statism watch

Barrie McKenna, The Globe and Mail
May 16, 2008 at 7:57 PM EDT

WINDSOR, ONT — Peter Durant is getting edgy. The 41-year-old Ontario trucker should be on his way to Toledo, Ohio, to pick up a load of Oreo cookies for Kraft Canada.

Instead, he’s stuck at a truck stop outside Windsor, Ont. The U.S. Customs computer system that handles freight has crashed and can’t read his electronic manifest.

By the time the all-clear sign comes from his dispatcher an hour later, about 100 trucks are lined up on the U.S. side of the Ambassador Bridge. It will take him another 11/2 hours to navigate the 13-kilometre drive through Windsor and clear customs on the U.S. side.

It’s another day at the busiest trade gateway on the planet – not a bad day; not a particularly good day. Just thick. Dense layers of security, designed to shield Americans from a world full of threats, have conspired to make life enduringly less predictable for everyone else.

“I can’t see this is an efficient way to move things across the border,” observed Mr. Durant, who has hauled cargo across the border once or twice a week for the past 14 years. “This isn’t it,” he said as he guided his rig through winding, rutted lanes beneath the bridge.

Call it thick, sticky or whatever you like. For the people and companies who ply the border trade, the new reality is an increasingly complex, time-consuming and costly experience. And we’re all paying the price.

…

Falling traffic has coincided with an explosion of new rules and requirements – features that often vary slightly from one border post to another. Combined with new programs designed to expedite trusted freight, a shipper’s life has become a maze of paperwork, new technology and confusing acronyms.

“I don’t even know half of them,” Mr. Durant acknowledged. “I have to read them up all the time.”

He, like his truck and the customer he’s hauling for, are members of the Free and Secure Trade program, or FAST, a joint Canadian and U.S. initiative designed to speed known cargo and haulers swiftly through customs. That means his truck can use designated express lanes for low-risk cargo. Mr. Durant carries a FAST card, which shows his citizenship, confirms he’s cleared criminal background checks and also tracks his recent movements across the border.

His truck is also equipped with a $5,000 global positioning system that allows the company to track where he is at all times, send him alerts and make electronic customs filings.

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Chris Sorensen, The Toronto Star
May 16, 2008 04:30 AM

Canada’s broadcast watchdog will hold public hearings next year into the thorny question of extending its purview to the Internet, a medium it deemed to be a regulatory-free zone nearly a decade ago.

The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission released a 75-page report yesterday that summarizes research and stakeholder opinion on a wide range of issues that have emerged as increasing amounts of broadcast media, such as radio programs, have migrated on to the Web in recent years. That includes questions about whether Canadian content should be promoted on the Internet, or if Internet service providers should be permitted to slow certain types of bandwidth-intensive traffic in a bid to keep their networks flowing smoothly.

While CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein said in a statement that the intention “is not to regulate new media,” he nevertheless noted that the regulator may “propose measures that would support the continued achievement of the Broadcasting Act’s objectives.”

Critics questioned the CRTC’s motives for reopening the new media file after nearly a decade of taking a hands-off approach.

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Should its exemption be reversed, the CRTC’s mandate would likely be limited to potentially overseeing online content offered by TV networks or radio stations. So-called “user-generated content” – personal videos uploaded to YouTube, for example – would be unaffected by any policy change.

The CRTC also indicated in the final report that it plans to review the issue of Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, that are using special software programs to sniff out and slow down data packets associated with bandwidth-intensive services such as peer-to-peer file sharing.

While the ISPs say such practices are necessary to prevent a small number of heavy-bandwidth users from slowing down the entire network, critics argue that “traffic shaping” activities are a threat to the concept of “net neutrality,” or the idea that all content on the Web should be treated equally.

Michael Hennessy, the vice-president of wireless, broadband and content policy for Telus Corp., said a bandwidth crunch is looming and that any discussions about traffic shaping at the CRTC are therefore likely to focus on questions of fairness and transparency.

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Les Whittington, The Toronto Star
May 16, 2008 04:30 AM

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion began rolling out his politically risky carbon tax plan yesterday with a carrot-and-stick theme that he hopes will blunt Canadians’ objections to higher fuel costs.

At the heart of the wide-ranging environmental package are hard-to-sell tax increases that will drive up the cost of heating a home with natural gas, oil or electricity from coal-fired plants. The Liberals say their plan would not raise gasoline prices, which are already subject to a federal excise tax.

Details of the plan will not be out for several weeks, but the proposed measures could increase Ottawa’s tax take by an estimated $12 billion a year, according to economists.

But the Liberals are promising to transfer every penny raised by higher energy taxes back to individual and corporate taxpayers in the form of income tax reductions, incentives for conservation and support for low-income earners.

It’s a plan “that’s good for your wallet and good for the planet,” Dion told a lunchtime business audience in Toronto.

“We must create competitive advantages by lowering taxes on things we want more of – income, (business) innovation, savings and investment.

“And we must shift those taxes towards the things we want less of – pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, smog and waste,” he explained. “And, in doing so, we will be able to help the middle class and lift many Canadians out of poverty so they can offer all of their talents and skills to the nation.”

Liberals MPs say one of their chief concerns is the bruising impact that higher energy taxes would have on the pocketbooks of middle-class and low-income Canadians already grappling with skyrocketing gas prices.

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Last Updated: Friday, May 16, 2008 | 7:21 AM
CBC News

Osama bin Laden has vowed that al-Qaeda will continue its campaign against Israel and its Western allies until Palestinians are freed from their “occupiers,” according to reports.

Bin Laden made the remarks in a tape released Friday, as Israel continued its 60th anniversary celebrations. The authenticity of the nearly 10-minute message could not immediately be verified, but it was posted on a website commonly used by al-Qaeda.

The militant leader, who has previously threatened to extend al-Qaeda’s network to Israel, said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most important elements in its battle against the West and that it motivated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

“We will continue, God permitting, the fight against the Israelis and their allies … and will not give up a single inch of Palestine as long as there is one true Muslim on Earth,” the Saudi-born militant said, according to Reuters.

The message, which is bin Laden’s second this year and seventh since 2007, said anniversary celebrations in Israel were a clear indication that the world’s only Jewish state was built on land taken 60 years ago from Palestinians who were already living there.

“This is evidence that Palestine is our land, and the Israelis are invaders and occupiers who should be fought,” Reuters quoted him as saying.

Friday’s message came a day after U.S. President George W. Bush delivered a speech to the Israeli parliament condemning bin Laden and other “terrorists and radicals,” including members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Hezbollah and the president of Iran.

The militant leader made another direct reference to Israel in a tape released on the web in December 2007, saying al-Qaeda intends to “liberate Palestine, the whole of Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the sea.

“We will not recognize even one inch for Jews in the land of Palestine as other Muslim leaders have,” he said.

Full Story | See Also: U.S. Government Caught Red-Handed Releasing Staged Al-Qaeda Videos | Swiss scientists 95% sure that Bin Laden recording was fake