Category: Opinions

The thought of drinking a salty glass of water is not often one which appeals to many people. The same is true for plants.
In many agricultural hotbeds of the world, farmers become concerned when the land that they work undergoes the transformation process from being healthy fertile crop soil to saline-sodic soil, or rather soil which contains high amounts of soluble salt and sodium.
As the concentration of salts in soil rise, they can often kill vegetation that had been growing there by depriving plants of necessary nutrients and adversely
effecting the pH levels of the soil. While this is not the case for every type of vegetation, if you’re not planning to grow barley, sugar beets or tall wheat grass in whatever soil you may have at your disposal, salt concentrations may be of concern to you.
Be it in a backyard, a planter, the strip of grass in front of your building that the landlord fondly refers to as the front yard or even on the greener campus space of Loyola, the soil in your life, that provides your senses the pleasures of grass to roll in, trees to climb and flowers to smell, deserves to be taken care of.
Studying at Concordia, one may not necessarily have the time to ponder the consequences of sprinkling chemicals into the soils around them, in the same way
that an agronomist might, but just because someone is not prone to reflect on this aspect of our more natural environment it should not be flatly ignored.
Anjum Sharif is a chemical engineer who works in Pakistan. His principle job function is to help with the management of saline-sodic soils so that they
produce high labour intensity yields. This does not mean that he is in charge of forcing people to work the farmlands of Pakistan but rather he tries to force
the farmlands to work for people. One of the ways in which Sharif accomplishes his task is through the addition of calcium chloride to the soils. According to
Sharif, this can increase cereal production on salty land by 400%.
Calcium is the active ingredient found in gypsum, a product used by many western gardeners and farmers to produce similar effects to those Sharif is creating in
Pakistan.
While we know that certain chemicals can be used to improve soil fertility, other compounds, like salt, prove to have a very negative effect.
Inevitably, in a city like Montreal, salt is a staple commodity. We put it on our french fries, in our muffin mixes, cure our meats with it and of course
spread it across the city’s slippery winter roads.
With an effective melting point at around 12 degrees Fahrenheit or -11 degrees Celsius, salt is an affordable solution to saving peoples lives when the streets
and highways become virtual bumper car skating rinks.
Then when the spring comes, plows whisk the remaining guck of snow, salt and slush away. Only not at Concordia.
At Loyola, where the end of winter actually leaves piles of snow on campus that the city of Montreal does not remove, the university takes care to stack what’s
left into piles and clear the numerous footpaths that connect the campus’ many building.
It seems, however, that this year, the pushing aside of Loyola’s snow drifts has been done at the expense of some of the campus’ lovelier trees. Instead of
moving the leftover muck onto a stagnant patch of campus dirt or into one of the empty campus corners, Concordia’s snow removal experts decided to pile all of
the snow up around the bases of more than a half dozen trees which sit in the middle of the courtyard on the West side of the campus between the Bryan building, the Drummond Science building and the Administration building.
With treatment like this it’s no wonder that some of the trees on campus have continued to look somewhat glummer than many of their companion neighborhood
N.D.G. trees which also weathered the region’s recent ice storm.
While the salt deposits left at the bases of Loyola’s trees probably won’t kill them, it can’t possibly help them burst with buds, open their leaves and stretch further up toward sky when the growing season comes around.
What’s disappointing is that the piles of snow reign high around the bases of many university trees when there is an ample abundance of vacant corners in the area where the snow could be piled to melt without letting a heavy salt content seep directly into Loyola soils.

Welcome to thaw.
It usually hits Montreal after everybody and their numbed extremities has had it up the yin yang with winter, but this year it spread across town like a gentle surf.
Perhaps that’s because here at Concordia we’ve had the fortunate distraction over the past two weeks of being able to absorb the Art Matters festival that rejuvenated both the Sir George and Loyola campuses.
It made them fresh.
It was hard, even for those who took little time to step away from their books and classrooms, not to notice that something artistic was amiss at school.
A snow sculpture, of three boys climbing up a ladder to place a huge snowball into the eye-socket of a snow-Christ, graced the field between the Vanier Library and the Administration Building at Loyola, while two gargantuan rectangular prisms balanced precariously in the foyer to the Webster Library downtown with the word “sexy” painted onto the bottom of one and the word “sweaty” on the lower face of the other.
Display cases in the libraries were full of goodies, like clay chilli peppers and the Hive turned into a week-long vernissage of assorted surprises.
Ambling into Reggie’s last Thursday, revellers were offered a short humorous play entitled The Forefathers Fiasco, about three guys on a quest to find the best way to break up with a girlfriend, followed by a rousing tribute to Aretha Franklin from The Superlocraine and a mellow set of light-ambient jazz from a superb quartet.
What an evening.
One that helped bridge the crisp leap from fall into the slippery muds of spring in the same way that it bridged the Fine Arts Faculty at Concordia with the rest of the community.
From the uncanny and unsettling to the poignant and flashy, the Art Matters festival offered Concordia students a fruitful two weeks of images, sights, sounds and spectacles.
An indoor garden one day on the Mezzanine, spoken word activities, a hamburger meat statue of a woman with chains on her ankles pulling her back to a pair of shoes behind her as well as theatre, improv and screenings dotting the campus.
It was an event that not only offered Concordia’s student artists a chance to showcase their talents but it also offered something even more precious to the rest of the Concordia community. The opportunity to appreciate the work of their fellow students in a school that could benefit from a splash of paint here and there to begin with.
The original goal of the festival was to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts.
Perhaps, if the drive from the right people is here next year, Concordia students may even be lucky enough to see this turned into an annual event.

It is a rare thing to see two competing student newspapers working together, much less lobbying for the same cause. But for the first time in history, the Concordian and the Link are banding together to promote one goal: preserving the freedom and independence of the student press at Concordia University.
When students vote in the Concordia Student Union’s general elections between March 27 and 29, they will be faced with a referendum question asking students to vote on a “Students Bill of Democratic Rights.” After a cursory glance, the bill looks harmless enough. Using such loaded words as “transparent,” and making broad claims about students’ “RIGHT to participate and effect (sic) change in student-funded organizations,” we wouldn’t blame the average student from viewing this as “a beacon of democracy,” as CSU VP Communications Tom Keefer described it at a recent council meeting.
In fact, this bill is the student government’s attempt to impose arbitrary rules on groups that have no legal or constitutional connection with the CSU, including The People’s Potato, Le Frigo Vert, QPIRG, the Concordia Women’s Centre, and the two student papers. If the Concordian and the Link don’t comply, the bill says the CSU will lobby the university’s Board of Governors to cut off the newspapers’ fee levy. In other words, Rob Green and the rest of the CSU are ordering the press to play by their rules, or face destruction. This doesn’t sound very “democratic” to us.
Threatening press freedom
The role of student newspapers is very different from that of student associations or clubs. Both are essential and equally important, but their operations must be independent of each other. Freedom from external control of both editorial policy and internal operations is essential for a newspaper to remain responsible. Student governments are often the major subject of front page news in a student newspaper-the purposes of investigative journalism can obviously never be served when the subject of an article in the paper dictates either editorial content, or how the paper is run.
Both the Concordian and the Link are autonomous organizations that get their funding directly from students-without the CSU’s involvement or intervention. Student newspapers which have achieved autonomy have often had to fight their student associations to get it. In 1986, CUSA (the precursor to the CSU) was in full support of the Concordian and the Link’s autonomy referendum.
Both newspapers have their own mechanisms for resolving disputes, managing finances, and electing staff. The student press is both open and accountable. Feel free to drop by the Concordian’s and the Link’s offices, and we’ll be happy to help you get involved.
Although Green and the other CSU executives continue to pledge their support for a free press at Concordia University, this bill contravenes the autonomy agreement signed between CUSA and the two newspapers in 1986. No matter how altruistic it may sound, it attempts to legislate the inner workings of the Concordian and the Link, and this represents a clear threat to the independence of the student press. This still doesn’t sound “democratic” to us.
Back-room deals
Considering this is such a far-reaching piece of legislation, you would expect that the CSU would have consulted with all of the affected groups. The Concordian’s staff were informed about the bill about 24 hours before it was passed through council, and the Link’s editors only learned of its existence second-hand. Although Green told the Council of Representatives on Feb. 28 that he’d consulted with all of the other affected groups, including the People’s Potato, Le Frigo Vert, and the Concordia Women’s Center, the CSU is now scrambling to make changes to theproposal, in an effort to address these groups’ objections. Rumour has it that Green is going to propose even more changes at Wednesday’s Council of Representatives meeting, even though the campaigning period has already begun.
This really doesn’t sound “democratic” to us.
Don’t be fooled. “The Students Bill of Democratic Rights” is the CSU’s desperate attempt to harness control over the student press. Don’t let them do it. Vote “no” in this month’s CSU referendum. Democracy without a free press is no democracy at all.

If you would like a copy of the bill, or want to ask questions, drop by or give us a call later this week:
– the Concordian, room CC 431 (Loyola), (514) 848-7499
– the Link, room H-649 in the Hall Building (downtown), (514) 848-7405

On March 1, student loans from the federal government will change forever. They will come with an added bonus— support services from Edulinx and BDP Business Data Services Ltd.— and will no longer be managed by the Canadian banks.
What this means is that students who are graced with loans will have readily available access to the supportive services of two companies which specialize in student loan management and will be offered a more supportive infrastructure to ease them through the delicate process of receiving and repaying a loan.
While Edulinx’s business is focused entirely on student loans, BDP manages outsource portfolios of all types including health and dental insurance programs and data and document management.
Both Edulinx and BDP have been awarded two year contracts. Edulinx will be receiving $91.6 million to act as the service provider for borrowers attending public educational institutions. While BDP will be receiving $45.7 million to act as the service provider for borrowers attending private institutions.
Statistics show that students attending a private institution have a higher default rate on their student loans than those attending public institutions and this is a very reasonable explanation for why funding that is put towards public and private educations should be handled differently. There are differing stresses and problematic areas for each process.
Both companies are to serve as a go-between for students, the federal government and schools.
What’s impressive about the two, particularly of Edulinx, are their web sites. They offer visitors fairly simple frameworks packed with easy to click-and-find information. BDP’s web address is www.bdp.ca and Edulinx’s web address is www.edulinx.ca.
A visit to the Edulinx site offers the viewer a manageable selection of options and access to some of the key information students will want to know about before, during and after going through a federal-government loan process. It has a section which fully explains who can apply for loans, how, when and where and is pocked with snappy images and easy-to-scan heading.
In other words a great number of general queries student’s may have are easy find out about by spending not much more than a minute or two surfing around for the answers. Furthermore, the Edulinx site offer students a news page with link to news stories about many key educational reforms as they occur across the provinces.
The site also offers its visitors the possibility of submitting any special queries by e-mail as well as listing phone numbers, addresses and locals were more in-depth help can be sought out for viewers who prefer a little more human contact. On top of this the site has links to all the provincial bursary program sites and loads of information about how to find out about other incentive programs, scholarships and bursaries.
The key advantage to Edulinx, in particular, is that aside from its web focus which will save countless numbers of students time and simple confusion, it offers two specialized programs. One of these is a loan-disbursement program which aims to help student plan how they spend their loans and the other is a debt-management program aimed a facilitating the process students undertake to repay what they have borrowed.
The money for federal loans is still sourced through The Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP) but Edulinx and BDP will now provide the bureaucratic support for its operation. The CLSP is the largest program of financial assistance for students in Canada. Since 1964 it has dolled out $15 billion to over 2.7 million students and the program currently subsidizes loans for about 350 000 students per year.

It’s been a little over a week since the Napster, the free music-sharing Internet service, was ordered by the U.S. ninth court of appeals to stop letting users copy recordings that copyright holders didn’t want distributed and the Recording Industry Association of America is breathing a sigh of relief. But should they?

Napster, the brain child of college student Shawn Fanning, is a web-company which offered it’s users a web interface upon which they could upload tunes, from their hard drives onto the site, and download the tunes others had posted in the form of MP3 files. Essentially the site was a huge music library that only grew larger and became more eclectic with time.

Fearful of the consequences such a site might result in and unimpressed by lobbying efforts in Washington, the U.S.’ biggest music producers and distributors rallied together under the moniker, ‘Recording Industry Association of America’ in an attempt to get the site shut down. It was under this blanket representation that the companies formally brought Mr. Fanning’s circa-1999 company to court in an attempt to put an end to the free exchange and distribution of music. They were of the opinion that free distribution was putting a crimp in their profits and robbing artists of valuable royalties.

Sales booming despite piracy

There is no doubt that people were indeed downloading loads of free music from the Napster web site and burning it onto their proper CDs at home. However, during the course of the Napster proceeding, music sales actually rose despite the large number of people who had taken up the habit of sampling or pirating music for free.

Did this have anything to do with the new born ease people had to sample more music and see if they were interested in it before heading out to the closest music store? Perhaps.

Although I am not big on purchasing CDs (it’s been years) I was recently informed by a CD aficionado of sorts, that the reason people take the time to purchase CDs these days is that they want to buy an experience. The analysis went further, suggesting that part of the experience of purchasing an album one likes, is to feel the CD jacket in ones hands, read the lyrics and liner notes and have the pleasure of seeing the accompanying graphics. Whether or not all those who own CDs share this feeling of having experienced a CD everytime they purchase a new one is questionable.

What about the others?

Regardless, the problem with the Napster ruling is that Napster is one web site in one place. A quick search on the net earlier this week turned up five similar sites, offering free downloads to interested surfers. By shutting down one web-based U.S. site, the Recording Industry Association of America, should not feel relief when many similar sites currently exist and will certainly continue to pop up. Furthermore, several fairly new programs are now circulating the net which enable users to swap files, like MP3’s, from their desktops without even having to visit a host web site.

There seem to be enough similar sites and programs in cyberspace already, that a court ruling against Napster hardly seems fruitful. The recording companies seem to be pleased to have thrown a sponge into an ocean, attempting to collect more water then they can soak up.

The larger conundrum of cracking down on all the ways in which people acquire free music over the net seems an untenable goal.

How, for instance, is one to crack down on a web site in a foreign country let alone track down who on the net is using software which may enable them to freely interchange of copyrighted materials. The answers are unclear.

Some have suggested that host web-sites offering freebies like MP3 tracks charge a membership or user fee, as an increasing number of popular pornographic web sites currently do. The logic behind this being that collected funds could then be redistributed to the artists or those to whom the copyrights belong, in the form of royalties. Mind you, it would be no easy task to reach an agreement about what such fees should be and how they should be applied when such a large collective of talents and works, like those which Napster once offered its visitors, are expected to be found under one umbrella site.

U.S. companies not the only ones who are concerned:

-The European Union is moving towards adoption of a copyright directive that would bolster laws about the pirating of copyrighted materials from the Internet. The directive is expected to pass through the European Parliament early this year and be adopted by the 15 EU governments.

-The international legal framework for the on-line music industry was provided in the WIPO Treaties concluded by more than 100 countries in Geneva in 1996. 30 countries need to ratify the treaties for them to come into force. So far around 20 have ratified.

-Independent researchers at Forrester Research estimate that there were 3 million downloads of pirated music a day in 1999.
-According to IFPI (The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) estimates 15,000 illegal sites hosting 3 million music files were shut down last year last year.

-“Napster: It is the future, in my opinion. That’s the way music is going to be communicated around the world. The most important thing now is to embrace it.” – Dave Matthews (found on the Napster web site)

Have you ever had the feeling that somebody was following you around all day? Felt like you were being watched? Maybe you were!
Short, tall, sexy or frumpy, we’ve practically all spent some time under the watchful gaze of a security camera. They’re in the metros, scattered around shopping malls and all over both Concordia campuses.
There was a time when video cameras were wired to television screens and used to monitor the activity in a given locale. Camera technology then evolved to a point where the cameras could be controlled from a switchboard so that they swivelled and panned, zoomed in on and out, and could record and store images for review. Nowadays video cameras can capture even more information than ever before. In fact, they can actually identify who you are.
Easy identification
With a boom in digital technologies, video cameras can now grab a frame of somebody’s face, digitalize it and feed it into a computer where it can be compared to a database of profiles.
This means is that surveillance technologies can now convert the images of faces they capture into a mathematical chain or string of bytes which can then be paired on a numeric basis to see if it can be matched with another.
The name of the existing program capable of performing this interesting task is FaceTrac. It is produced by a company called Viisage and installed by a Pennsylvania firm called Graphco Technologies. The actual technology, however, was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
FaceTrac’s first well-publicized use was during the superbowl this year. With the permission of the NFL, the Tampa Bay police department decided that it would make use of the technology by planting cameras at the ticket wickets of the Raymond James stadium. The idea was to test out the new technology by running the photos they had captured against state and federal mug shot databanks.
Great for football
72,000 fans who had come out to watch the game were filmed by these cameras and electronically inspected. A total of 19 matches were made and nobody was arrested.
While police were happy with the results, the NFL hasn’t seemed to have drawn much criticism for obliging to the police request and chances are that very few of those who attended the game had any concerns, let alone any clue, that they were being filmed at the stadium entrance.
According to Viisage, the company responsible for FaceTrac software, the technology works well even if someone is wearing sunglasses, grows a beard or shaves their moustache. In fact chief executive Tom Colatosti has gone so far as to call FaceTrac ‘disguise-proof.’ The program apparently distinguishes 128 different facial features upon which it bases its codes.
Possible applications of a program like FaceTrac seem fruitful at first glance. For example, it could allow companies to set up video cameras at their doors and ensure that only registered personnel entered the company premises.
On the flip side, FaceTrac technology could prove to be a system with great potential for abuse. The software could make it possible to track individuals throughout a camera-fied city for any reason.
It could eventually prove to be a crime fighting tool which will make police work easier. Or it could be used in ways which infringe upon the privacy of an individual. Naturally, if no mug shots of an individual are available for comparison, the task of identifying somebody becomes more of a challenge. However, it only takes one picture of somebody for you to capture their mug.
FaceTrac puts into question the ethical parameters which should accompany the use of such technology. Is the public entitled to protect themselves from informal video camera surveillance or do they have a right to know who’s watching them and why?

It’s been less than a year since the PQ promised students that they would be pledging $1 billion to education over the next three years and already their promise has fallen through.
With modest surpluses projected for the next provincial budget, the cabinet has asked Education Minister Francois Legault to trim $400 million out of his department’s $10 billion dollar budget.
While the Treasury Board contends that this shouldn’t be interpreted as a budget cut, but rather as a funding formula that is not increasing as much as they had hoped it would, the budget squeeze doesn’t seem to reflect any steps towards fulfilling a $1 billion pledge that was made at the government’s youth summit
last year. The education department, however, isn’t the only department being asked to trim expenses from their budget.
On the heels of the Clair commission report, which suggested that serious funding is needed in order to restore some of the desperately needed infrastructure to a battered Quebec health-care system, the health department
has been asked to squeeze $750 million out of their $16-billion budget.
So where has all this promise of increased spending slipped away to?
Some may contend that the candied pledges that have been dropped into the mouths of Quebecers during the past few years were white lies based on party-related goals rather than being reasonable fiscal projections. Others may argue that economic shifts in the Quebec economy leave the province’s budgetary planning a
little up in the air from year to year and difficult to rigidly plan and predict
in advance.
Or rather, perhaps, there are simply more important areas of spending which have
come to the attention of our ministers in Quebec City; one’s which preclude health-care and education.
The PQ may seem to feel that there are more important provincial needs that require funding in this province in order to make Quebec taxpayers feel proud of their province and proud of their government. Zoos for example, are admittedly one area of provincial development, which would place high on such a priority list.
For some strange reason Deputy Premier Bernard Landry and his gaggle of party members have discovered that zoos in Quebec are distinct from those in the rest of Canada and therefore should be treated as protective sanctuaries for Quebec’s fish and fowl.
This would help to explain why the deputy premier so vehemently protested the federal government wanting to kick in an $18-million contribution to a new zoo being built in Quebec City. He was trying to protect any giraffes, which the new zoo may one day house, from the discomfort of feeling Canadian flags flapping
between their partly-Parisian necks. Furthermore, our knowledgeable deputy premier was aware of the little known fact that red is a colour that can provoke schools of goldfish to entering frenzied states of passion; lord knows what kinds of problems the red of visible Canadian flags could create within the
harmonious aquariums of any new provincial zoo.
On top of this, a zoo visit can be considered an educational experience as well a place of spiritual refreshment. This means that the new zoo should be able to cheer up the ill and educate scholars all at the same time. It can also be perceived as a good way for the government to compensate for cuts to health-care
and education.
Heck, what student in their right mind would ever risk suggesting more funding be allocated to the education department when government spending offers them the opportunity to pay student visitor rates at a zoo that’s only a metro stop and a bus ride away in Quebec City.

Sitting in a living room that contained enough machismo to make a caterpillar blush and pre-empt metamorphosis, superbowl Sunday helped remind me of the all important fact that every once in a while the beast that is man needs an excuse to romp and roar.
The game itself was an insignificant excuse for gathering that brought together a symposium of unfettered students, whose papers and notes were forgotten in drawers elsewhere. Men the size of horses charged into each other on the
television set, egged on by their coaches and fans. Fights broke out, helmets were slapped and pools of sweat concentrated on the chest area of the stallions’ uniforms. Meanwhile, similar chaos broke out in the living room. Quesadilla juice stained pants, beer bottles jarred into each other and a debate over the
pragmatics of having a shag rug on the living room floor ensued; this wasn’t little league debate after all, this was the superbowl.
In the corner a fierce-looking giant from RMC (Royal Military College), who had come into town just to watch the game, sought approval for a claim that he was single-handedly responsible for the images of Canadian peace keepers that now cling to the backsides of the new Canadian ten dollar bills. His reasoning being that he had sent an e-mail to the mint criticizing it for lacking in its portrayal of cultural images on the currency it presses and coins. Erstwhile another young student captivated the attention of the other side of the room by trying to prove that a pink shirt and a gray clip-on tie can lend a person an
air of integrity providing that the shirt collar can adequately cache the nubbin
stumps of the tie’s bow corners.
Under the premonition that they where party to a significant event the roomful of men was able to synthesize a warped valour for their coming together. The superbowl became more than a simple excuse to slag Global television for, not
running American commercials, cameramen constantly zooming their cameras towards
billboards during game breaks instead of focusing in on crowd shots and television technicians who inserted advertising periodically onto the game pitch and even transformed the Budweiser blimp into something else by supplanting ads for other companies onto the outline of the blimp.
The superbowl became an event of epic priority in those men’s lives if only for a few hours. They where graced with a comfortable excuse to reunite; a sense of purpose, even though some in the room couldn’t even name any of the players on either team.
Dirty dishes, stains on the shag rug and schoolwork were passing thoughts that couldn’t penetrate the bubble of freedom, which the superbowl had bought with it. Clapping and cheering was optional and dancing gigs permitted. Only fiddling with the remote control was banned.
Two days later in class, I found myself poking at an abrasion that clung to the wrist of a fellow student inquisitively.
“Carpet burn from the superbowl,” he said with a grin and I nodded knowingly.

A push by federal opposition members in the Canadian parliament and provincial governments, particularly those of Quebec and Ontario, demanding tougher legislation from Ottawa to deal with criminal gangs and their members has led to a unique discovery.
Members of organized crime are not all the same size or shape and do not all drive the same sorts vehicles or live in the same types of houses.
Members of organized crime do not walk the streets donning bone fide identification tags and do not always let the mantra of their individual organizations poke sheepishly out of their breast pockets like handkerchiefs.
The gray area of being able to determine whom, in Canada, is a gang-member makes it very dangerous to set precedence within this country by developing and enforcing new anti-gang legislation directed towards members of organized crime.
While federal Justice Minister Anne McLellan has made it clear over the past week, that she plans to rally Parliament into enacting tough legislation to help weaken the activities of gangs in Canada; Canadians should be wary that they are not swayed into accepting legislation as being a solution to preventing crime.
The recent shooting of Quebec crime reporter Michel Auger has brought the hype and fear of gang activity to the forefront of Canadian minds. This has led to talk of convincing Ottawa to grind out new laws that would override, to some degree, the right to freedom of association in the Canadian Charter of Rights. The aims of such measures would be to prevent members of known criminal gangs from fraternizing with criminal associates.
With new laws come grace periods wherein the interpretation and application of these laws through the courts helps to determine their legal validity. Creating such legislation would essentially create new gray areas in Canadian law that could be very dangerous.
Escape routes that such legislation would have to include, so as not to overly infringe upon the existing rights which the Charter guarantees Canadian citizens, could make these kinds of constitutional changes either useless or potentially abusive for everyday citizens.
Providing law enforcement officers new powers to deal with organized crime, which override the Canadian Charter casts aside the curtains upon a window of abuse that could easily expose Canadian citizens to an unreasonable level of policing.
One of the principle provisions in this new plan would be to allow undercover police officers to participate in such crimes as drug smuggling and money laundering when conducting investigations. This raises some serious questions about entrapment.
If the police are allowed to commit criminal offenses during the course of duty what’s to prevent them from diverting the attention of an investigation in order to sting people who have perhaps been involved in any variety of unrelated dubious activities
Without adequate guidelines Canada risks becoming a police state instead of a policed one.
Organized crime can be deterred by establishing stricter penalties within our criminal laws as the new legislation is intended in part to do, when it can be proved that the accused possesses actual membership affiliation within an identified gang as well as by increasing allocated resources to Canadian policing bodies.
Bending existing rules, however, so that the guaranteed rights of all Canadian citizens are weakened is no way to take the air out of crime’s motorcycle tires.

Dignity intact, Lucien Bouchard stepped out of the National Assembly’s Red Room last week and, like any good houseguest, he took a few minutes to shut off the lights and lock the door behind him.

Dabbing his eyes Bouchard bid farewell to a political landscape that he learned to walk on three and a half decades ago. Treading lightly at times and stomping at others, it would be hard to contend that Bouchard’s departure won’t have a dramatic impact on the future of this province.

Bouchard first began campaigning for Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal party in Jonqui