Month: August 2008

It's lunchtime at GTMO, the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay. We've spent the morning in courtroom 2, a relatively new facility built for the military commissions here. We have been watching pre-trial motions in the matter of Omar Khadr being debated.

We resume in about 40 minutes.

In court, journalists, human rights observers, and others sit at the rear of the spacious courtroom, behind a thick pane of glass. This enables court officer to silence the audio if some sensitive information is being discussed.

The courtroom is large – about the size of a basketball court.

The walls are white, the carpet is grey and the desks are made our of red cherry wood with black vinyl or leather tops. There are five rows of long tables on each side of the aisle down the middle of the court. Each table has four black chairs.

As the judge, army Col. Patrick Parrish, looks down the courtroom, he sees Khadr in the front row sitting on his extreme right. Khadr is wearing a white jump suit with black shoes. Khadr is a big 21-year-old, standing six-feet-tall at least. He has short neatly cropped black hair and full neat black beard. He has not said anything today. He sits mostly leaned forward with his elbows on the table in front of him paying close attention to the proceedings. From time to time he will confer with his Edmonton-based lawyer Dennis Edney who is sitting in the seat next to him. Next to Edney is Rebecca Snyder, one of the Khadr's Pentagon-appointed lawyers, and, next to her, is Lt. Cmdr William Kuebler, the lead Pentagon-lawyer who did most of the talking today.

Across the aisle from Kuebler today is the lead prosecutor, marine Major Jeff Goharing. Next to him is army Captain Keith Petty. Next to him today was a Department of Justice lawyer Jordan Goldstein.

Several uniformed personnel — some army, some navy, some coast guard — were also in the courtroom. By my count, including all those I've mentioned, there were 19 in the courtroom itself and about a dozen in the room with journalists.

For journalists getting into the court, there is a strict security protocol. We went through three checkpoints to get into the courtroom. No electronic devices are permitted. The U.S. government has sophisticated tools to ensure devices are not coming into court. In fact, as we were going through the second checkpoint — about 10 metres from the entrance to the court building, a security officer came out and yelled “Cell phone!”, indicating that their electronic sweepers had detected the presence of a cell phone that was on. The individual who had inadvertently arrived with it deposited it with security officers. All we can take into the court room is a pen and notepad.

Once inside, you're inside until the judge lets you go. You may leave the courtroom only for court recesses or for an emergency. There is no entering the court once it is in session.

I'm sitting on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. A USAF KC-130 is being loaded with gear in front of me and once that's done, I'll be strapping myself in one of the seats for the flight to the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
I'm travelling with a small group of Canadian journalists to watch a military commission hearing tomorrow involving Omar Khadr, the Toronto-born man charged by the U.S. government with murder and various war crimes stemming from his involvement in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002.
We will be 3 hours, we are told, in the air. We're dressed for 84 F weather in Cuba but we expect it to be a bit chilly in the aircraft.

Canwest News led the, ahem, way last week on federal government cuts to arts groups. First, we reported that the government deep-sixed the PromArt program, a grant program run by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade that helped cover the travel costs of Canadian artists and cultural groups to spread a little bit of Canada on to foreign shores. The next day, we reported that the government said sayonara to a program called Trade Routes run by the Department of Canadian Heritage, a program which gave artists market research and other assistance to become cultural exporters.

The Post's Kelly McParland says:

It’s possible that Ottawa is just as petty as its critics claim, and is using [former CBC broadcaster Avi] Lewis [who received PromArt funding] and the other cases to mask its retreat from funding culture and the arts. It’s also entirely possible the Tories are justifiably disgusted by the way tax money is regularly wasted on people who don’t need it or deserve it. ….

The problem is all in the collateral damage. There are plenty of worthy operations that can use federal grants to enhance and promote Canadian culture abroad. It’s a huge industry and the best of it is worth supporting. Unfortunately, the best of it too often gets sideswiped by freeloaders and the undeserving. If there’s money, they will come.

Also at the Post's site, Duncan McKie, who represents Canada's independent recording artists, is bitterly disappointed with the cuts:

For the Canadian music industry particularly, these cuts cannot come at a worse time….

… the recipients of these grants, be they Inuit carvers or Toronto rockers are being demonized for applying to, and receiving support, from a program developed, sanctioned and administered by the Government of Canada. There was nothing underhanded or surreptitious in this. If the program was ill-conceived or poorly run, why not say so? Obviously it is easier to ridicule the recipients, rather than discuss the real issues.

The Post's editorial board heartily approves . . .

If Canadian artists produce world-class art, then it will be noticed on the world stage — with or without government assistance. Moreover, the Tories are not telling artists to stop producing their movies, paintings, alternative rock or books. Rather, they are simply telling them to stop financing their international junkets from the wallets of overburdened taxpayers.

The Globe and Mail's New York-based arts reporter Simon Houpt does not:

…the vast majority of the funds sent abroad artists and companies that Stephen Harper would enjoy with his wife and kids: $8,000 to send Newfoundland's Duo Concertante dance company to China; $30,000 for the acclaimed experimental circus troupe Les 7 doigts de la main to give 42 performances in Mexico and Germany; $15,000 to The Nickle Arts Museum of Alberta to present an exhibition for six months in Poland.

…It's hard to overstate how low a profile Canada has abroad. If that's the way the government wants it, that's their decision. But if we want our voice to have influence in the rest of the world, to be the moral beacon we believe it is, that requires marketing Brand Canada. Sending artists and writers abroad is an integral part of that marketing that happens to be extremely cost-effective.

My friend and former colleague Bill Dunphy has a thoughtful analysis of the coverage that the four Toronto papers provided of those blasts in Toronto. He compares it to the work of citizen journalists, who posted comments and pictures on some blogs. [The photo on this page, in fact, is from one of those citizen journalists, Rannie Turingan, a talented blogging pioneer in Toronto who runs www.photojunkie.ca] Bill has some favourable things to say about National Post's response to the blasts although he says the mainstream media have some lessons to learn in the wake of the coverage.

Here's the top lines from Bill's posts on the subject:

About two hours before this morning's grey dawn, a series of explosions tore through a propane depot in the northwest corner of the city, shaking buildings and homes, shattering windows and waking people as far as 10 kms distant from the scene. Fire and smoke shot to heights equal to a 20 or 30 storey building and led many to think (worry? fear?) that a jet airliner had crashed, a terrorist attack had taken place, the city was being bombed.

This was breaking news with a capital 'B' and at this point, six hours distant from that 3:30 am blast, it offers some intriguing lessons in how coverage of these events is evolving in a world where digital cameras and web access are almost ubiquitous.

Bottom line – in aggregate, citizens journalists out-performed their professional counterparts getting news out faster, offering more details, and better images and videos. They also made more mistakes and had a high noise to signal ratio. Mainstream media were slow off the mark and while they depended on the citizen journalists, they failed to make the most of the possibilities that material offered. See the bottom of the post for my thoughts on how to do that. [Read the full post]

Hill Times reporter Harris MacLeod talks to me, Paul Wells, and Don Martin about the Prime Minister's director of communication Kory Teneycke and changes to the PMO's communications strategy since he succeeded Sandra Buckler last month:

PMO's media charm offensive very much alive, Cabinet ministers more available

'Reporters, myself very much among them, are extremely susceptible to mistreatment and to flattery,' says Paul Wells

The PM's new chief of staff Guy Giorno and new director of communications Kory Teneycke seem to be implementing a more friendly, accessible and available approach to dealing with the Parliamentary Press Gallery, but CanWest reporter David Akin said the government's dumping of three negative reports on the Friday before a long weekend shows that the message is still tightly managed.

“I get the impression that things are shaking loose, that there's different, new protocols for ministers to be made available to media, but again I'm not so sure how that's going to shake out,” Mr. Akin told HT last week. “Last week we saw the report on Bernier come out. I happened to be working and that came out Friday before a long weekend at 6 p.m., and do you think we found [Foreign Affairs] Minster [David] Emerson [Vancouver Kingsway, B.C.] anywhere to talk about it? [Read the full story...]

We reported this morning that the federal government would be cutting PromArt, a grant program that helped Canadian artists travel abroad and promote Canadian culture. That program was run by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

A few minutes ago, the Department of Canadian Heritage announced the end of its “Trade Routes” program.

What is Trade Routes?

“Trade Routes is a comprehensive trade development program specifically designed for Canada’s arts and cultural sector. The program helps profit and not-for-profit organizations in the arts and cultural sector prepare to export and sell in international markets.

In particular, the program offers access to market research, trade experts in Canada and abroad, and financial support.”

So far as we can tell there has been no official announcement about the closure of the PromArt program but, if you check the program's application page, you'll see the notice that the program will be discontinued on March 31, 2009. That notice wasn't there yesterday.

UPDATE: My colleague Amy Husser has more on the cuts to Trade Routes.

Generally speaking, the federal Conservatives like contribution limits and the ban on third-party contributions and why shouldn't they? They are trouncing their political rivals when it comes to grassroots fundraising and the ban on corporate donations is killing the Liberals.

But spending limits and bans on corporate donations may be working against the Conservative interest when it comes to the Canadian Wheat Board and so, on Friday just before the long weekend, the Conservatives proposed to do away with those bans.

A majority of the Conservative Party's supporters in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta think farmers ought to be able to sell their wheat and barley to anyone they want — possibly even including the Wheat Board. Right now, by law, prairie farmers (and this restriction applies only to prairie farmers, mind you, not to farmers in PEI or Ontario, for example) must sell the wheat and barley to the Canadian Wheat Board which markets it on the behalf of farmers.

Because prices for wheat have been rising, many farmers believe they'd be better off financially if they could cut out the middleman, i.e., the wheat board.

This is a big issue in the federal Conservative caucus, which has several influential members are bona fide grain farmers, including Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz (from Sask) and parliamentary secretarys Ted Menzies (Alberta) and David Anderson (Sask).

But those folks have been battling groups like the National Farmer's Union and, in some cases, the Wheat Board itself. The CWB believes grain farmers are best served in the long run through the stability in pricing that the Wheat Board can provide. There have been plebiscites, demonstrations, and firings. There have also been some court rulings which seem to suggest that no matter how many referenda the government has, the only way to change the rule is by amending an act of Parliament. And since the Conservatives are in a minority position and the other parties would likely oppose changes, the Conservatives are fighting a ground war.

The latest salvo from the Tories came late Friday (on the eve of a summer long weekend) with a proposal to amending the federal regulations that govern the elections of directors of the Canadian Wheat Board. Though the government has placed a strict cap of $1,000 per year on political donations and banned all third-party (i.e. union or corporate) donations to political parties, the government is throwing it wide open when it comes to the politics of the wheat board. The government proposes to eliminate the $10,000 limit on corporate, union, and other third-party donations during a wheat board election and it will allow these third parties to do whatever they want in terms of advertising.

“This regulatory change would encourage broad debate and participation in the Directors' elections by removing the current $10,000 spending restriction on advertising expenses in place for third-party intervenors, and allowing third parties to freely disseminate information during the election period,” the government said in a press release.

The Wheat Board's defenders believe the changes let agri-food corporations gang up on the Wheat board. Those oppose bans on third-party advertising during elections campaigns — and Prime Minister Stephen Harper used to be one of those when he was running the National Citizens Coalition — may very well pull throw these words back at the government, arguing that third-party advertising would be “a regulatory change [that] would encourage debate and participation in … elections.”