Paul S. Graham

On the weekend the Winnipeg Free Press was defending the use of information obtained through torture. Today it is formenting fear of immigrants as a major source of communicable diseases.

The editorial is designed to inspire fear and loathing of immigrants. The first half focuses on the case of Johnson Aziga, an HIV-positive immigrant from Uganda who was convicted on Saturday in Ontario of aggravated assault and first degree murder because he had unprotected sex with a large number women who he did not warn of his disease.

That part, at least, is factual. The Free Press then makes astonishing claims about tuberculosis, HIV and immigration procedures that can be refuted by anyone with 10 minutes free time and access to Google. Erroneously claiming that immigrants are not screened for communicable diseases, the Freep states:

TB is a highly infectious disease that is easily passed like the common cold. It was once almost eradicated in Canada, but it is on the rise again, largely because immigration rules do not require applicants from countries where the disease is common to be tested for it. Some are tested after they have arrived here, but, putting Indian reserves aside, almost two-thirds of Canadians affected with tuberculosis are immigrants or refugees.

Tuberculosis is easily curable but hard to avoid when it appears. HIV is almost entirely avoidable but as yet incurable. Both can be deadly. Canadians should ask their politicians why they are being needlessly exposed to either.

Let’s examine the claims.

Is TB easily contracted, as the Freep claims? No. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC):

TB is not as contagious as other diseases, such as the flu or chickenpox. To get infected, you would usually have to spend many hours every day with someone with infectious TB disease. If you live in overcrowded housing with poor air circulation, you may be more at risk of getting latent TB infection.

Is TB on the rise in Canada? According to the PHAC, the rate of TB in Canada is decreasing, not increasing. The agency writes:

The TB case rate in 2007 was the lowest recorded since data collection began in Canada.

Are immigrants from countries where TB and HIV are common allowed to immigrate without medical testing? No. They must undergo extensive medical examinations as a part of the application process.

What about newcomers and TB rates? According the Freep, “putting Indian reserves aside, almost two-thirds of Canadians affected with tuberculosis are immigrants or refugees.”

According to the PHAC:

In 2007, foreign-born individuals accounted for 66% of all reported TB cases in Canada. Canadian-born non-Aboriginal and Canadian-born Aboriginal cases made up 11% and 20%, respectively (Table 3). However, the TB rate in the Canadian-born Aboriginal group continues to be the highest of the three groups, approximately five times the overall Canadian rate.

This “putting Indian reserves aside” is a racist distortion of statistics that permits the Freep to minimize the suffering in Aboriginal communities and exaggerate the scope of the problem in immigrant communities.

TB is rooted in poverty. Poor people living in over-crowded conditions get it. Poor people in prisons get it. Poor people living on the streets get it. Poor immigrants get it too, not because they are immigrants, but because they are poor.

It is time for the Winnipeg Free Press to “get it!” At best, the Freep is guilty of sloppy journalism; at worst, racism and xenophobia. I leave it to you to decide which best applies. Neither is acceptable.

By condoning the use of information obtained through torture, the editorial board of the Winnipeg Free Press is digging its own grave.

In “Tortured Information” an editorial writer for the Winnipeg Free Press declares: “. . . as long as one does not promote or condone torture, it would be grossly irresponsible for any security service, any government, including Canada’s, to refuse to use it to defend the safety of its citizens.”

Unfortunately, Canada is not the merely the innocent recipient of torture-tainted information. Inquiries into the detention and torture of Canadians Maher Arar and Ahmad El Maati have shown that CSIS participated in their interrogations and provided the “intelligence” that led to their detention.

Abousfian Abdelrazik was imprisoned in Sudan in 2003 on the recommendation of CSIS and tortured. He interrogated on at least one occasion by people he identified as Canadian. Despite being declared innocent of any crime by the Sudanese government, our government refuses to let him return to Canada.

The issue is not merely that of refusing to use information obtained from torture to defend Canadian citizens. It involves refusing to participate in the torture of Canadian citizens.

Canada must not only denounce torture, it must refuse to participate in it in any way. This includes directing CSIS to respect human rights and dismissing any Canadian officials who refuse to follow this direction.

Whether the Winnipeg Free Press knows it or not, its editorial board has come out on the side of torture. Whether wilfully or through incompetence, the editorialist has told only a small part of the story — enough to obfuscate the reality of Canada’s role in undermining human rights in the world, enough to hide the fact that Canadian institutions are complicit in the detention and torture of Canadian citizens.

What will it take for the Freep, as it is known colloquially in these parts, to understand that it must defend human rights? In siding with the torturers, the Freep is digging its own grave, because if our government is allowed to continue on its present course, we have to wonder how long freedom of the press will be allowed to continue.

Human rights advocate, and author of Dark Days, Kerry Pither, reports that “CSIS continues to believe that information obtained under torture can be useful, and will use it in certain situations.” Commenting on testimony given at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security by CSIS lawyer Geoffrey O’Brian on March 31, 2009, she quotes O’Brian as saying: “The simple truth is, if we get information which can prevent something like the Air India bombing, the Twin Towers – whatever, frankly – that is the time when we will use it despite the provenance of that information.”

Pither believes that Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan should issue a directive prohibiting the use of information obtained under torture and she describes how Canada’s spooks have contributed to and benefited (in their distorted view) from the torture of Canadians in foreign prisons.

It seems unlikely that the torture of innocent citizens such as Ahmad El Maati and Maher Arar made the world safer from terrorist attacks. I guess they fall into Mr. O’Brian’s “whatever” category.

I wish this were an anomaly, but the CSIS mindset is not merely the product of a rogue gang of James Bond wannabees. It has a scary basis in Canadian law. As I have noted elsewhere, Canadian law already allows judges to consider, in secret, evidence that would not be admissible in a Canadian court, to determine who is a terrorist. Immigrants can be detained and deported on the basis of “evidence” they are not permitted to see. And the Tories want to bring back “preventive detentions” and other draconian measures, all in the name of fighting terrorism.

I agree that with Kerry Pither. Mr. Van Loan should rein in his spooks and tell them to start respecting the human rights of Canadians and anyone else in a foreign torture chamber. Given the Tory penchant for draconian anti-terrorism laws, I doubt he will.

Because of the best efforts of the Canadian government to silence free speech, George Galloway spoke to Canadians in 20 cities last night. Had they let him come into the country without incident, he’d have been heard in four. (Thank you Jason Kenney.) Watch the speech he didn’t want you to hear at rabble.tv.

The Interview The Government Doesn’t Want You to See: George Galloway on The Hour, Monday March 30th

by The Hour Blog, Mar. 27, 2009

British member of parliament George Galloway speaks to the protesters downtown Vienna, Austria, Wednesday, June 21, 2006, as they rally against U.S. President George W. Bush

**FRIDAY UPDATE:** George Galloway is challenging the decision not to let him into in Canada. Galloway’s lawyers will go before a Federal Court on Sunday to reverse the decision barring him from entering.

Galloway’s lawyers filed papers yesterday saying the decision to keep him out was a “politically motivated” attack on freedom of expression.

Galloway has indicated that if the decision is overturned he will come to the set of The Hour on Monday for his interview, if the legal attempts fail we are working to arrange a satellite interview. Expect a few questions regarding the government’s decision, his view on Afghanistan/the Taliban, and his relationship with Hamas. He will be on the show, Monday March 30th, 11 p.m., on CBC. We will also update this blog and Twitter as the interview is recorded. Should be quite the interesting interview.

The Canadian government refused entry to Galloway, citing him as a national security threat. According to CBC.ca, Galloway called the decision “irrational, inexplicable and an affront to Canada’s good name,” and said he would fight the ruling with “all means at my disposal.”

Some of you may recall we had George Galloway on the show two seasons ago.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with him, I highly recommend watching his previous appearance on The Hour here. What are your thoughts? Is this truly a security concern or is this censorship?

More . . .

First George W. Bush, now Condoleeza Rice. Is there no end to Calgary’s war criminal welcome mat?

She’s been invited by the University of Calgary to help launch its new School of Public Policy on May 13. One might wonder what kind of public policy they envision when they invite folks of the ilk that were strung up at Nuremburg following WW2.

WarCriminalsOut is organizing a reception for those who won’t get invited by the U of C. Maybe you’d like to help out . . .

The long awaited inquiry into the business dealings of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber begins on Monday. From the get-go, it looks like it will be a waste of time and money.

Justice Jeffrey Oliphant has said he will not seek to hold anyone criminally or civilly liable for any wrong-doing that may be uncovered. Furthermore, he said that if he suspects any ethical shortcomings by Mulroney he will give the former prime minister a “full opportunity to respond before any report is issued.”

Oliphant seems to be bending over backwards to ensure that Mr. Multoney does not have to account for any misdeeds that might be uncovered. According to the Canadian Press: “In a ruling last month, the judge said he must also be free to take account of the ethics provisions in federal statutes such as the Parliament of Canada Act, the Financial Administration Act and the Income Tax Act. He initially included the Criminal Code in the list as well, but had second thoughts about that Thursday. “Upon reflection I must state that the Criminal Code is of little if any value in this endeavour,” Oliphant said.

The Criminal Code of Canada contains stiff penalties for politicians proven to have accepted bribes or kickbacks.

119. (1) Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years who

(a) being the holder of a judicial office, or being a member of Parliament or of the legislature of a province, directly or indirectly, corruptly accepts, obtains, agrees to accept or attempts to obtain, for themselves or another person, any money, valuable consideration, office, place or employment in respect of anything done or omitted or to be done or omitted by them in their official capacity, or

(b) directly or indirectly, corruptly gives or offers to a person mentioned in paragraph (a), or to anyone for the benefit of that person, any money, valuable consideration, office, place or employment in respect of anything done or omitted or to be done or omitted by that person in their official capacity.

Given that Mulroney and Schreiber have both admitted that Schreiber paid large sums of cash to Mulroney while he was still a Member of Parliament (they disagree on the amount and the purpose), it is more than strange that Justice Oliphant would rule out, in advance, any findings that could point to the need for criminal charges.

The Airbus Affair is a lengthy and complicated story that I won’t even attempt to summarize here. The CBC’s Fifth Estate, which incidently is one of the CBC programs affected by the latest round of funding cuts,  published a revealing account in 2006.

We might have to be content with the Fifth Estate account because it looks like this public inquiry is being set up to ignore the most important question: Did Brian Mulroney violate the Criminal Code of Canada when he accepted money from Karlheinz Schreiber?

These days a lot of Canadians, including many opposed to the war in Afghanistan, have their knickers in knots because some ‘merican TV talk show Faux News assholes suggested our soldiers were pussies. Get over it!

March 24, 2009: Five American helicopters swooped in, filled with American Special Forces troops. Moments later, five Afghan civilians were dead, at least one of whom was killed as he slept. Just another day in Afghanistan.

How many civilians have died as a result of this war is not known with precision. While each of the foreign troops who have died has been meticulously counted, identified, catalogued and mourned, the best we can do for Afghanistan’s war dead is guess.

As of Jan. 25, 2009, Unknown News put the civilian death toll at 7,373. Wikipedia aggregates various estimates, and suggests that “direct” deaths may be as high as 10,557 and “indirect” deaths up to 20,000. Responsibility for most of the direct deaths lies with the invading armies, including Canada’s. The indirect deaths, which arise out of circumstances caused by the invasion, are surely all the responsibility of the invaders. That is, had there been no invasion, these folks would not have died.

I’ve never been totally comfortable with those whose objection to the war is motivated primarily by the deaths of “innocent civilians.” It somehow suggests that the other folk, the ones with the gall to actively resist our invasion are somehow deserving of their fates.

How many of these “terrorists” have died? Once again, Wikipedia supplies an estimate. As of March 23, 2009, between 21,214 and 21,624 insurgents were reported to have been killed. Add to that, another 11,000 dead Afghan troops, and we are getting into some serious numbers, here, more than 60,000 Afghans killed since Oct. 7, 2001 — the day the Americans (with some help from the Brits) launched “Operation Enduring Freedom” (sic).

Afghanistan, like Canada, has a relatively small population in a large land. There are about 31 million of them and 33 million of us.

We mourn our fallen soldiers, even if most of us disapprove of their presence in Afghanistan. 116 deaths and counting. What a waste! What a criminal waste!

It’s time for empathy, folks. Imagine the impact on this country of 60,000 dead Canucks. Imagine the psychic pain, the overwhelming grief, the interminable mourning. Imagine not even knowing how many have died? Imagine a death toll equivalent to the city of Charlottetown, PEI or North Bay, Ontario or Medicine Hat, Alberta. Imagine being awakened in the middle of the night by heavily armed soldiers who have dropped in to kill you.

It is time for empathy and a time for outrage. These days a lot of Canadians, including many opposed to the war in Afghanistan, have their knickers in knots because some ‘merican TV talk show Faux News assholes suggested our soldiers were pussies. Get over it!

If you are going to be outraged, be outraged that Canada continues to pour people, money and our national soul into murdering Afghans. Be outraged that our government is committing crimes against humanity overseas and assaults on our rights and freedoms at home.

Maher Arar knows about the decline in human rights in Canada if anyone does. Fortunately, he lived to tell the tale of his arrest and “extraoridinary rendition” by the US to Syria where he was imprisoned and tortured in 2002 — and to hold the Canadian government accountable for the despicable role it played.

In this video, produced by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Mr. Arar speaks about the fragility of our rights, the dangers of allowing deeper integration with the US to trump human rights, and the need for meaningful oversight of CSIS and the RCMP if we are to restore Canadas tarnished reputation for promoting human rights both at home and around the globe.