Back to newsletter list 01/02/2007 18:33:41 (UTC) Canada | World Briefs | Business News | Sports | Weather Headlines  - Canadian leader grilled about environment letter - Dismissal of environment watchdog stirs up controversy - Premiers to make further effort against new U.S. passport rule
OTTAWA: PM COMMITTED TO WARMING SOLUTION Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he believes in the need to combat global warming, adding that he supports the idea of a conference on the subject and would attend one. He told the House of Commons that all recognize global warming as a serious environmental problem, saying he regrets "Canada's decision to do nothing over the past decade..." The prime minister expressed his commitment to finding solutions to the problem after being criticized by opposition Members of Parliament for a letter which he wrote in 2002. The missive was a fundraising letter written to members of the now defunct Canadian Alliance party in which he described the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change as "a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations." Liberal MPs asked whether Mr. Harper was misleading Canadians in 2002 or is doing so now. Environment Minister John Baird responded by quoting Liberal MPs who had also criticized the Kyoto accord. Cabinet Minister Jason Kenney said that he too favours reducing greenhouse gases but bases his reservations about Kyoto on the fact that many international polluters didn't sign it. OTTAWA: AUDITOR WON'T SAY WHY ENVIRONMENT WATCHDOG AXED Canadian Auditor General Sheila Fraser has declined to say why she dismissed her environment commissioner, Johanne Gélinas, on Tuesday, citing reasons of privacy. In two hours of testimony before the House environment committee, the auditor general did say there was no government interference. Mrs. Fraser says her decision had nothing to do with the quality of the commissioner's work, adding that she supports all of the reports submitted by Mrs. Gélinas and her team. The commissioner's function is to monitor the federal government's environmental efforts. Mrs. Fraser added that she's reviewing the environment commissioner's office and that the commissioner must not comment on which policies should be adopted. In her last report, Mrs. Gélinas suggested that the Conservative government set short-term targets for industrial emissions reductions to replace those of the Kyoto accord which it rejects as impossible to achieve. Environmentalists and opposition politicians praised the work of Mrs. Gélinas and said they would demand answers about her dismissal. The leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, claims Mrs. Fraser had been unhappy with her subordinate's independence and has already moved to reduce the commissioner's role. For her part, Mrs. Gélinas says she has consulted a lawyer and is considering her options. OTTAWA: BUSINESSMAN TO BE EXTRADITED TO GERMANY After eight years of trying to avoid extradition from Canada, a German-Canadian businessman is being ordered home to face criminal charges. Karlheinz Schreiber's final appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was rejected. In Germany, Mr. Schreiber faces charges of fraud, bribery and tax evasion, as well as accepting illegal contributions to the party of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. In the 1990s, Mr. Schreiber gained notoriety in Canada for allegedly bribing members of the federal government to award a major contract to Airbus of Europe. Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney successfully defended himself against the allegations, but later acknowledged receiving $300,000 from Mr. Schreiber for work as his consultant in another venture. UNDATED: PREMIERS TO PROTEST U.S. PASSPORT RULE IN VISIT The premiers of four Canadian provinces will travel to the United States later this month to plead Canada's case on new U.S. passport regulations. Premiers Dalton McGuinty, Jean Charest, Shawn Graham and Gary Doer of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Manitoba respectively will be in Washington on Feb. 27. The premiers want the U.S. to ease up on the measures that require Canadians to use passports when visiting the U.S. As well, Americans must show passports upon their return home from Canada. There are fears that the new rule will cause economic problems due to slowdowns at busy border crossings. An economic research group, the Conference Board of Canada, has warned the new passport rules could cost Canada 14 million American visitors and $3.6 billion in lost tourism revenues over the five-year period ending in 2010. The passport requirement is part of new anti-terror security measures at U.S. border crossings. OTTAWA: HIGH COURT DISALLOWS EVIDENCE FROM HYPNOSIS The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that evidence obtained through hypnosis is not admissible because it is scientifically and legally unreliable. In a 6-3 decision, the court ordered a new murder trial for a man in Toronto. He was found guilty, in part, based on the testimony of a witness who belatedly remembered while under hypnosis seeing him leave the victim's apartment. Evidence obtained through hypnosis has been admitted in Canadian courts, under certain circumstances, for some 30 years. TORONTO: TRUSCOTT LAWYER AGAIN HARPS ON THEME OF UNPRESENTED EVIDENCE The lawyer who is representing a man sentenced to death for murder almost 50 years ago says that Crown prosecutors were negligent even by the standards of 1959 in failing to make available evidence that could have acquitted the then 14-year-old defendant. Lawyer James Lockyer presented evidence which he said came from the Ontario Archives which could have been helpful to Steven Truscott's defence team. The documents also included material used in Truscott's appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1966. The high court upheld the conviction. Truscott wants the conviction for having raped and murdered a 12-year-old girl overturned. The defendant was sentenced to be hanged. He was paroled in 1969. OTTAWA: CHINESE ARMY SAID 'HARVESTING' ORGANS A former Canadian cabinet minister and a human rights lawyer claim that China's People's Army is in the business of "harvesting" organs from prisoners for wealthy foreigners who need transplants. David Kilgour and David Matas respectively cite as their sources interviews with Canadian hospital personnel who treated people who had returned from China after receiving transplants. Their report also cites the testimony of patients who received transplants in civilian hospitals carried out by military personnel. The document also claims that the organs are being harvested mostly from jailed practitioners of the Falungong movement. Mr. Kilgour and Mr. Matas first reported on such alleged practices last July, an accusation which the Chinese government denied.
IRAQ At least 51 people were killed in separate incidents. 45 people were killed when two bombs exploded in the town of Hilla some120 kilometers south of the capital, Baghdad. And at least six people died in Baghdad when a bomb exploded aboard a bus. Bombing in the capital is occurring almost on a daily basis as sectarian violence is claiming the lives of at least one 1,000 people a month. FRANCE Delegates at an international climate change conference opening in Paris are expected to blame human activity for global warming. Government officials from 113 countries, including Canada's environment minister, John Baird, will express their concerns in a report on Friday. The report could influence government and industrial policy worldwide. But the document's text will require approval from all the delegates. The United States was one of the major nations that rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Canada's presence in Paris is seen as an attempt by the government to improve its international position on the environment. In recent months, the governing Conservative Party has been criticized for withdrawing from Canada's commitment to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change in favour of new pollution standards. The leader of Canada's opposition Liberal Party, Stéphane Dion, has tabled a motion in parliament calling on Canada to reaffirm its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol. BOSNIA A Sarajevo newspaper says a high-profile war crimes suspect has left the country. The paper, the Olsobodjenje, quotes an intelligence source as saying that former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is hiding in Russia. Moscow's embassy in the Bosnian capital denies the report. Another Serb war crimes suspect, Dragan Zelenovic, hid in Russia before he was transferred to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague last year. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted General Karadzic and his former military chief Ratko Mladic in 1995 on charges of genocide in connection with the Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys. CHINA China's President Hu Jintao of China is in Liberia, the second country of his eight-nation African tour aimed at gaining a larger share of Africa's oil and mineral resources. Liberia is traditionally a strong U.S. ally. But Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf expressed gratitude for Beijing's reconstruction aid. The Chinese president began his tour in Cameroon, where he approved grants and loans to that country worth more than $54 million. Mr. Hu also signed a series of health and educational accords with Cameroon's President Paul Biya. MEXICO Thousands of people staged a demonstration in Mexico City on Friday. They were protesting against the price increase of food products such as tortillas and milk. It was the first major demonstration since President Felipe Calderon took office in early December. The price of the tortilla rose by between 40 and 100 per cent. Tortilla is a major stable of food for Mexicans. One of Mr. Calderon's campaign promises was to fight the poverty which affects more than half of Mexico's population of 103 million. VENEZUELA U.S. President George W. Bush has expressed concern over the additional powers given to Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez that will allow him to nationalize oil and utility assets and to pursue his goal to turn the country into a socialist state. Mr. Bush is also worried about the role of democratic institutions in Venezuela. He made the comments after Venezuela's Congress passed legislation giving Mr. Chavez powers of decree. The move has been condemned by the opposition as an abuse of power. Mr. Chavez has promised to use his mandate to strip the central bank of its autonomy, to eliminate presidential term limits and to form a single party from the dozens of groups supporting him. CZECH REPUBLIC A leading Roman Catholic church official in the Czech Republic wants to disclose the names of priests who spied for the former Communist government. Cardinal Miloslav Vlk says that he has a list of more than 40 church officials who've admitted to spying. But he wants the church and government to look jointly at secret archives to find other names. It's estimated that as many as 150 priests might be implicated. Archives in neighbouring Slovakia recently revealed that the archbishop of Bratislava once spied for the secret police in the former Czechoslovakia. Last month, Poland's Roman Catholic church was rocked by news that the newly appointed archbishop of Warsaw had spied for ten years during the Communist era. He was forced to resign.
OTTAWA: CENTRAL BANKER DEFENDS TRUST DECISION The governor of the Bank of Canada, David Dodge, has defended the federal government's decision last October to start taxing income trusts in the same way as corporations. He told a House of Commons committee that the decision should have been taken long before to put all business entities on a level playing field. Mr. Dodge says the income trust formula is acceptable for companies that merely manage assets but the reverse for firms that require innovation and new investment. The governor that some companies have converted themselves into income trusts merely for the sake of tax benefits and that the conversions reduced productivity. Before October, income trusts paid little or no corporate tax, a situation which Mr. Dodge says created inefficiencies in capital markets. MONTREAL: POWER TAKES OVER VENERABLE U.S. INVESTMENT HOUSE Great-West Lifeco Inc. has struck a deal to acquire U.S.-based Putnam Investments Trust for C$4.6 billion. Great-West is one of the Power Financial group of companies controlled in turn by the Power Corp. conglomerate of Montreal. Putnam is one of the oldest and biggest U.S. investment managers with US$192 billion in assets under management as of Dec. 31. Great-West's CEO Raymond McFeetors says his firm is already the fifth-biggest public life insurance firm in North America and that the acquisition will enable it to double its assets to $420 million. TORONTO: LABATT BIDS FOR CHEAP-BEER RIVAL Labatt Brewing Co., Canada's biggest brewer, has made a friendly bid to acquire Lakeport Brewing Income Fund for C$201.4 million. Lakeport became the country's third-biggest beer maker by marketing cheaper brands than its bigger rivals and now holds a 12-per cent of the Ontario market. Lakeport's board of trustees has recommended unanimously that their unitholders accept Labatt's offer. Labatt is owned by Belgian beer giant InBev. MARKETS TSX composite was up 70 points to 13,104.03 midday Thursday. The Canadian dollar was ahead 0.05 of a cent at 85.01 cents US. Euro: C$1.53.
HOCKEY The National Hockey League says it set an all-time record for attendance last month. The league says it attracted almost 3.2 million fans to 187 total games in January. The per-game average of almost 17,100 is the highest in the NHL's 89-year history. The league's overall attendance is down slightly from last season. SKIING Canada is sending a 19-member team, including four skiers who have won medals during the World Cup season, to the world Alpine ski championships. The goal of the 11-man, eight-woman team is to win at least two medals at the championships, which open Friday, start with the men's super-giant slalom Saturday and wrap up with the team event Feb. 18.
Weather British Columbia on Thursday: sunny south, mix of sun, cloud north, high 9 Celsius Vancouver. Yukon: snow. Northwest Territories: mix of sun, cloud. Nunavut: sunny. Whitehorse -4, Yellowknife -17, Iqaluit -26. Prairies: snow. Edmonton -3, Regina -13, Winnipeg -17. Ontario: mix of sun, cloud. Quebec: snow. Toronto -5, Ottawa -8, Montreal -9. Nova Scotia: snow. New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador: sunny. Fredericton -13, Halifax -8, Charlottetown -14, St. John's -5.
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