Attawapiskat math

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 10:35 PM - 0 Comments

While the government has now assumed control of the reserve, Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan told a parliamentary committee yesterday that officials from his department visited Attawapiskat in October, but that it did not receive notice of an emergency until last week.

The Star and Canadian Press report from the community. Paul Martin calls on the government to consider the Kelowna Accord. The Globe and Star editorialize.

In response to questions today about government funding for Attawapiskat, the department of Aboriginal Affairs sent along a spreadsheet covering fiscal years 2006/2007 through 2010/2011. That spreadsheet is available here as an Excel file. The prominent totals break down as follows. Continue…

The Commons: Tragedy of numbers

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 8:03 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. Recently returned from Attawapiskat, Nycole Turmel attempted to enlighten the Prime Minister this afternoon on the situation there. ”It’s terrible,” she said. “It’s unbelievable. It’s worse than anything you can think of.”

She described the shacks and the tents and the trailers and moldy mattresses and the lack of heat and water. When, she wondered, staring him down, would the Prime Minister show some leadership and go see so for himself?

The Prime Minister didn’t have much more to say this than what he’d said the day before, except to say that the Aboriginal Affairs Minister would have more to say soon enough. For his own part, Mr. Harper offered his impressive-sounding number of choice. “Mr. Speaker, as I said yesterday, this is not acceptable when the government invests more than $90 million, to see such a result,” he said.

For sure, $90 million sounds impressive.
Continue…

Hurry up and wait for a CCSVI strategy

By Anne Kingston - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 4:51 PM - 0 Comments

Update 2: The second reading of Bill C-280 is now scheduled for Thursday, December 8 at 6:30.

Update: The second reading and debate for Bill C-280 was pushed off the House of Commons schedule on Nov. 30 due to other business. It hasn’t been rescheduled. Stay tuned.

CPAC is not always recommended viewing but tonight’s programming is must-see-TV. At 5:30 pm EST (and later in endless loop) Liberal MP Kirsty Duncan’s private member’s Bill C-280 calling for a national CCSVI strategy is set for second reading and debate. (If the House of Commons vote scheduled to begin at 6:15 pm goes past 7:01 pm, private member’s business will be cancelled and rescheduled for another time at the discretion of the Speaker.)

Duncan, a Ph.D. and adjunct professor at the University of Toronto, was the Liberals’ public health critic when she initiated the 2010 sub-committee on neurological diseases, which called upon Italian vascular specialist Paolo’s Zamboni to answer questions about his hypothesis that venous malfunctions in the neck and chest are linked to multiple sclerosis—and that venous angioplasty can relieve MS symptoms dramatically. The member for Etobicoke North is calling for CCSVI clinical treatment trials as well as a national tracking program for the estimated thousands of Canadians who’ve traveled offshore for treatment—and have been denied after-care upon return. Continue…

How unemployment is tearing America apart

By Jason Kirby - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Eight months ago, Deborah Burnley, an administrative assistant in Baltimore, suddenly found herself among America’s growing army of unemployed. Losing her job at a cash-strapped non-profit was a demoralizing and debilitating experience, she says, and to keep her spirits from crashing she’s sought solace in, of all things, the bleak arithmetic of her job hunt: 226 positions applied for, six temp agencies engaged, and countless miles travelled across the region for interviews. “I try to think of it as a numbers game, that each day is basically one more step closer to being employed,” says Burnley, 52. In other words, if she applies for enough positions, and meets enough prospective employers, some day— eventually—she’s bound to find work. But even as she clings to that hope, Burnley acknowledges she and her husband, who also lost his job as a facilities manager six weeks ago, have depleted their savings and almost maxed out their credit cards. “It can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Two-and-a-half years after the Great Recession was deemed officially over, that light has never seemed dimmer for the close to 25 million Americans who are either out of work or underemployed today. Like a gaping wound at the heart of the economy, the U.S. job crisis has cast a vast swath of the population into a state of semi-permanent unemployment. At the same time, America’s housing market is in a shambles and poverty is on the rise. Even if economists weren’t already once again warning of another global recession, a realization is slowly setting in: the United States is suffering from an outright economic depression, and it threatens to leave a deep scar on the American psyche for decades to come. As Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and a former secretary of labour, put it recently: “America’s ongoing jobs depression, which is what it deserves to be called, is the worst economic calamity to hit this nation since the Great Depression.”

Continue…

Revolution by referendum

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 2:30 PM - 0 Comments

Nathan Cullen puts democratic reform on the agenda.

As Prime Minister, Nathan Cullen would: Work to improve how our democracy reflects the will of voters, by making voting reform a priority.  Proportional representation is already used in more than 75 democracies around the world, putting Canada in the minority.

Hold a national referendum on voting reform, asking Canadians if they a) want to change the voting system; and b) which new model they prefer.  Nathan supports mixed-member proportional representation based on the German, Scottish and New Zealand models, which: Ensures every riding has a local MP, elected as they currently are, while ensuring the total composition of the House reflects each party’s share of the national vote; Avoids instability and fragmentation by requiring parties receive broad support—five per cent—before being awarded proportional seats.

Also: abolish the Senate, restore public financing for political parties and hold a plebiscite on the monarchy.

Studies say: real friends matter, and the rich pollute

By Alex Ballingall - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 1:50 PM - 0 Comments

British Columbia: Being richer doesn’t always mean eating better. A new study out of the University of British Columbia found those living in Vancouver’s wealthiest neighbourhoods have the least accessibility to healthy, fresh food. As incomes rise, so does the average distance to food stores—which is the opposite of the situation in some U.S. cities, where many low-income areas are considered “food deserts.”

Alberta: Jimmy Kimmel recently pressed his audience to delete people from Facebook and focus on flesh-and-blood friends. The late-night TV host may be on to something. A University of Alberta study found that people with strong, real-world social lives are less stressed and better able to raise their kids, even when mired in financial hardship.

Manitoba: Even though the province has some of the highest obesity rates in the country, a recent University of Manitoba study found that obese people don’t significantly weigh down the provincial health system until they display “the very highest” body mass indexes. Even then, hospital visits and the taking of prescription drugs only increase by about 15 per cent. As the lead author put it, rising obesity is going to be “a bit of a burden, but it’s not going to be an avalanche.”

Ontario: Accused of insatiable greed and unjust political influence, the one per cent is also charged with over-contributing to global warming. A recent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that the richest one per cent of households are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions three times higher than the national average, and six times higher than the poorest 10 per cent.

Quebec: A researcher at McGill University found a correlation between children’s ability to fib and the harshness with which they’re disciplined at school. When two groups of three- and four-year-olds from the same neighbourhood were compared, those in the more punitive atmosphere showed they could lie more convincingly.

REVIEW: The Anatomy of Israel’s Survival

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 1:30 PM - 0 Comments

This book explains why Israel has survived, argues why it will continue to do so, and warns of the kind of country it risks becoming unless it stops occupying Palestinian territories. Goodman, an Israeli scholar and journalist, addresses the dangers that Israel faces from nearby states and judges none of them to truly threaten the nation’s existence—even those from a nuclear Iran. Indeed, these threats have driven Israel’s innovation in military technology and strategy, which both makes it stronger and benefits its civilian economy. Unlike many in Israel, he is encouraged rather than worried by the upheavals of the Arab Spring, believing democracy’s spread will ultimately benefit everyone in the Middle East, Israelis included.

Israel’s more serious challenges are internal. Ultra-orthodox Jews are growing in number and remain, by and large, separate from the rest of Israeli society, as are Israeli Arabs. Both groups must be better integrated.

Because of higher birth rates among Palestinians, there will soon be more Muslims and Christians living in all the territory Israel controls than there are Jews. “The choice is blatantly clear: between Greater Israel or Democratic and Jewish Israel,” writes Goodman. Israel must shed territory and disengage from land it has occupied since 1967—ideally by striking a peace deal with West Bank Palestinians, unilaterally if necessary. (The most that’s achievable with Hamas in Gaza, says Goodman, is a long-term truce.)

Continue…

Eighty and employed

By Emma Teitel - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 1:30 PM - 0 Comments

As the economy and markets have generally gone south over the past few years, it’s become clear to many boomers that retirement may not be quite as golden as they’d once planned. In fact, some new research suggests it may not happen at all.

According to a recent survey by U.S. bank Wells Fargo & Co., Americans think they’ll be working longer than ever before. Roughly 76 per cent of respondents (1,500 Americans, aged 26-75, were surveyed) said they would rather make a set amount of money before retiring, compared to just 20 per cent who said they’ll retire when they reach a certain age, regardless of savings. How long will it take to reach their target? A quarter of respondents say they expect to work into their 80s.

That’s a mentality not so far removed from the Canadian one: a recent Royal Bank of Canada poll shows that 72 per cent of Canadians hope to be mortgage-free by age 65, while a third of Canadians over 55 currently have 16 or more years still left on their mortgage term. “Canadians want to be mortgage-free as they approach retirement age and beyond,” says Claude DeMone, director for Home Equity Financing at RBC, “but the reality is that it takes prudent planning and the right advice to stay on track.”

REVIEW: Dirty Whites and Dark Secrets: Sex and Race in Peyton Place

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 1:30 PM - 0 Comments

Grace Metalious’s 1956 potboiler Peyton Place was one of the most influential novels of the ’50s, the ancestor of many books, movies and TV shows that seek to reveal the sexy secrets of proper small towns. Hirsh-Dickinson, an assistant professor who wrote her dissertation on Peyton Place, is one of the people pushing for the novel to be taken seriously as literature, and she admits that she has met with some resistance: “On what grounds is Peyton Place the stuff of academic inquiry?” she recalls being asked. She discovers the answer right in the title of the book. The fictional founder of Petyon Place, Samuel Peyton, was a freed slave who found that the North wasn’t much better than the South.

Though this is merely a side issue in the novel, Hirsh-Dickinson claims that the undercurrent of America’s racial history is the key to the whole book, and particularly the scandal it caused at the time. Using “whiteness studies” as a guideline, she argues that the white population of Peyton’s town “cannot deal with the fact that he was black.” Looking at the town’s anxieties from this perspective, she finds racial undertones to a lot of the references in the book; the sexy poor girl Selena Cross isn’t black, but she is “Peyton Place’s duskiest female,” and therefore stands apart from the “normative whiteness” of the town. Other characters who are ostracized in the town are referred to as “dark” in some way.

Like many academic arguments, this one doesn’t always seem to have much connection to what the author intended, but the frequent racial and skin colour references in the book may help explain why Peyton Place had more resonance than other small-town sex novels. As Hirsh-Dickinson says, Metalious’s concept “was a success in each of its manifestations: novel, film and prime-time television drama.” Racial panic might not be the best explanation, but it makes more sense than literary quality.

After Kyoto

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 1:20 PM - 0 Comments

Andrew Leach considers the past, present and future of Canada’s involvement in international climate negotiations.

So, while Canada is right to abandon Kyoto, and Canada is right that an effective treaty to address global carbon emissions needs to include most/all countries, I don’t think they’re on the right track in demanding an agreement with binding targets for all countries.  First, it’s unlikely you’ll see binding emissions targets imposed on developing countries. That makes it less likely that Canada will have a role in formulating whatever agreement does come around if they’ve disavowed interest based on that condition..  Second, an agreement with binding emissions targets for everyone is, in my view, the last thing Canada should be pushing for.  Canada should, and I will write more on this later, be pushing for an international standard by which a facility operated in the UK, in Alberta, or in India would face the same effective carbon price, or the same reward for reducing emissions. That doesn’t mean carbon tax – it means a system which measures effort, and doesn’t reward historic emissions.

In a follow-up, he explains what withdrawing from Kyoto means in practical terms.

It’s a doggone shame

By Alex Ballingall - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 1:10 PM - 0 Comments

Efrem Lukatsky/AP

Ukraine’s environment minister, Mykola Zlochevsky, recently announced a six-month ban on the killing of stray dogs. The practice has gained traction of late as municipal governments try to clear streets of homeless canines ahead of the Euro 2012 soccer tournament, which will be co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine next summer. “Let us stop the deaths of these poor stray animals for half a year and build shelters together,” said Zlochevsky.

Thousands of dogs have reportedly been killed during the past year alone. Most often, they’re either poisoned or given a lethal injection. But in one remarkable case reported by the Donbass news site, authorities in Lisichansk have been paralyzing dogs with a syringe gun and burning them alive in a mobile crematorium.

It remains unclear how the ban will be enforced, or what will happen after it expires. For the sake of Ukraine’s legions of wandering mutts, let’s hope city governments heed Bob Barker’s favourite advice by having their strays spayed or neutered, rather than killed.

Meet Aminta Granera, Nicaragua’s 60 year-old police chief

By Erica Alini - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 1:05 PM - 0 Comments

Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters

Cops like Marge Gunderson, the petite but very pregnant police chief who resolves gruesome crimes in the Coen brothers’ landmark movie Fargo, really exist. Meet Aminta Granera, Nicaragua’s police chief. At 60, she’s not expecting, but as a fragile-looking grandmother who once trained to be a nun, the five-foot-tall chief cuts just as striking a figure in a region rocked by drug violence and gang fighting. Unlike its neighbors in Central America, though, Nicaragua has a strong record on fighting organized crime, for which some credit Granera.

President Daniel Ortega, who won re-election in a landslide earlier this month, recently reappointed her to the post. Ironically, Granera’s greatest accomplishment may be that she is, according to some accounts, even more beloved than the president. Survey after survey, in fact, puts her as the country’s most popular public figure. It has caused friction with Ortega in the past, and U.S. diplomats suggested, in a leaked cable, that he may want to keep her in the police force to ensure she doesn’t enter politics. As Granera recently told a journalist from McClatchy Newspapers: “The greatest danger for the bullfighter isn’t the bull. It’s the applause.”

Gerald ‘Jerry’ Wayne Friesen

By Jane Switzer - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

Illustration by Ian Phillips

Gerald ‘jerry’ Wayne Friesen was born at West Lincoln Memorial Hospital in Grimsby, Ont., on July 15, 1960. His older brother, Randy, had a hand in naming his newborn sibling, known for the rest of his life as Jerry. “There used to be a show called Uncle Jerry’s Club,” says Randy. “I liked the show, and the story was that I said we should call him Jerry.” Raised on a farm on the Niagara Escarpment between Grimsby and Beamsville, Jerry spent his childhood happily surrounded by horses, cows and pigs. “We spent a lot of time outdoors,” says Randy. “We had ponies and later on, when we got older, we had motorcycles and snowmobiles.”

His parents, Joan and Ben, also grew grapes, pears and apples on their 23-acre fruit farm. According to Joan, Jerry’s strong work ethic dates to a young age. “He started on the farm with me when he was two weeks old,” she says. “I carried him in my arms to pick fruit, and I carried him out in the trailer with a playpen. When he was 12, he started working on his uncle’s dairy farm next door.” Jerry also inherited his parents’ green thumb. In 1974, his produce won the grand champion title at the Beamsville fair, an accomplishment that made the front page of the Toronto Star.

As a teenager, Jerry took up long-distance running—mostly out of necessity. “He started running because he could run down the mountain without us having to drive him someplace,” says Joan. “Wind, snow, or sleet—nothing would stop him.” A lifelong athlete, Jerry also dabbled in football and track and field. He took up boxing at age 19 under the tutelage of coach Jim Neill. He wasn’t naturally athletic, Randy says, but made up for it with determination. Jerry won a provincial championship title within a year, and went on to compete nationally, narrowly missing a chance to compete at the Commonwealth Games in 1982.

Continue…

What’s the Brix level of your carrot?

By Jacob Richler - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

Simon Hayter

The brief email that noted organic farmer David Cohlmeyer sent on Halloween to announce the completion of the long-anticipated sale of his farm, Cookstown Greens, contained a few lines explaining that he was departing on a note of triumph. At least, in the pastoral scheme of things. “The root cellar is filled with the best quality storage vegetables the farm has ever produced,” Cohlmeyer wrote. “The flavour profiles, density (weight per sac) and Brix have never been so high . . . ”

Brix? What’s that all about, then? And if you were saying goodbye to a loyal customer base that you had slowly built up over 23 years with a letter spanning a scant 200 words, would you focus on something called Brix, which neither other farmers nor my spell-check appear to have ever heard of?

Perhaps not. But it takes a special type to be a crusading organic farmer, and a success at it, too. And Cohlmeyer’s clientele were a rarefied lot, almost entirely composed of informed chefs willing to pay top dollar for a lumpy carrot just because it tasted superb—and could not care less that Cohlmeyer was too busy honing his methods of organic farming to bother filling out forms and paying for real, government-sanctioned organic certification. “I always thought that farmers who insisted on getting certification just weren’t good farmers,” Cohlmeyer explained over the phone from his house in Cookstown, Ont.

Continue…

That’s what the Senate is for

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 12:06 PM - 0 Comments

Responding yesterday during QP to complaints about the Immigration and Refugee Board, Jason Kenney sought the high road.

No, Mr. Speaker, they are not. In fact, I am aware of I think 2 out of 140 who have any association with the Conservative Party, unlike the Liberals who appointed the spouses of members of Parliament, the spouses of Liberal senators and failed campaign managers. The Liberals used the IRB as a partisan dumping ground. We have respected its role as an independent, quasi-judicial organization.

Conservative Senator Doug Finley is both the spouse of an MP and a former campaign manager. And he is joined in that independent, quasi-democratic institution by a former president of the Conservative party, a former spokeswoman for the Prime Minister, a former chair of Conservative party fundraising, failed Conservative MPs Josee Verner and Fabian Manning, and failed Conservative candidates Larry Smith and Yonah Martin.

Just ask

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments

Ilona Dougherty argues that civics classes aren’t the answer and again stresses the need to actively court young voters the way other age groups are courted.

So what does work? The answer is simple: Ask young people to vote. Elections Canada’s survey results show that young people who were contacted by a political party were significantly more likely to cast a ballot than those who weren’t (83 per cent versus 68 per cent). Having a parent, friend, or roommate who talks about politics also makes young person more likely to participate. There are dozens of rigorous field experiments that reinforce the same basic conclusion: if you ask them, they will vote.

This type of active mobilization is important because young Canadians are currently the group least likely to be solicited: only 40 per cent of them were contacted in any way by a party or candidate during the last federal election. Changing that is a crucial part of any comprehensive strategy, and that means changing what political parties, NGOs, and community organizations do in order to mobilize young voters.

U.K. shuts Iran embassy, expels diplomats

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 11:02 AM - 0 Comments

The U.K. closed the Iranian embassy in London and told its staff to leave the country in 48 hours on Wednesday, Reuters reports. The move comes after a mob of hard-line youth forced its way into the British embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, trashing British government property and burning the Union Jack. Though police intervened to chase out the protesters, the attack could not have been carried out without some degree of complacency from the Iranian regime, Foreign Secretary William Hague said. The incident represents the worst attack on foreign diplomats in Iran since the storming of the U.S. embassy during the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Reuters

Clap trap

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 10:37 AM - 0 Comments

Last week, Tom Lukiwski rose to express the government’s side shock and dismay at a demonstration that had taken place in one of the visitors’ galleries during a vote on the Canadian Wheat Board. In particular, Mr. Lukiwski was disturbed that opposition MPs would be anything less than appalled by the disturbance.

So yesterday, Bob Rae rose after QP to note that the night before there had been demonstrations in the visitors’ galleries again, only this time the disturbances were encouraged by the government side (which, in this case, applauded itself throughout another vote on the Canadian Wheat Board). I wasn’t in the press gallery, but apparently there was some degree of clapping from the spectators. Whatever the precise volume of that applause, visitors are not allowed to put their hands together in any way for any reason.

Either way, Mr. Rae posited that fair should be fair and that all sides should be equally opposed to all disturbances. In response, the Prime Minister dismissed the complaint and commended Monday night’s spectators as “peaceful, law-abiding people, which is all one would expect from people seeking their basic freedom and rights.”

The Speaker promised to come back to the House with an analysis of recent events.

China lectures Canada on climate change

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 10:31 AM - 0 Comments

Canada’s rumored plan to drop out of the Kyoto Protocol by year-end is “setting a bad example” for other advanced economies as talks on a new climate deal are underway in Durban, South Africa, China’s official news agency said on Wednesday. “While delegations from every country attend the Durban climate conference to discuss a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, one can imagine the damage done by this ‘rumour’,” Xinhua said. Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent refused to confirm allegations that Canada is about to withdraw from the current climate treaty, but told reporters on Monday that a new global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions would have to include binding targets for China and India as well.

Reuters

New battleground emerges for Alberta’s oil sands

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 10:14 AM - 0 Comments

After the Harper government reacted to Washington’s push-back on TransCanada’s Alberta-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline by vowing to export oil to Asia instead, a new report warns that a planned pipeline to Canada’s West Coast poses serious environmental consequences as well. Enbridge’s proposed $5.5 billion Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to B.C. threatens native communities, the salmon fishery and wildlife habitat, according to a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Pembina Institute and Living Oceans Society.

Reuters

Public sector swelled under Tories

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 9:50 AM - 0 Comments

The number of federal public servants soared by 34 per cent over the past decade, far outpacing the 11 per cent rate at which the country’s population grew over the same period, documents obtained by Postmedia News through a freedom of information request reveal. The ranks of core public servants rose from 211,925 in fiscal 2000 to 282,955 in fiscal 2010. The pace of growth reportedly picked up during the Harper government’s nearly six years in power. The data comes from briefing notes presented in April to Treasury Board President Tony Clement, who is leading the Tories’ effort to slash public spending.

Postmedia News

The dog ate the minister’s homework

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

The omnibus crime bill is apparently being rushed through the House too fast for the Public Safety Minister.

In a strange twist Tuesday, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews tried to change the government’s own omnibus crime legislation by introducing a number of amendments, only to have the Speaker of the House rule them as inadmissible.

Speaker Andrew Scheer said the six amendments, all related to victims of terrorism suing perpetrators and foreign states that sponsor such acts, should have been introduced at the committee level instead of during the final stages of approval.

The Commons: Tuesday night in Cornwall

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

Into the pouring rain and the pitch-black night, a young man named Liam is driving Paul Dewar to Liam’s parents’ place. Across the 417 and then down the 138 (watch for deer), stopping for dinner at Tim Hortons, and then up a few steps to a red-brick house where a couple dozen people are waiting in the living room. There’s coffee and pumpkin chai tea in the kitchen and cans of Coca-Cola and ginger ale in a cooler with ice. The dining room table is crowded with veggies and cheese and gooey chocolate cranberry squares (check the milk calendar for the recipe). An embroidered sign on the kitchen wall bears wisdom: “Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.”

Courtesy of Liam, a former NDP riding association president for Ottawa Centre, Paul Dewar arrives around seven o’clock. He immediately begins mingling. A reporter from the local paper is here and wants an interview, so he ducks into the kitchen for a bit to explain himself. Then Liam’s dad, Brian, president of the local NDP riding association and former mayor of Cornwall, calls for everyone’s attention so that he can introduce tonight’s guest of honour. Continue…

“I love you with all my heart”

By Michael Friscolanti - Tuesday, November 29, 2011 at 11:19 PM - 0 Comments

Colin Perkel/Canadian Press

Michael Friscolanti is covering the honour killing trial for Maclean’s, filing regular reports from the Kingston, Ont. courtroom to Macleans.ca and weekly dispatches for the magazine. The reports will continue for the duration of the trial, which is expected to run into December.

If the allegations prove true—if Mohammad Shafia really did drown his own daughters because they were “whores” with boyfriends—then Tuesday must have been an excruciating afternoon for the accused “honour killer.” Sitting in the prisoners’ box, wife and son cuffed beside him, Shafia could only stare in silence as one of those boyfriends told the jury just how much he loved 17-year-old Sahar. They kissed. They cuddled. They fantasized about running away together. “It was very serious,” he said of their four-month relationship. “We could get married, I was telling her. And she was agreeing.”

The witness, who cannot be identified because of a temporary publication ban, spent an emotional chunk of his testimony reading out some of the text messages he typed to Sahar in the weeks before she died. He spoke slowly, the paper in his hands shaking. Continue…