales tax 0.5% or 1%. Both these report recommendations were quickly dismissed by the government.

That's just a little different from how the Trib characterized the report, non? Here's a recommendation from the summary of the report that I am sure the Trib's readers will find surprising:

The Task Force recommends that the government accelerate deployment of health clinics to ensure that each Quebecer has access to a family doctor.

Hmm. A health care system where every family has access to a family doctor, a system where private and public insurance can be used to insure universal coverage, and a co-pay system where low income families are exempt.

What's not to like about that? Can we get some of that here? Please?

O Canada!

From See Magazine:

As George W. Bush’s St. Patrick’s Day visit to Alberta draws near, the federal government is facing pressure from activists and human rights lawyers to bar the former U.S. president from the country or prosecute him for war crimes and crimes against humanity once he steps on Canadian soil.

Bush is scheduled to speak in Calgary March 17, but Vancouver lawyer Gail Davidson says that because Bush has been “credibly accused” of supporting torture in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Canada has a legal obligation to deny him entry under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The law says foreign nationals who have committed war crimes or crimes against humanity, including torture, are “inadmissible” to Canada. ”The test isn’t whether the person’s been convicted, but whether there’s reasonable grounds to think that they have been involved,” says Davidson, who’s with Lawyers Against the War (LAW). “…It’s now a matter of public record that Bush was in charge of setting up a regime of torture that spanned several parts of the globe and resulted in horrendous injuries and even death. Canada has a duty.”

Maybe it'll be up to our friends from the north to prosecute the war crimes.

O Canada!

The latest from our friends to the north:

Omar Khadr's lawyers say they can't understand why Canada is not doing more to help their client in light of new evidence that Ottawa has put the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on a watch list for torture.

And a bit later:

Canada's new focus on torture was ordered by the inquiry into Maher Arar's nightmare in Syria. U.S. authorities sent Arar -- a Canadian of Syrian ancestory -- to Syria after he made a brief stopover in New York in 2002. They wrongly accused him of having links to terrorism in large part because of information provided by the RCMP.

Arar was sent to a Syrian prison where he was tortured for nearly a year. An inquiry into the Arar affair ordered a new focus on torture, and CTV News has learned that, as part of a "torture awareness workshop," diplomats are now being told where to watch for abuse.

The aim of the workshop: to teach diplomats who visit Canadians in foreign jails how to tell if they've been tortured. It also listed countries and places with greater risks of torture. The list includes Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, and China. But surprisingly, it also included the United States, Guantanamo Bay, and Israel.

Good company.

When will Canada be joined to dubya's "axis of evil"? I mean you're either with us or against us, right? How long until Canada is seen as a threat?

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.