(CA) National Post - Canadian news

OTTAWA — The office of Environment Minister Peter Kent responded to media coverage of his department’s decision to spurn recycling and buy new furniture for a building under renovations by asking bureaucrats to publicly call the reports “false,” newly released internal emails reveal.

The correspondence, released to Postmedia News through access-to-information legislation, shows that Kent, who has declined to publicly comment on the controversy since last July, was informed about the issue at Place Vincent Massey, a building in Gatineau, Que., near Ottawa, as bureaucrats from his department and Public Works and Government Services Canada worked to explain their decisions.

The government paid $141,000 to store furniture for a year, during renovations at the office building that would be increasing its number of workstations.

It then attempted to dump the material through an online auction and buy new furniture.

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office described the storage costs as “unacceptable” and asked Kent’s office to issue a statement, stressing that the furniture would be used by another federal government office and that the renovations would promote savings by increasing the number of Environment Canada employees in the building.

One senior bureaucrat, Rick DeBenetti, a director from Public Works, wrote in an email that there was a “need for background information and supporting rationale on the decision to replace PVM furniture versus refurbish(ing) it.”

“Note the urgency of the request,” DeBenetti wrote at 10:54 p.m. on July 27, 2011. “Please gather the facts folks.”

But after a Postmedia News report said Kent was maintaining silence about the matter about two days later, a spokesman from Public Works wrote in an email that the environment minister’s office “provided” a statement that asked bureaucrats to say the story was “false.”

“It’s now with PCO (Privy Council Office,” wrote Public Works spokesman Sebastien Bois in the email sent at 9:13 a.m. on July 29. “EC Media Relations hopes to send it to reporter before noon.”

When asked about the email, Bois said his counterparts at Environment Canada told him about the statement from the minister’s office. Kent was not available for comment Sunday.

Environment Canada’s media-relations department also told Postmedia News that their counterparts at Public Works had answered questions about the source of the statement.

The government has said that the decision to buy new furniture would save money based on an analysis and estimates from the time it made its decision. But other internal documents have suggested the government was overstating its estimates of the cost of recycling by a factor of 10 and that it could save up to $1,000 per workstation by recycling, Postmedia News reported in January.

Some of the correspondence suggested that even bureaucrats were not certain which divisions were involved with the contract and were pressured to come up with an explanation even if it didn’t have all of the facts.

“Can you pls (sic) craft a high level response for approval?” wrote Sheriff Abdou, a strategic adviser at Public Works, in an email sent at 9:10 a.m. on July 29. “(We) don’t need to be exact in #s. (sic) (It) may be easier to say smthg (sic) like ‘space/cost reduced by approx(imately) a third,’ etc. (as an example).”

VICTORIA — Canada’s only marine mammal toxicologist at the Institute of Ocean Sciences on Vancouver Island is losing his job as the federal government cuts almost all employees who monitor ocean pollution across Canada.

Peter Ross, an expert on killer whales and other marine mammals, was the lead author of a report 10 years ago that demonstrated Canada’s killer whales are the most contaminated marine mammals on the planet. He has more than a 100 published reports.

Now, he’s a casualty of the Conservative’s budget cuts, one of 75 people across Canada told this past week his services will no longer be needed because the Department of Fisheries is closing the nation’s contaminants program.

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For about a decade, Fisheries and Oceans has been trying to offload the program to Environment Canada, Ross said. Instead, this week, it axed it.

In total, 1,075 people working for the Department of Fisheries received letters Thursday telling them their jobs will be redundant or affected — including 215 in the Pacific Region.

The closure of DFO’s contaminants program in Victoria will see nine marine scientists and staff — two research scientists, a chemist and six support staff — based in North Saanich lose their jobs or be retrained and moved.

The entire Department of Fisheries and Oceans contaminants program is being shut down effective April 1, 2013. Official letters are expected to be delivered in June, and Ross said he’s been told he’ll have a few months to wrap up his files.

“The entire pollution file for the government of Canada, and marine environment in Canada’s three oceans, will be overseen by five junior biologists scattered across the country — one of which will be stationed in B.C.,” said Ross.

“I cannot think of another industrialized nation that has completely excised marine pollution from its radar,” said Ross, who was informed in a letter Thursday that his position will be “affected.”

“It is with apprehension that I ponder a Canada without any research or monitoring capacity for pollution in our three oceans, or any ability to manage its impacts on commercial fish stocks, traditional foods to over 300,000 aboriginal people, and marine wildlife,” Ross said.

Ross oversees pollution files including everything from municipal sewage and contaminated sites to the effect of pesticide on salmon and the impact of PCBs on killer whales.

If we can understand through scientific means the threats to killer whales listed as endangered or threatened, then we are in a much better position to protect and recover that species, Ross said.

DFO spokeswoman Melanie Carkner said between Fisheries and the Canadian Coast Guard, about $79.3 million in savings has been found, “primarily by adjusting our internal operations and administration.”

“We will be removing about 400 positions from DFO’s 11,000-strong workforce,” Carkner said. “This works out to less than two per cent a year over three years.”

The department said it is refocusing its research on conservation and fisheries management: “In lieu of in-house research on the biological effects of contaminants and pesticides, the department will establish an advisory group and research fund of $1.4 million a year to work with academia and other independent facilities to get advice on priority issues.”

Green Party leader Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands, said it’s shocking to lose all the toxin-related research going on at the Institute for Ocean Sciences and across Canada, especially when the Conservative government is “blindly and recklessly enthusiastic about putting oil tankers on B.C.’s coastline.”

“I will do everything I can to stop this government’s budget bill,” May said of the Budget Implementation Act, Bill C-38.

Deficit reduction is important, she said. “But to take out an entire group, that’s not prudent fiscal management, that’s driven by ideology that doesn’t want to know what toxic chemicals are doing in the oceans and freshwater.”

Victoria Times Colonist

CHICAGO — The head of NATO on Sunday reiterated his request for Canada to contribute military trainers to Afghanistan beyond 2014 — but acknowledged the decision is ultimately up to the Canadian people.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters the request was not directed solely at Canada, but “already today, Canada conducts training activities in Afghanistan and we appreciate that contribution.

“I hope to see a continued contribution after 2014. But having said that, let me also stress that, at the end of the day, it is a national decision.”

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Rasmussen was speaking as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and leaders from dozens of other nations prepared for two days of meetings to discuss NATO’s future and Afghanistan’s long-term prospects.
Canada has committed as many as 950 soldiers to Afghanistan through 2014 to help train that country’s security forces, but it is widely accepted that Afghan security forces will need support after that date, which is when the majority of international troops will have pulled out.

It’s still far too early to know whether the government will extend Canada’s military presence in Afghanistan.

However, given that the Conservative government has refused to waver on its commitment to keep military trainers through 2014 even as other countries are scrambling for the exits, the United States and NATO may see it as one of the few countries that can be asked to contribute.

The issue of early withdrawals from Afghanistan has already dominated discussions. A number of governments have indicated they want to leave early, the most recent — and worrying, from the alliance’s perspective — being French President Francois Hollande.

Hollande, who took office just last week, has committed to withdraw all of France’s troops by the end of this year, which some fear will open the floodgates for other allies to pack up and leave.

Rasmussen on Sunday downplayed the significance of France’s impending withdrawal, saying it was consistent with NATO’s plan to undertake a staggered international withdrawal, and dismissed suggestions other countries will follow suit.

“There will be no rush for the exit,” Rasmussen said. “We will stay committed to our operations in Afghanistan and see it through to a successful end. Our goal, our strategy, our timetable remains unchanged.”

Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images

Canadian soldiers in Kabul in 2005. Although Canada's combat mission ended in 2011, NATO wants our government to commit money to fund the Afghan army and police forces.

The NATO chief noted the French president had pledged to support Afghanistan in other ways, meaning monetary support.

The U.S. and NATO have already started passing the hat in the hopes of raising the $4.1 billion a year that will be needed to sustain Afghanistan’s large army and police force after 2014.

A number of countries, including Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom, have already made long-term commitments of at least $100 million a year.

Harper is expected to announce the details of a Canadian contribution sometime by the end of the weekend.

Also up for discussion during this weekend’s NATO summit is whether Pakistan will reopen its land border with Afghanistan, which has been closed since December, hindering alliance resupply lines.

The issue is doubly important to Canada as thousands of sea containers stuffed with military equipment that were supposed to be shipped by land through Pakistan and then transported back to Canada by sea remain stuck in Afghanistan instead.

“I do hope that we will see a reopening of the transit routes in the very near future,” Rasmussen said.

Afghanistan actually isn’t slated to be discussed by Harper and other leaders until Monday. Rather, Sunday will be dominated by discussions about the future of NATO in a time of shrinking defence budgets.

While the U.S. has been pressing Canada and other allies to increase their defence spending and bear more responsibility for global security, NATO is looking at what it calls “smart defence.”

This entails NATO members pooling resources and working together to prevent redundancy and waste.
Smart defence has been mocked by some as little more than a buzz phrase, but Rasmussen said a number of concrete projects will be explored by leaders over the weekend.

“We will ensure that the alliance has the capabilities to deal with the security challenges of the future, even as we tackle the economic challenges of the present,” Rasmussen said.

MONTREAL — A plan to restore order in Montreal appeared to erupt in smoke late Saturday, with fiery blockades blazing on a busy downtown street corner in a dispute gaining international attention.

Groups of protesters built pyres from plastic traffic cones and construction materials, setting them ablaze in the middle of an intersection in a popular nightclub district.

Meanwhile, the protest has spread beyond borders.

In New York, members of the Montreal-based rock band Arcade Fire wore the movement’s iconic red squares during an appearance with The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger on Saturday Night Live. Jagger wore a red shirt, but no red square.

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A day earlier, players in Quebec’s film industry were sporting them at the Cannes Film Festival.

The scenes in Montreal unfolded during a tense late-night march that, on several occasions, saw riot police use tear gas and protesters throw bottles and rocks.

Student protesters were joined by others spilling out of bars and clubs.

Together, they built the fires and cheered as the flames lit up the streets and sent plumes of black smoke billowing into the night sky.

A young woman, kneeling and handcuffed with some others who had been arrested and penned on a sidewalk patio, summed up the bizarre scene.

“I’m drunk! I’ve been on a patio all evening!” she told police, in an exchange caught on the live broadcast of Concordia University Television.

Some bystanders accused police of using excessive force on a crowd whose members were mostly peaceful.

Riot police charged protesters and repeatedly warned that they would be incarcerated throughout the weekend unless they dispersed.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

Protesters add to a fire during a demonstration in Montreal, Saturday, May 19, 2012. A plan to restore order in Montreal appeared to erupt in smoke late Saturday, with a fiery blockades blazing on busy downtown streets.

Montreal police spokesman Const. Yannick Ouimet said 69 arrests were made, including nine people who were charged with criminal offences — five with armed aggression against police, three with assaulting police, and one with arson.

Ouimet said the rest were charged with bylaw infractions punishable by fines.

He also noted that officers recovered a bag containing several Molotov cocktails before they could be used.

Two police officers suffered minor injuries from projectiles and Ouimet said that one protester also suffered a minor injury while being arrested.

He said the property damage included two police cruisers that had their windshields smashed.

Police had declared the protest illegal from the outset and Ouimet said the growing crowd ignored repeated warnings to disperse.

“I think it was told about 50 times to people to leave the protest since it was illegal and that we were going to get out their and disperse the people and make some arrests and people still remain on site,” he said early Sunday.

Just one day earlier the Quebec government passed emergency legislation designed to end the months of unrest.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

Riot police gather near a fire during a demonstration in Montreal, Saturday, May 19, 2012. A plan to restore order in Montreal appeared to erupt in smoke late Saturday, with a fiery blockades blazing on busy downtown streets.

Montreal police said they were still trying to figure out how to use Bill 78 without heightening tensions.

“We don’t want to cause a commotion, we want to prevent one,” spokesman Ian Lafreniere said Saturday afternoon.

But the new law appeared only to embolden protesters.

The chants from marchers were mostly directed at Premier Jean Charest and the police rather than the tuition hikes that first prompted the nightly marches.

At the same time, protesters were already finding creative ways around the controversial legislation.

In an attempt to avoid hefty fines, one prominent student group took down its web page Saturday that listed all upcoming protests. Another anonymous web page with listings quickly popped up in its place — with a note discouraging people from attending.

The disclaimer is meant to evade new rules applying to protest organizers, who must provide an itinerary for demonstrations and could be held responsible for any violence.

The website also accepts submissions for future protests and suggests using a software that blocks a sender’s digital trail.

In another online manoeuvre, the website for the Quebec Liberal party and the province’s Education Ministry were down for most of Saturday in an apparent cyber attack.

While no one claimed responsibility, the hacker group Anonymous has taken an interest. The group wrote on Twitter that Bill 78 “must die” and later issued a video denouncing the law.

Bill 78 lays out strict regulations governing demonstrations of over 50 people, including having to give eight hours’ notice for details such as the protest route, the duration and the time at which they’re being held.

Failure to comply could bring stiff fines for the organizers, but the law could be difficult to enforce.

Protests like Saturday’s have begun in the same downtown square at 8:30 p.m. every night for nearly a month. There’s no clear organizer, and the protest routes have been determined by the marchers on a street by street basis.

Still, the law says student associations that don’t encourage their members to comply with the law could face punishment. Fines range between $7,000 and $35,000 for student leaders and between $25,000 and $125,000 for student unions or student federations.

The City of Montreal also adopted a new bylaw Friday that threatens protesters who wear masks with heavy fines. Lafreniere said it gives police “another tool” to deal with the demonstrations. But it failed to deter dozens of protesters from wearing masks Saturday night, and police chose not to try to enforce the new law.

After facing heavy criticism from legal experts and civil liberties groups, the Quebec government took steps Saturday to defend Bill 78 by taking out full page ads in the local newspapers.

The headline read, “For the sake of democracy and citizenship.”

An opinion poll released Saturday suggested the majority of Quebecers support the new measures. The survey, however, was taken before the specifics of the legislation were known.

Official celebrations for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee take place in Britain over the long weekend of June 1-4. In the next 30 days, the National Post will count down to that date and beyond with a special series looking at Her Majesty’s 60 Glorious Years. We will be highlighting the work of some of our best journalists who have written about the Queen, her role in Canada and society, and the future of the monarchy. We will also have quizzes and special features about people and places connected to Royalty. Today, Natalie Stechyson on the future of Prince Charles as he starts a short tour of Canada.

Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, arrive in Canada Sunday for a whirlwind tour.

In his 63 years, Prince Charles has gone from fairy-tale prince, who caught the eye of noblewomen, commoners and starlets alike, to an object of ridicule, a man scorned as a cad for cheating on his princess.

Now the longest serving king-in-waiting in British history, Queen Elizabeth II’s oldest son is being largely overshadowed by his own sons, William and Harry, and of course, Will’s bride, Kate.

While Prince Charles has played many roles in his lifetime, experts and those who have met him agree the real Charles — the Charles of today and the Charles who will be king — isn’t really understood in the public realm.

For the past 20 years, Prince Charles’ public story has been largely a negative one, focused on the breakdown of his marriage with Diana and his relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, says Robert Finch, the dominion chairman of the Monarchist League of Canada.

“The story of the progressive Charles, the ‘green’ Charles, the man who bridges the religious divide, the man who raises millions of dollars for underprivileged children — that’s the story a lot of people just don’t know,” Mr. Finch says.

“I believe Charles will be a major force for modernizing the monarchy just based on his views of the world. A lot of people just don’t appreciate that side of him.”

How Prince Charles portrays himself on his visit — part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebration — has the potential, some contend, to help rebrand how the Commonwealth perceives the man who will someday sit on the throne.

“When he comes to Canada, it is an opportunity to cement that image and to portray himself as that modern, forward-thinking Prince of Wales,” Mr. Finch says.

“It’s an opportunity to reach out to all Canadians, but particularly young Canadians, and to really tell the story of Prince Charles.”

It wasn’t always such a rough ride in the public eye for Prince Charles. Though it may seem strange to a younger generation, he was once every bit the rock-star royal.

“He was one of the boys when he was here,” says Elbridge Wilkins, the former mayor of Fredericton.

Mr. Wilkins, now 85, was the mayor of New Brunswick’s capital city from 1974 to 1986, a period when the prince visited several times, for both official business and for pleasure.

Prince Charles undertook some of his military training in the mid-1970s at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, and came into Fredericton on several occasions. And, “more than once,” he stopped in at a popular dance club, The Cosmo, Mr. Wilkins says with a chuckle.

“He danced with a girl one night, at least a couple of times. And she asked him what his name was, and he just said ‘Charles,’” Mr. Wilkins says.

“And she didn’t realize until after he had left who he was, and she got a real kick out of that.”

In the 1970s and up until his 1981 marriage, Prince Charles was considered the world’s most eligible bachelor.

Handsome and heir to the throne, he dated and was admired by glamorous women all over the world. In 1977, on a visit to the U.S., television star Angie Dickenson called Charles “a beauty.” Lauren Bacall said she was “enchanted” by him. The New York Times reported that “‘He has a lover’s voice’ as one English woman puts it, and deep blue eyes that fix a woman steadily as he talks and listens.”

Even Margaret Trudeau was charmed by both Charles and his brother Andrew, according to the 1979 biography H.R.H.: The Man Who Will Be King by Tim Heald and Mayo Mohs.

“Of course I found them attractive. Wouldn’t you?” she said to the authors.

Even after his marriage to the much-loved Diana, in their earlier, happier days, Prince Charles was still very much the fairy-tale Prince.

By the time that Prince Charles became best-known for “two-timing one of the most well-loved women of the 20th century,” as biographer Anthony Holden put it, his popularity had plummeted and the public’s interest in him followed suit.

By 1993, just 61% of polled Canadians wanted him to become king. By the next year, a long-planned Royal Tour of Australia attracted small crowds and little interest. “Indifference is rising to a fever pitch,” a radio broadcaster announced.

The problem, Mr. Finch says, is that all of Charles’ missteps have happened in the public forum.

“It doesn’t matter who you are. When that sort of thing happens, you’re going to have to really dig down and start rebuilding your character,” Mr. Finch says.

Canada’s support for Prince Charles as king dipped to 51% by 2005, the year he married his longtime love, Camilla. By 2009, the year of Prince Charles’ last visit to Canada, half of Canadians surveyed believed the country should just cut its ties to the monarchy after the Queen dies.

But then a new generation of royals, and a new fairy-tale prince and princess, stepped into the spotlight.

William and Kate’s wedding in 2011 was broadcast around the world, and the newlyweds charmed Canadians during their honeymoon visit to Canada last summer.

By the end of the royal visit, 81% of polled Canadians believed the young couple would help keep the monarchy relevant to Canadians, according to an Ipsos Reid poll conducted on behalf of Postmedia News and Global News.

Overshadowed by both a younger generation in a modern era and, on the other end of the spectrum, his mother’s 60-year reign, it’s no surprise that Prince Charles is often overlooked and forgotten by the public, Mr. Finch said.

“When you think of the monarchy, you think of the Queen. How do you make a role for yourself in that grand scheme of things?” Mr. Finch says.

“People like the Queen because she’s a constant and she’s been around for so long, and they also like that fresh newness that comes with William and Kate.”

Prince Charles’ challenge will be to make sure he stays on the radar, Mr. Finch says.

Prince Charles has dedicated himself to causes ranging from sustainable agriculture to education to responsible business. His group of charities raise more than $160 million annually. In 1990, Prince Charles combined his interests in business and the environment to found the organic food line Duchy Originals, which makes more than 200 products using sustainable production.

Still, Prince Charles is likely at a point in his life where he realizes he’s not necessarily going to change the public’s view of his past, says royal commentator Marilyn Braun, who publishes a blog and a podcast show about the Royal Family.

There’s also a lot for him to live up to, and plenty of expectations for him when he does become king, Ms. Braun says. Already 63, time isn’t on his side to make the same mark as his predecessors.

“He won’t give his name to an era, like Queen Victoria and King Edward VII; he won’t lead his nation in a world war, like King George V and King George VI; and he’s unlikely to earn or command the same level of respect as his mother,” Ms. Braun says.

“He will likely have a short reign, so his role and work while Prince of Wales will be his legacy.”

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