A dictator in the making?

By Julia Belluz - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 4:20 PM - 57 Comments

Rajapaksa (left) says he wants to build the economy; ‘75 per cent of the government’ is controlled by his family | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Reuters

It was a ceremony fit for a king. Adorned in white dress, surrounded by powerful family members and military officials, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in for his second term on Nov. 19. The lavish procession incorporated some of the country’s dominant institutions: Buddhist monks gave their blessing, and the sound of a 21-gun salute rounded off the event. In his speech, Rajapaksa made grand promises. This would be a new era for Sri Lanka after the island nation’s brutal 26-year civil war, which he helped to end in 2009, during his first six-year term, by defeating the Tamil Tiger insurgency. He promised to employ that same leadership to maintain peace, rebuild democratic institutions, and accelerate the economy.

But leaders who win wars are not always the best governors in peace. A string of increasingly repressive and undemocratic moves by the Rajapaksa administration has caused opponents to worry that Sri Lanka’s economic growth and development are camouflaging human rights transgressions and a tilt toward authoritarianism. For one, there are the changes he’s made to the constitution since being re-elected. Though he pulled in nearly 60 per cent of the vote in the election held last January, he recently rallied a majority in parliament to pass an amendment that removed constitutionally set term limits, ensuring he can remain in power indefinitely.

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People willing to endure what the Tamils did are just the kind we want

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 6:00 AM - 0 Comments

Jonathan Hayward/CP

For all the breathless coverage it has attracted, it’s still unclear just what the issue is in the matter of the boatload of Tamils that arrived off the coast of B.C. last week.

For starters, there is very little that anyone can do about it, or would, beyond what is being done already. No one is suggesting we should have turned the boat back on the high seas, or expelled the Tamils without hearing their refugee claims; both options are in any case illegal. Neither is anyone proposing that they should be admitted to our soil without a proper vetting, to ensure at a minimum that no terrorists lurk amongst them.

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From 1914 to 1939 to now

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 11:42 AM - 0 Comments

Bob Rae recalls the historical precedents for the MV Sun Sea.

This past week Canadians have been subjected to wild rumours of disease rampant aboard the ship, and allegations that “terrorists” and “criminals” are about to run amok in the country.  Many urged the Canadian navy to board the ship in international waters and send them on their way.

Bishop Gervais’s admonition notwithstanding, it would seem some have learned very little from our past. Of course people paid to get on the Tamil boat, just as they did to get on the Komagata Maru, the SS St Louis, and Kastner’s train for that matter…

I’m proudest as a Canadian when we’re setting the right standard for the world.  We didn’t do it in 1914 for the Komagata Maru or in 1939 for the St Louis.  Let’s get it right this time.

Foreign minister-in-waiting

By John Geddes - Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 8:40 AM - 19 Comments

The last time Bob Rae saw him, Lakshman Kadirgamar was in a dark mood. They were talking in the Sri Lankan foreign minister’s office in Colombo. The former Ontario premier had been visiting Sri Lanka’s capital regularly for a few years, on occasion even venturing out to backwoods bases of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, trying to help the island nation talk its way out of a cycle of vicious civil war. “You people,” Rae recalls Kadirgamar saying, meaning Westerners, “you really don’t understand what it’s like and what we’re up against. I know that I could be shot dead any time, even getting out of my swimming pool.”

A few months later, on the evening of Aug. 12, 2005, a LTTE sniper killed Kadirgamar as he climbed out of his pool, just as he had foretold. Rae was back in Toronto when he heard the chilling news. This was not the first time one of his Sri Lankan contacts had been assassinated by the Tigers. Yet earlier this month, Rae was blocked from entering Sri Lanka on the grounds that he was a Tiger supporter, a charge he of course denied. Detained at Colombo’s airport, he was put on a plane to Britain after 12 fruitless hours arguing with security officials. Continue…

Newsmakers of the week

By Lianne George - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

Phelps gets smoked

At the Santa Clara Grand Prix in California last Sunday, Vancouver’s Brent Hayden finished the men’s 100-freestyle race in 48.44 seconds, a meet record, beating eight-time Olympic gold medallist Michael Phelps by a full half-second. “I was really excited,” Hayden told the Canadian Press. “Michael is such a great competitor and every time I get up and race him, it’s such an honour.” Phelps—newly mustachioed, and recently back after a three-month suspension by USA Swimming for getting caught smoking marijuana on film—won two of his four races at the meet. “I’m ready to go home and sleep in my own bed,” he said.

Here’s your visa, Mr. Rae. You’re not welcome.

Last week, Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae was turned away at a Sri Lankan airport, allegedly for being a Tamil Tigers supporter and a “security risk”—and an Ontario resident may be to blame. According to the Toronto Star, Irangani de Silva, a Sri Lankan expat who lives in London, Ont., wrote an opinion piece in the June 8 issue of The Island, a major Sri Lankan newspaper, in which she counselled Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona to revoke the visa that had been issued to Rae for a three-day visit. She also denounced Rae for having suggested in the Commons recently that Canada ought to look into human rights violations committed by Sri Lankan officials over the course of the bloody 25-year civil war between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority. “We are sure that [Rae] will return with a damning report on the government of Sri Lanka and push for war crimes investigations, publish media reports that there is discrimination, etc.,” de Silva wrote. Granting a visa to Rae, she said, was an “act of foolishness.” In Sri Lanka’s state-owned Daily News, the anti-Rae vitriol continued after his departure. One columnist argued that Rae is pandering to the large faction of Tamil expats he represents in Canada “who are not just vocal but openly violent in their support for the cause of terrorism in Sri Lanka.” In his statement, Rae called the charges made against him “absurd” and “a lie, pure and simple.” Continue…

Bob Rae gets Galloway'd

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 11:13 AM - 25 Comments

Well, that’s one way to look at this.

Tamil questions that can't be asked

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 10:20 AM - 179 Comments

The other day, one of the least soft-headed of Canadian columnists, Lorrie Goldstein, wrote a piece in the Toronto Sun called “Protest backlash unearths racism”:

“Let’s not pretend that much of the condemnation of Tamils in Canada for protesting the plight of Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka isn’t racist.

“Any journalist who’s been around knows what’s going on and we have an obligation to speak up.”

I’ve been around. Well, okay, I’ve been nearby, as Mary Tyler Moore liked to say. And, insofar as I feel an obligation to speak up, it’s only to wonder at how far even the remarkably tensile concept of “racism” can be stretched.

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Tamils, physicians and foie gras

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 4:11 PM - 6 Comments

Stockwell Day writes to his constituents.

Escaping the artificial climate of Ottawa and breathing in the fresh air of home is vital for one’s sanity.

This guy clears the Gardiner

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 3:42 PM - 1 Comment

It was the deputy chief of staff, at his mother’s house, with the phone.

Rise of the Conservative-Socialist Coalition (Scene 2)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, May 11, 2009 at 5:07 PM - 11 Comments

From Bev Oda’s scrum after QP. Continue…

Rise of the Conservative-Socialist Coalition (Scene 1)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, May 11, 2009 at 5:04 PM - 2 Comments

From Question Period this afternoon. Continue…

Ignatieff clears the Gardiner? (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, May 11, 2009 at 12:44 PM - 53 Comments

And now the official statement from the Liberal leader’s office.

Yesterday, in collaboration with police and out of concern for public safety, Liberal Party officials intervened to help end the demonstration by Tamils on the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto. The protest had blocked the highway and put the safety of the protesters and innocent bystanders — including women and small children — at risk.

At no point did Liberal Members of Parliament or staff participate in yesterday’s protest.

Our Party has raised, and will continue to raise, the plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka in the House of Commons. We will continue to demand action by the Canadian government to address the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka. But the Liberal Party of Canada stands firmly against terrorism, and I restate our unequivocal condemnation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

I urge Canadian Tamils to continue raising this issue publicly, and to give it the attention it deserves. But I implore them to do so legally and safely, by working with their elected representatives and through legal means of protest, and not through demonstrations that put public safety at risk.

Layton clears the Gardiner?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, May 11, 2009 at 12:28 PM - 4 Comments

The NDP writes to say their guy was working the phones for two-and-a-half hours last night, speaking with police officials and representatives of the protesters. He assured demonstrators, the NDP says, that he would pressure the Prime Minister to meet with them and will continue to pursue the issue himself.

So there.

Ignatieff clears the Gardiner?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, May 11, 2009 at 1:05 AM - 17 Comments

Late news from Toronto.

Up to 2000 protesters from the Tamil community say they are going to move off the Gardiner Expressway more than five hours after they first marched onto the highway, crippling traffic in the city on a busy Mother’s day Sunday.

Organizers tell CP24 they have spoken with Liberal party leader Michael Ignatieff’s office and that he promised to bring up the issue with caucus and look at political and economic sanctions against Sri Lanka.

Sticking with the Tigers

By Michael Petrou - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 1:08 PM - 1 Comment

The Canadian Tamil Congress held a press conference today to demand that the Canadian government “take immediate and strong actions against Sri Lanka to prevent a civilian bloodbath.”

Thousands of Tamil civilians remain trapped with a dwindling force of Tamil Tiger rebels along a swampy coastal strip in northern Sri Lanka, where the Sri Lankan army has cornered them. The European Union, among others, has condemned the Tamil Tigers for using the trapped civilians as human shields and forcibly preventing them from leaving the conflict zone.

At the press conference, Balakuma Balasingam, an executive member of the Ottawa chapter of the Canadian Tamil Congress, said the civilians with the Tigers are there by choice and would rather starve under continuous shellfire with the Tigers than cross to government-controlled territory. Tens of thousands of Tamils have fled the Tiger enclave by land and boat. Balasingam said they made  a “momentary decision.” 

Correctionish

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 11:34 PM - 0 Comments

The RCMP now estimates today’s crowd to have numbered about 30,000.

For the sake of comparison, a pro-coalition rally last December was reported to have drawn “upwards of 2,000.” A few days later, an anti-coalition rally drew approximately 3,000.

The Commons: "To all our parliamentarians, where are you?"

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 6:21 PM - 31 Comments

The Scene. Aside from the lonely man in religious garb who often spends his days pacing in front of pictures lamenting abortion, the sight of a public protest on Parliament Hill is perhaps rarer than you might assume. Yesterday, a couple hundred young people sat in circles and smoked pot, though this seemed less an act of defiance than a lazy way to spend a spring afternoon.

For a week now though, crowds of varying size have lined Wellington Street, near the imposing Langevin Block that houses the Prime Minister and his staff, and chanted incessantly about the civil war in Sri Lanka. This afternoon, in perhaps a climactic show of force, more than 30,000 Tamils filled the front lawn, waving black flags, denouncing violence and generally insisting on the world’s attention.

Not that many noticed. Or at least seemed interested in noticing. Indeed, for all the politicians in the immediate vicinity, only the NDP’s Jack Layton was reported to have addressed the crowd. In the midst of the demonstration, the matter merited just three queries in Question Period—ministers Lawrence Cannon and Bev Oda compelled to offer answers for a situation without an obvious solution. Afterwards, Liberal Jim Karygiannis rose on a point of order and requested that the House schedule an emergency debate on the matter. He was promptly shouted down. Continue…

Tamil protesters, yes. George Galloway? Keep out.

By Andrew Potter - Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 3:55 PM - 61 Comments

Canadians have free-speech bipolar disorder. On one side of our brains, we consider the right to freedom of assembly, conscience, and expression to be part of the constitutional heritage inherited from the British. On the other side, we recoil from the sort of free speech absolutism of the United States that—in an infamous case—holds that white racists burning a cross on the lawn of a black family is a protected form of speech.

This national hemming and hawing about free speech finds direct expression in the Charter of Rights, which takes away in its first clause—“only to such reasonable limits”—the very freedoms it goes on to grant in the second. It also manifests itself in the behaviour of free speech tribunes like Ezra Levant, whose current crusade against Canada’s censorious human-rights tribunals is undermined by his long-standing penchant for filing suit against anyone who says something he finds even slightly defamatory.

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We are the world (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 3:18 PM - 9 Comments

Tamil protests continue downtown, though now on the sidewalks, safely out of the way of moving vehicles. Lawrence Cannon declines an invitation to intervene.

Cannon rejected a call by the Sri Lankan high commissioner to Canada to crack down on the protesters because they were waving banners that depict a tiger in front of a pair of crossed guns.

“It’s not up to me to put an end to protest,” said Cannon. “People are allowed to protest in Canada. We live in a democracy. People are allowed to go and express their ideas, their concerns.”

'Nobody can claim the moral high ground'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 8:07 PM - 5 Comments

Glen Pearson blogs about recent committee hearings into the conflict in Sri Lanka.

Recently, we were visited by two expert witnesses. Bruce Matthews, is the Professor Emeritus for Acadia University and spent much of his life in Sri Lanka doing research. The other was David Cameron, Political Science Professor at the University of Toronto, and a fellow member of Bob Rae’s negotiation team for Sri Lanka. With sobering dialogue, both men determined that there was little that could be done by Canada to assist that war-ravaged island half a world away. This wasn’t what the committee wanted to hear, yet the witnesses stuck to their assessments. Every one of our questions was rebutted with seasoned answers showing that things were futile. It had been a difficult session, but we all walked out wiser.

See no Tigers

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 10:05 AM - 17 Comments

The Ottawa Citizen runs a front-page story about Tamil protesters shutting down downtown Ottawa without mentioning that virtually every protester waved a Tamil Tiger flag or wore a Tiger t-shirt. Several chanted slogans calling the Tigers freedom fighters.

The Tamil Tigers are banned as a terrorist organization in Canada and several other countries. Their decades-long struggle for a Tamil homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka has featured the ethnic cleansing of non-Tamils; the forcible recruitment of child soldiers; more than 150 suicide bombing attacks against both military and civilian targets (including at Colombo’s International Airport in 2001, an attack that killed 16); and multiple massacres of civilians, including, on one occasion, more than 30 Buddhist monks who were shot and hacked to death with swords. 

The Commons: Yell louder

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 7:34 PM - 24 Comments

The Scene. “Mr. Speaker,” Chuck Strahl said the other day, scolding Todd Russell, the typically loud Liberal from Labrador, “there is that old saying on the preacher’s note, ‘unsure of point, must yell louder.’”

It was a witty retort. And a remarkably candid explanation of how this government has apparently decided to approach this moment of economic crisis, unwinnable war and newly emboldened opposition. Continue…