statism watch

The wider issue is not the cost to families (which most of us will be able to absorb) and the marginal productivity gains the largest businesses will realize by streamlining accounting procedures, but the fact that this is a tax harmonization initiative – which will move our tax regimes closer to those of the EU and other jurisdictions. Guess what? We’re presently negotiating a free trade agreement with the EU.

Update (2010/06/10): This take on the HST’s global role was confirmed in part by Colin Hansen, the BC Finance Minister, speaking on CBC’s The Current this morning. Listen to the interview with Bill Vander Zalm and Colin Hansen, in particular the bit around 21:46. “The shift to value added tax is a global movement, it is a modernization of the tax system, and it’s very important.” So why didn’t the Feds call it a VAT?

Related: Underground economy emerges in Ontario in response to HST | B.C. anti-HST petition hits target weeks ahead of schedule | Protesters worked up over HST levy on fitness | Anti-HST petition nears goal in B.C. | HST rage puts B.C. Liberals in a spot | Harmonized tax could cost Ontarians $5.9B a year | HST will cost families, McGuinty finally admits | HST begins taxing Ontario on Saturday | First Nations protest against HST | Canadian taxes fastest-growing expense: Report | BC Govt, Anti-HST Campaigners Dispute Legality of Pro-HST Leaflet | Electricity rates surge in Ontario | Up to 50,000 protest Charest’s tax hikes | Paul Volcker: VAT, Carbon taxes may be necessary | Nova Scotia budget hikes HST rate | Thousands protest Quebec budget | HST legislation introduced in B.C. | Facing years of deficits, Ontario freezes wages | Former premier Bill Vander Zalm rallies against the HST in BC | Ontario tax collectors get $45K severance, keep jobs in HST federalization deal | Athens erupts as Greek austerity plan passes | HST ad campaign debuts in Ontario | Ont. deficit could linger for years: McGuinty | HST bill passes, 13% tax starts July 1 | Poll: HST equals Hated Sales Tax | Anti-HST protest at Ontario legislature spills onto Toronto streets | Tories, Liberals, Bloc approve HST for Ontario and B.C.

Robert Benzie, The Toronto Star
June 8, 2010

Rebate cheques being mailed this week

HST rebate cheques are being mailed out this week, but Ontarians may want to bank some of the money as the new tax will eventually cost households up to $480 a year.

In fact, 51 per cent of Ontario families will pay more in taxes by 2012, according to the Liberal government’s own study on the impact of the business-friendly 13 per cent harmonized sales tax. The tax takes effect July 1.

Speaking to an Ottawa radio station, Premier Dalton McGuinty emphasized that the transition payments of up to $1,000 per household should offset higher levies on gasoline, electricity, and other goods and services.

“We’ve worked really, really hard to minimize the impact of the HST,” McGuinty told CFRA Radio.

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Related: Ontario closer to handing over Ipperwash park to Chippewas | B.C. Nisga’a First Nation approves private property rights | BC Native tribe will petition Ottawa to remove its Indian status | Court upholds aboriginal fishing rights on Vancouver Island | BC chiefs kill flawed aboriginal rights law | Akwesasne chief pushes for Mohawk sovereignty | Title law would undermine native rights, lawyers say | BC Court Tells Ottawa to Amend Status Rules for Natives | Quebec First Nations declare sovereignty, opposition to provincial development plans | OPP threatened natives to end blockade | Alberta natives protest oil exploration on their land | Native leaders vow to fight mining law in Ontario | Mohawk protesters set up blockade in eastern Ont. town

Peter Edwards, Toronto Star
June 8, 2010

NEW CREDIT FIRST NATION–Cows casually graze and a man cuts grass in front of the Willow Park Tent and Trailer Campground and banquet centre, which proprietor Marvin LaForme jokes is his community’s version of the Eaton Centre.

It was business as usual on Tuesday, here at the heart of this First Nations community of 1,700, as politicians announced what was hailed as a historic $145 million settlement over a land claim encompassing more than 100,000 hectares in the GTA. The bulk of the money will be put in trust for the community, but the agreement gives each adult band member $20,000.

“You couldn’t buy my truck, not for $20,000,” LaForme, 69, said with a shrug. “I’m not excited or surprised,” LaForme continued. “I’m concerned the people didn’t get enough money.”

Despite his blasé words, the measure to redress a historical wrong was passed overwhelmingly in a community vote last month, with 856 votes in favour, 41 against and seven spoiled ballots.

The Mississaugas of New Credit, who once lived along the Credit River, signed away the land that covers much of the GTA in two treaties written 200 years ago, before agreeing in the 1840s to move to their current 2,900-hectare reserve in Hagersville, near the Six Nations.

Historians suggest the Mississaugas were not properly apprised of what they were agreeing to in the so-called Toronto Purchase of 1787 – later clarified in an 1805 treaty – whereby land stretching from Etobicoke Creek to Ashbridges Bay and 28 miles north was turned over for just 10 shillings, about $60 in today’s terms. A similar stretch encompassing present-day Mississauga went for the same amount.

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It took a little bit of digging (the study was actually released a few days ago) but here is the study Corcoran mentions, released by the U of W’s Centre for International Governance Innovation, an institution funded by Jim Balsillie of RIM. Longtime readers may recall that Balsillie was credited in 2007 with setting up Canada’s version of the CFR at the U of T’s Munk Centre. (Jump into the thread on mushrooming ‘International Governance’ schools here) The report is entitled The Financial Stability Board: An Effective Fourth Pillar of Global Economic Governance?. Here is the passage referred to, from the first essay of the report by Louis W. Pauly, a Canada Research Chair in political science and former IMF staffer, The entire essay, six pages or so, illuminates the historical connections tying together the League of Nations, the IMF, Bretton Woods, and the economic theory of Keynes as driving the globalist’s dream. Pauly advocates for the IMF as the global body of economic surveillance (a developing trend we’ve been covering in this journal for some time), expresses doubts that nations can cooperate without such a body, and goes on conclude that:

“…surely we must have more ambitious political objectives. For some years now, international economists, economic geographers and political scientists have tried to put an optimistic spin on the notion that “networked governance” can be appropriate for an integrating global economy. In the wake of the recent financial crisis, the term begins to sound like “no government, except the national one.” I doubt that is adequate, especially in a world where the imperfect substitute for global government since 1945, the United States, may be increasingly reluctant to play that role. Rasminsky once said to me, “At the League, we were expected to catch fish, but we had no bait.” We do not need to re-learn our history lessons the hard way. In the wake of the crisis of 2008, it is time for some serious fishing. We should not shy away from naming the big fish honestly. It is global government, including deep, binding, and well-staffed arrangements for cross-national fiscal and monetary burden-sharing adequate to sustain integrating financial markets. If we really cannot imagine the bait that will help us catch it, then we should abandon the dream of global markets. And since the dream was originally dreamt in response to military insecurity, we must then not flinch at the consequent challenge of imagining feasible alternatives at this most basic level of world order. If we are not that brave, then it is far preferable to return seriously to the hard work of realizing the dream. We may then discover that Polak, Gold, and Rasminsky were just ahead of their time.”

Related: G20 leaders signal move from aid to business, call for increase to central bank budgets | G20 to delay tough bank tax regulations | Geithner speaketh on the globalization of risk as G20 meets in Seoul | Eurozone plan for common bond issue to head off debt crisis | European Powerbrokers Present Proposal For New Economic And Political Order | European Central Bank chief: Bank of International Settlements to Rule the Global Economy | World Bank gets $3.5-billion boost, revamps voting structure to make China number 3 | Global bank tax urged by IMF | IMF chief calls for quota-based global warming slush fund | Leaked UN Documents Reveal Plan For “Green World Order” By 2012 | IMF chief proposes new reserve currency | Sarkozy says world currency disorder unacceptable | Current And Former IMF Heads Call For New Global Currency | George Soros Calls for World Currency and “New World Architecture” | Fisk: Nations to hasten demise of dollar in new world order | US dollar set to be eclipsed, World Bank president predicts | Bilderberg Wants Global Currency Now | Dollar to fall under scrutiny at G20 summit | UN wants new global currency to replace dollar | G20 agrees to continue economic stimulus measures; Geithner shops international reserve accord | China Set to Buy $50 Billion in IMF Notes | Medvedev Unveils “World Currency” Coin At G8 | China calls anew for super-sovereign currency | China explores buying $50bn in IMF bonds | Chinese economists deem huge holding of US bonds “risky” as Geithner visits | Report from the 2009 Bilderberg Conference | A Bigger, Bolder Role Is Imagined For the IMF | UK PM reveals G20 plan to boost IMF by $1 trillion, hails new world order (again) | World Bank President Admits Agenda For Global Government | UN & IMF Back Agenda For Global Financial Dictatorship | U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar | IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’ | Gordon Brown seeks sweeping reforms to give IMF global ’surveillance role’ | IMF may need to “print money”, act as “world’s central bank” as crisis spreads | Globalists Exploit Financial Meltdown In Move Towards One World Currency | World needs new Bretton Woods, says Brown | IMF prescribes state regulation of ‘global financial order’ | Bilderberg Seeks Bank Centralization Agenda | Banks face “new world order,” consolidation: report

Terence Corcoran, The Financial Post
June 8, 2010

No good can come from what is effectively nationalization and centralization of the Internet in the hands of a few state-authorized providers. Note that this is also being done, with regional variation, most clearly in the UK and Australia. (In the US, they’re just outright handing control over to the NSA.) As usual, a policy drive among Western bloc nations is being implemented at the national level on a flexible timeline, thus effectively masking the nature of the operation from the populace. Note also the chatter around ‘moderating‘ and taxing online speech. Internet cafe owners in the UK are being deputized to look over their customer’s shoulders to ensure they’re not visiting some extremist website blacklist – a set that is bound to expand outside of porn and jihadi sites to include free speech and whistleblower websites as it already has in Australia. So, sorry rural Canada – all indications point to the fact you should expect that subsidized net connection to come with strings attached.

Related: Industry Minister Clement invites input on Canadian digital economy | UK Budget 2010: Darling puts emphasis on broadband for all | Government Internet Censorship Begins In Stealth In New Zealand | China launches interview requirement, licensing for personal websites | Activists Shut Down Australian Government Websites in Internet Filter Protest | UN agency calls for global cyberwarfare treaty, ‘driver’s license’ for Web users | China tells web companies to obey controls | Google Considers Leaving China If China Will Not Allow Uncensored Search | China Imposes New Internet Controls | Death Of The Internet: Censorship Bills In UK, Australia, U.S. Aim To Block “Undesirable” Websites | Australia introduces web filters | Obama Wants Computer Privacy Ruling Overturned | UK Internet surveillance plan to go ahead | Security boss calls for end to net anonymity | Case for Internet spying not closed | Planned Internet, wireless surveillance laws worry watchdogs | UK ISPs condemn Internet surveillance plans | UK to found new ‘cyber-security’ units attached to national eavesdropping centre | ISPs must help police snoop on internet under new bill | UK plans to integrate ‘cybersecurity’ centre with US, Canada | China begins internet ‘blackout’ ahead of Tiananmen anniversary | Cybersecurity Is Framework For Total Government Regulation & Control Of Our Lives | Obama Set to Create A Cybersecurity Czar With Broad Mandate | EU wants ‘Internet G12′ to govern cyberspace | UK Home Secretary has secret plan to surveil, ‘Master the Internet’ | Aussies Announce $31B National Broadband Network | Munk Centre researchers discover botnet, call for international cyberspace ‘legal regime’ | In Australia, censored hyperlinks could cost you | NSA Dominance of Cybersecurity Would Lead to ‘Grave Peril’, Ex-Cyber Chief Tells Congress | Do We Need a New Internet? | Australian web censorship plan to begin trial despite house opposition | Britain unveils plans for nationalized internet service | Chinese Learn Limits of Online Freedom as the Filter Tightens | Defense Contractors See $$$ in Cyber Security | Protests in Australia over proposal to block Web sites | China restarts online crackdown | Australia to Implement Mandatory Internet Censorship | RCMP to helm a Canadian “cyber-security strategy” | Sweden approves wiretapping law | Law Professor tells tech conference: plans to shut down Internet already on deck

Iain Marlowe, The Globe and Mail
June 8, 2010

Ottawa grants conditional funding to companies promising to bring high-speed service into communities that already have it

Richard Lajeunesse, a 53-year-old member of the Grassy Narrows First Nation in Northwestern Ontario, watched his community get poor Internet service with the help of one government grant, saw it upgraded with a second, and might see his Internet service business taken away by a third.

Mr. Lajeunesse runs a one-man Internet service company out of nearby Kenora, Ont. He helped bring high-speed Internet to the surrounding rural community, including Grassy Narrows, five years ago. Now, he worries that the federal government’s $225-million broadband stimulus fund is about to toss him out of business — an unexpected twist, given that the money was allocated to promote precisely the type of service that Mr. Lajeunesse’s small company provides.

The government has awarded conditional funding to a much larger, national company called OmniGlobe Broadband Inc., so it can offer service in the same territory served by Mr. Lajeunesse’s firm, North One Communications Inc., which has only 400 subscribers.

And he is not alone. Across the country, government money is being spent to bring Internet service into some communities that already have it. In the process, the government may be arming big companies to do battle with tiny, locally owned businesses or non-profits that spent their own capital, and in some cases previous government funding, to provide service.

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Some cheery news. Canada seems to be doing well on this front, but our levels of personal debt are astronomical, so we’re very sensitive to interest rate shocks as well. Anyone that doesn’t want to be caught out would be wise to get out of debt now while they still can.

Related: Canadian debt: The $1.4 trillion hole we’re in | Canada’s brewing debt storm | Canadian household debt hits record high | Canadians struggling to dig out of debt | A world awash in debt | Personal bankruptcies still soaring | Credit card debt balloons | Canada’s $1-trillion debt baby | Credit delinquencies up 24% in June | Credit delinquencies up 24% in June | More Canadians in arrears on credit payments | Canadian households $1.3-trillion in debt | Credit companies seek to avoid regulation, create global debit system | Canadian credit card delinquencies rising | All maxed out? Budget measures would improve credit access | Now the consumer crunch: falling credit limits, rising interest rates | Bank of Canada adds $8B to credit markets | $25B credit backstop for banks ‘not a bailout’: Harper

Jonathan Ratner, Financial Post
June 8, 2010

UBS AG is warning that a further weakening of the global economy, if not a recession, appears to be inevitable.

“Whether it will be called a double-dip recession depends entirely on how long the second downturn can be delayed by monetary and fiscal stimuli,” the firm said in a report.

After a fairly impressive rebound for the global economy since the summer of 2009, economists and investors started to believe in a V-shaped recovery. This would see economic activity return to pre-recession levels in a relatively smooth and speedy fashion.

However, over the last few months, economic momentum has been stalling in many regions, UBS notes. Rising concerns about the sovereign debt situation causing much of the questioning of the V-shaped scenario. “Instead, investors are wondering whether the global economy might be headed for a W-shaped, or double-dip recession.”

Is the current upswing based on the genuine savings of real resources that are being used to increase capital expenditure or is it based on the artificial expansion of money and credit?

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The police are also denying’ this has anything to go with the G20 Funny, almost the exact same thing happened before the Olympics. The retraction, the revelation that the man with the missing fingers, limp and eyepatch (Keyser Söze?) is in fact a farmer will get nowhere near the media play that this announcement has. That’s just one way you’re manipulated through the media. The QMI News Agency/Sun Media/Quebecor company publicizing this report, incidentally, has recently submitted an application to start a news network that’s been described as ‘Fox News North’, to be headed by Harper’s former communications advisor. So watch out for more propaganda from that source, they’ve certainly started with a bang.

(About that OKC Federal building bombing that they keep bringing up recently- it’s been exposed as an incidence of state terror Timothy McVeigh was spotted, on video, at an army base specializing in explosives and demolitions when he was supposed to have been out visiting evil gun shows and hobnobbing with evil state militias in ’93. More on that here. History is littered with instances of what’s known as false flag terrorism, and the spectrum extends from opportunistic psychological operations to the most extreme events where a state stages some kind of attack to blame it on their enemies – he hit me first! the old schoolyard ploy- to go to war. Canada is not above this, look up the Macdonald commission report, and that’s just one example. Anyways, let’s just hope nothing of the sort is planned for the G20.)

Update (2010/06/09): What do you know – the mystery purchaser of the fertilizer turned out to be a farmer. ‘Anticlimactic’, indeed.

Related: Explosive chemicals not stolen prior to Olympics after all: RCMP | RCMP hasn’t closed book on missing potential explosive as Olympics loom | GPS game blamed for Ottawa bomb scare | ‘Bombs’ in Ottawa this weekend are just for training | Art student released on bail after bomb hoax

CBC News
June 8, 2010

Searching for man who bought 1,625 kg of ammonium nitrate in Lincoln, Ont.

Police in southern Ontario are reported to be searching for a man who bought what they consider to be a suspiciously large amount of fertilizer – enough, they say, to make a bomb.

The RCMP have confirmed to CBC News that a man purchased 65, 25-kilogram bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer on May 26 at Vineland Growers’ Co-Operative Ltd., in Lincoln, Ont., near St. Catharines in the Niagara Region.

According to a report by the QMI news agency, alerts have been sent to police forces across Ontario asking them to keep an eye out for the man. The RCMP say they are assisting with the investigation.

The 1,625 kg of ammonium nitrate is enough to make an explosive of the kind used by U.S. bomber Timothy McVeigh, QMI quoted the alert as saying.

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Related: Chicago, awash in gun violence, gives Toronto advice: You need a gun ban like ours | Illinois governor suggests National Guard help with Chicago gun crime

CBC News
June 8, 2010

Prosecutors accuse ex-governor of Illinois of using office to line own pockets

Rod Blagojevich tried to enrich himself and his friends through a number of “illegal shakedowns,” a U.S. prosecutor charged Tuesday in opening remarks at the former Illinois governor’s corruption trial in Chicago.

“In each of these shakedowns, the message was clear: ‘Pay up or no state action’,” federal prosecutor Carrie Hamilton told the jury.

But in his opening statement, defence attorney Sam Adam Jr. countered that assessment, calling Blagojevich an honest man who “didn’t take a dime.”

If anything, he just trusted the wrong people, Adam said. The colourful defence attorney also revealed that his client plans to testify in his own defence.

“The guy ain’t corrupt,” Adam told the court.

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So Spain and now Bulgaria are on their way to going down the same tube as Greece. Great. And we’re still watching So You Think You Can Dance and all this economics stuff? That’s happening to other people, over there.

Related: Eurozone plan for common bond issue to head off debt crisis | EU plans to create watchdog to curb credit rating agencies | Germany bans naked short-selling | European debt fears batter TSX | Greece links U.S. banks to debt crisis | European Council On Foreign Relations: EU Needs To Use Crisis For Greater Power | Sarkozy threatened to quit euro in showdown with Germany: Report | Hedge funds vote threatens EU-US rift | Global markets slide on debt fears | Loonie, TSX slip on euro woes | European Powerbrokers Present Proposal For New Economic And Political Order | Europe and America Morally and Financially Bankrupt | EU wants member countries to co-ordinate budgets | EU deal euphoria fizzles out | Ron Paul: Euro Bailout Will Lead To Currency Collapse | ‘Shock and awe’ euro rescue lifts global markets | Western Central Banks back Trillion Dollar European rescue plan, ECB to manage markets | Euro zone to regulate hedge funds, vows to fend off ‘wolf pack’ traders at all costs | Euro crisis goes global as leaders fail to stop the rot | Debt crisis: Panic on Wall Street, stonewalling in Europe | Greek rescue fears hit global stock markets | Greece swallows tough medicine in $150B bailout, more spending cuts announced | Greece erupts as men from IMF prepare to wield axe | Greece’s near bankruptcy won’t scuttle Canada-EU trade talks: minister | New austerity measures essential, says Greek PM | European Central Bank chief: Bank of International Settlements to Rule the Global Economy | Greek debt crisis: Europe feels shockwaves as bailout falters | Standard & Poor’s downgrade Greek credit rating to junk status | Greek bailout not limited to €45bn, Flaherty warns | IMF to move quickly on Greek request for loan | Greek PM calls for EU bailout loans | Greek civil servants strike, challenge EU/IMF talks | Soros warns Europe of disintegration | Investors rush to sell Greek bonds | IMF struggles to conceal glee at Greek deal | Greece secures joint IMF/Eurozone bailout program | Greek PM threatens to go to IMF if no EU bailout | General strike cripples Greece as protesters clash with police | Athens erupts as Greek austerity plan passes | Greece unveils radical austerity package | Athen’s coffers to run dry in two weeks, more cracks appear in Eurozone | Man who broke the Bank of England, George Soros, ‘at centre of hedge funds plot to cash in on fall of the euro’ | Goldman role in Greek crisis probed | Greek workers stage general strike | How EU Countries Cooked Books Using Derivatives | Goldman Sachs Helped Greece Obscure Debt Through Currency Swaps | Collapse of the euro is ‘inevitable’: Bailing out the Greek economy futile, says French banking chief | Euro currency union shows strains | Stimulating our way into debt crises | EU leaders reach secret Greek bailout deal | Will Greece set off ‘global debt bomb’? | EU cautions Greece about its deficit | Could Greece drag down Europe? | ‘Significant chance’ of second financial crisis, warns World Economic Forum | A world awash in debt | Secret report details Nazi plan to create a European Union | Leaked 1955 Bilderberg Docs Outline Plan For Single European Currency | Leaked Agenda: Bilderberg Group Plans Economic Depression | Bilderberg chairman: ‘Bilderberg helped create the Euro’ | Bilderberg Seeks Bank Centralization Agenda

CBC News
June 8, 2010

Fitch warns U.K. faces ‘formidable’ fiscal challenge

European markets traded lower for a third day Tuesday amid continuing concerns about sovereign debt and slowing economic growth.

Bond rating agency Fitch Ratings said Britain faces a “formidable” fiscal problem to maintain its current rating and needs to pick up the pace of measures to cut its budget deficit.

And data released Tuesday showed exports from Europe’s largest economy, Germany, fell in April after rising the most in 18 years the month earlier.

London’s FTSE 100 index closed down 0.81 per cent, while Frankfurt’s DAX lost 0.62 per cent and the Paris CAC 40 fell 0.98 per cent.

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But who cares about jurisdiction when it’s a must-be to get the IOC’s favoured security company, a company that already has all the special contacts with US intelligence and the RCMP established. Sickening. Monopolistic. Wasteful. And since they’re paying twice what the competition offers, obviously not market driven. Kind of like the G20 itself.

And the whole process is veiled in secrecy thanks to the need for ‘National Security’ which has cast a shadow over the country since, as Baird points out, 9/11. And the worst thing is that it’s admitted that security guards during the summit are going to be federalized and integrated with the police – this represents a STASI-fication of Toronto policing, and everyone’s nodding sagely and pontificating on how necessary this is. Perhaps there would be a different response if they knew troops are running checkpoints all over the US in violation of Posse Comitatus law, the UK is setting up its own cadres of secret police to watch and snitch on everyone, private security is being used for policing in Toronto’s Chinatown as a ‘pilot project’, they send undercover cops out to watch kids have a little rally against the armed cops in their schools, Toronto Police are trialing license plate scanners now, Ontario cops are getting ID scanners, TAVIS is throwing its weight around demanding ID on the streets, come on people! These are pieces of a global puzzle and we need to put it together soon because our liberty hangs in the balance. A police state, as CBC Ideas has rightly described this tilt in North America, is neither desirable nor necessary, and we shouldn’t be running a test bed for tyranny in this city.

Related: G20 media centre with fake lake to cost $1.9M | Toronto police show off G20 summit security | 1,100 private security guards to work G8-G20 summits | Toronto Police to take up to $100-million of G20 security funds | Toronto police buy four ’sound cannons’ for G20 | Toronto and Muskoka G8/20 Summit security costs hit $1.1B | Toronto streets get 77 more surveillance cameras for G20 | Fighter jets buzz Toronto, Muskoka in G20 test runs | Small army to protect Toronto during G20 summit | RCMP needs 5,500 rooms during G20 summit | G8/G20: Gearing up for the biggest security event in Canadian history | For more, see the G20 Coverage page feature

Siri Agrell, The Globe and Mail
June 8, 2010

Provincial ministry scrambling to vet company and hundreds of guards before summit

The company awarded a federal government contract to provide private security for the G8 and G20 summits is not licensed in Ontario.

Contemporary Security Canada, a subsidiary of a U.S.-based company that did private security for the Vancouver Olympic Games, was selected by the RCMP to provide about 1,100 workers to screen pedestrians throughout the summits in Huntsville and Toronto.

But security guards and their companies are required by provincial law to be licensed, and the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services said Contemporary Security Canada is not approved.

“No, they’re not,” said Laura Blondeau, spokeswoman for Minister Rick Bartolucci. “We are scrambling to do that due diligence with the aim of getting them licensed so they can proceed. So we’re kind of behind the eight ball on this.”

Ms. Blondeau said the ministry was informed of the issue “within the last two weeks” and said awarding a licence typically takes four to six months. Ministry staff are doing background checks on the company and the security guards it has hired for the high-profile international event.

“My understanding is that the RCMP has a long-standing relationship with this company,” she said. “So they secured them and we found out about it after the fact. It’s an inconvenience.”

The company must pay a fee and go through a rigorous process to become licensed, and Ms. Blondeau said it will be able to work at the summits only if approved.

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Good job, Campbell. Love what you’re doing, what with the HST, the Olympics, the carbon tax, and the license plate scanning network. Welcome to the club.

Related: Former Nato Secretary-General Admits Bilderberg Sets Global Policy | Bilderberg Wants Americans Disarmed And Dependent On Government | Bilderberg 2010 Participant List Released | Bilderberg Agenda Revealed: Globalists In Crisis, Supportive Of Attack On Iran | Bilderberg 2010: Why the protesters are your very best friend | Bilderberg 2010: The security lockdown begins | Secretive Bilderberg Club ready for protests | Dublin Trilateral attendees let slip need for world govt, war with Iran, Bilderberg oversight | Tucker: Bilderberg To Meet in Spain, Prolong Global Financial Recession For Another Year

Jonathan Fowlie, The Vancouver Sun
June 8, 2010

Premier Gordon Campbell spent his weekend rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s leading political and business figures at the 58th annual Bilderberg Meeting in Sitges, Spain.

The secretive invitation-only meeting — dubbed by London’s The Independent newspaper as an “annual cabal of the world’s elite” — pulls together top international names to discuss issues such as foreign affairs and the economy.

“We talked about the economy, we talked about trade, we talked about health care and the challenges that health care presents to all economies with the changing demographic,” Campbell said Monday, not going into detail about what was discussed.

“We talked about how is it possible to feed the world and what are the barriers that are in the way of us actually accomplishing that goal.

“Everybody is connected now with international trade. Everyone will be affected by what happens with the European currencies and that’s a significant issue everyone is concerned about.”

A list posted on the website www.bilderbergmeetings.org shows other attendees at this year’s meeting included Bill Gates, former U.S. treasury secretary Robert Rubin and former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

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