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Politics : Canadian Political Free-for-All -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lorne who wrote (2352)	4/9/2003 8:41:09 AM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 37068

Expect severe consequences from anti-U.S. stance Failure to back U.S. war effort is foreign policy disaster Diane Francis Financial Post Tuesday, April 08, 2003 ADVERTISEMENT NEW YORK - The decision to officially sit out the Iraqi war is one of the biggest and most expensive foreign policy mistakes in Canadian history. A pantry on Wall Street shows just how upset Americans are toward some countries that are not their allies. Northeast Securities Inc. is an investment bank with hundreds of employees and its personable vice-chairman, Bill Behrens, last week showed me a boycott list, under the headline "Don't Buy," that itemizes French consumer products. "Look at some of these names," he said. "Chivas Regal, Glenlivet, a really good Scotch, Jacobs Creek, the Jerry Springer Show, Motown Records, Le Crueset kitchenware, Uniroyal Tires, Michelin Tires, B.F. Goodrich Tires, Culligan and DKNY. Imagine, Jerry Springer?" There were no Canadian consumer products listed, but Canada is a huge "disappointment," he said. "Americans don't even think that there's a border. If Canada is not our best friend, then who is? Of course, Mexico's President Vicente Fox has been a wimp, too. And then there's Creetin? [Canada's Prime Minister]. Another one." Mr. Behrens said he will boycott French products, but German products are another matter. That's because he's a Mercedes fan and also of German extraction. As for Canada, he said, it was business as usual and his firm just raised a US$5-million private placement for an outstanding Ontario corporation. The financial sector aside, a backlash is certain to damage the Canadian economy and any companies doing business with the U.S. government or its agencies. It will also play into the hands of protectionists and competitors south of the border who will use "Buy America" arguments when up against Canadian rivals. Then there's simple revenge. "I have first-hand knowledge of a large U.S. contractor that I met in Florida that was told by his principals not to use French cement or Canadian steel in a high-rise condo building that he was putting up," wrote a Post reader last week. Clearly, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet do not understand the United States nor what makes Americans tick. Their public relations incompetence is hideous -- Ottawa is disdained even though it has deployed more troops in Iraq than has Spain, which has gotten full marks for joining the coalition. Damage control is impossible because positive news about pro-American rallies or resolutions in Canada are not being reported in the press to counteract the negative headlines. Any official capitulation will look like opportunism after the fact or an attempt to be part of the reconstruction of Iraq. It's little wonder Canada's business community is mad, as are expatriates. "This is the beginning of a longstanding rift that won't be forgotten by Americans. The first thing my friends say is, 'How could your Prime Minister do this and not support us?' " said investment banker Mart Bakal, a Winnipeg native who operates internationally out of this city. "These friends are incredibly wealthy, knowledgeable, sophisticated, well-educated, well-travelled, worldly and really rich. And they're mad. They're offended." Mr. Bakal said Americans are more disappointed with Canada than about France, Germany or Mexico. "We're family. We were considered best friends and we should support each other blindly," he said. "Families have disagreements but to all the world you support one another." The most obvious casualties are Montreal's engineering giant SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. and aerospace/defence supplier CAE Ltd., which vie for lucrative contracts with the U.S. government. Then there are those that rely on American regulatory bodies, such as Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railways or the softwood lumber producers, which should not expect a favourable resolution of their trade problem any decade soon. "There are three issues Canadians have to be worried about," said Hershell Ezrin, president of public and government relations firm GPC International in Toronto. "First, whether Americans will want to get even. Secondly, security is going to trump trade every time, which could make it hard to convince Americans or others to build factories in Canada. If we miss an investment cycle, we pay for a very long time such as the election of the separatists in Quebec and the NDP in Ontario and B.C.; and thirdly, whether American consumers are going to boycott." dfrancis@nationalpost.com © Copyright 2003 National Post

To: lorne who wrote (2352)	4/9/2003 8:59:45 AM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Respond to of 37068

Muslim students seeking damages theglobeandmail.com By INGRID PERITZ From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Montreal — A group of Muslim students is seeking more than $1-million in damages from a major engineering school in Montreal in a tense dispute over the university's refusal to grant the students space for their prayers. The estimated 300 Muslim students at Montreal's École de technologie supérieure — the sixth-largest engineering school in Canada — have been left to pray in the school's fire-escape stairwell. The students are also upset that the school has posted signs in its bathrooms forbidding students to wash their feet in the sinks. The signs feature a picture of feet in a sink, with a red line running through them. University administrators said they received complaints about the foot-washing, which is required before Muslim prayers, because water spilled on the counters and floors made them dangerous. But the Muslim students maintain that the prohibition fits into a larger atmosphere of intolerance on campus, and they have filed a complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission seeking $10,000 each in punitive and moral damages for more than 100 Muslims at the school. "We're not trying to spread Islam. We just want to practise our religion," said Farid Ghanem, a doctoral student who left the engineering school last month because of its treatment of Muslims. "The atmosphere has become intolerable. There are tensions every day." The clash goes to the heart of Quebec's efforts to take its schools out of the grip of religion, which had dominated the province for decades. Both sides at the engineering school say they are prepared to legally defend their viewpoint as far as it takes. A top university administrator said his institution, which has 4,500 students and is affiliated with the University of Quebec, will go to the Supreme Court to ensure its right to remain secular. "We feel it's not the mission of the university to create mini-temples in the school," said Normand Trudel, secretary-general of the school. "We have nothing against Muslims. We treat Jews, Catholics and Jehovah's Witnesses the same way. People [at school] would prefer that there be no manifestation of religion of any kind. We don't want the school to turn into a place of worship." He said a Catholic student group requested prayer space a few years ago and was turned down. The dozens of student associations that are funded by the university all have activities linked to the mission of the school, he said. Muslim students at the engineering school say their freedoms have diminished over time; they used to be allowed to leave their prayer carpets in the stairwell between prayers, but are now required to remove them. Fo Niemi of the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations, a Montreal human-rights group that represents the students, said other universities such as McGill and Concordia have accommodated Muslim students with devoted space. "You can't be secular to the point of violating the fundamental rights of religion," Mr. Niemi said. In Quebec, he said, "it's gone from one extreme to the other."