Actress Glenn Close arrives for the 84th Annual Academy Awards on Feb. 26, 2012, in Hollywood, Calif. Close, also known for her mental health advocacy, will be a keynote speaker at an international conference on reducing stigma surrounding mental illness to be held in Ottawa in June. (Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images)

Award-winning actress Glenn Close will be a keynote speaker at an international conference on reducing stigma and discrimination surrounding mental illness being held in Ottawa June 4–6.

The 5th International Stigma Conference—Together Against Stigma: Changing How We See Mental Illness—will bring together mental health researchers, policy makers, and service users from around the world.

That there is mental illness in my family puts us squarely at the heart of the global human family.—Glenn Close

In 2009, Close helped launch Bring Change 2 Mind, a U.S. based anti-stigma organization that works to remove misconceptions about mental illness.

Close’s younger sister, Jessie, and Jessie’s son, Calen, both live with mental illness. Fifty-six-year-old Jessie was diagnosed as bipolar at age 47. The illness began when she was a teenager but went years undiagnosed. Calen suffers from schizophrenia.

Jessie and Calen will also be guest speakers at the conference.

“That there is mental illness in my family puts us squarely at the heart of the global human family,” said Close in a press release.

“I am honoured to be a part of this year’s International Stigma Conference and am thrilled to also be celebrating the formation of Bring Change 2 Mind’s distinguished Advisory Council, who will aid us in translating the science of stigma and discrimination into powerful, informed messaging.”

Close, who has received six Oscar nominations, three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes, and three Tony Awards, is also known for her role as a mental health advocate.

This year she received the National Association of Broadcasters Educational Foundation’s Leadership Award for her work with Bring Change 2 Mind.

The Stigma Conference is hosted by the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) and the World Psychiatric Association Scientific Section on Stigma and Mental Illness.

In welcoming Close to the conference, Micheal Pietrus, director of MHCC’s anti-stigma initiative Opening Minds, noted that “her commitment to fighting stigma and removing misconceptions about mental illness is inspiring to us all.”

Opening Minds is the largest systematic effort to reduce the stigma of mental illness in Canadian history, according to the MHCC.

The initiative is working to evaluate anti-stigma programs across Canada to determine their effectiveness at changing negative attitudes and behaviours related to mental illnesses. The successful programs are being replicated elsewhere in the country.

To decrease stigma, Opening Minds is also working with journalism schools and the media to identify myths and misconceptions associated with mental illness.

More than seven million Canadians will experience a mental health problem this year.

According to the MHCC, researchers have found that stigma is a major barrier preventing more than two-thirds of people with mental illnesses from seeking help, and “Many people living with a mental illness say the stigma they face is often worse than the illness itself.”

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Justin Trudeau and wife Sophie Gregoire meet up after the boxing match on Saturday (photo by GioVanni)

OTTAWA—Liberal MP Justin Trudeau beat Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau in a fund-raising boxing match on the weekend.

Conditions of a bet between the contenders meant that the loser, Brazeau, had to get his hair cut in the foyer of the House of Commons Monday and wear a Liberal-logoed hockey sweater with “Trudeau No. 1” on the back. He will wear the jersey to work for the rest of the week.

Although Brazeau came on strong early in the first round, underdog Trudeau quickly had the upper hand, with the referee calling the match before the end of the third round. The match raised $230,000 for the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation.

Both men have good reason to “Fight for the Cure”: Brazeau lost his mother to cancer in 2004 and Trudeau lost his father, former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, to prostate cancer in 2000.

Brazeau, a black belt martial artist and former army man, was favoured 3 to 1 before the fight began, but Trudeau’s longer reach and cooler fighting style won the match with a TKO.

Kanata South Coucillor Allan Hubley speaks at the launch of the Tim Hortons Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival’s 2012 fundraising season on March 6. (Donna He/The Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—The Tim Hortons Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival launched its 2012 fundraising season on March 6.

Among the speakers at the launch event was Kanata South Councillor Allan Hubley, Honorary Chair of the Ottawa Dragon Boat Foundation.

“This is the largest dragon boat festival in North America and to date it has raised over $2.4 million which is invested right back here within our community,” said Councillor Hubley.

Noting the festival’s support of seven local charities, Councillor Hubley highlighted the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa and its mental health walk-in clinic as he spoke of the tragic loss of his 15-year-old son, Jamie, who suffered from depression and committed suicide last October.

“To help us heal with our personal tragedy, we decided to do our part to make certain that no more families have to suffer the same pain that we and other families must bear when a child gives up hope,” he said.

“I am committed to doing everything I can to ensure that when a young person reaches out, the best possible help is there for them.”

I am committed to doing everything I can to ensure that when a young person reaches out, the best possible help is there for them.

—Councillor Allan Hubley

The foundation has established a goal of $500,000 this year to be distributed to the Youth Services Bureau as well as the CHEO Foundation, Bruyère Foundation, ArtsSmarts, Ottawa Humane Society, Debra Dynes Family House, and University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research.

“I am asking each of you for your help to build a better city by doing your part,” said Councillor Hubley.

The non-profit festival, in its 19th year, expects to attract 70,000 attendees with the help of 400-plus volunteers.

The festival offers free admission and many multicultural performances and other entertainment and activities.

People carry signs as they rally in front of Cornwall Community Hospital March 3. (Pam McLennan/The Epoch Times)

On a cold and extremely windy March 3, things heated up in front of Cornwall Community Hospital as about 100 people rallied to ask for an assessment of what they perceive as the hospital’s unfair hiring practices.

The rally participants complained that since the hospital voluntarily adopted the French Language Services Act, employees are not hired based on their skill levels.

Anglophones who already work at the hospital can’t move up in their jobs if they don’t pass a difficult French language skill assessment test, they allege. And while those hired can speak French, they may not be as qualified as a unilingual English speaker who cannot.

Registered nurse Christopher Cameron was one of the few current employees taking part in the rally.

“You’ve got to stand up for what’s wrong, that’s really where I stand. I want equality for all and that’s not how people are treated here. I want Ontarians to see this and say this is wrong,” said Cameron, a main organizer of the event.

He explained that although he is a qualified nurse with a specialty in hemodialysis, he has not been able to get a full-time job with benefits at the hospital because the French language proficiency test is so difficult.

“Since 2004 I have been applying for a lot of positions, many full-time positions, and been passed over. The last time I had an interview process the manager told me basically that ‘you don’t have French, you can’t have the job,’” he said.

Mayor of South Stormont Bryan McGillis (Pam McLennan/The Epoch Times)

“I think [language testing] has become a very selective process. It minimizes the opportunities for people, and really—where is the equality for all people? It doesn’t exist.”

South Stormont Mayor Bryan McGillis said the mix of hospital staff should represent the population it serves.

He believes quality of health care will suffer if the hospital hires people based on language skills and only secondarily considers worker experience and qualifications.

“I’ve been inundated with so many calls and emails that were really heart-breaking,” he said.

“I felt that it was time to make a stand and give everybody a voice and hopefully we can put the word out right to the province. I was at Queen’s park this week to say that we are very frustrated.”

Speaking to the crowd he said, “Our politicians have to stand up and speak up about what is right and what is wrong. They know this hospital is hiring people from outside the community. There are people coming from all over Quebec.”

Township Withholds Funds

The South Stormont township is withholding a $30,000 contribution that it committed to pay annually from 2006 to 2015 to help with redevelopment of the hospital.

This was in response to a letter to the editor from former CCH board of directors chair Dr. Dany Tobler who suggested that people withhold donations to the hospital to protest the hospital’s voluntary adoption of the French Language Services Act.

In a second letter, Dr. Tobler suggested that people should still donate to the hospital foundation to “maintain our level of patient care.”

Last month, CCH board of directors chair Helene Periard said that a unilingual speaker will be hired if a bilingual one can’t be found to fill a bilingual position. She added that in 2009, the hospital ended the requirement for part-time employees applying for full-time positions to be bilingual.

“I think you have to say everything in moderation,” she told the Ottawa Citizen.

“We aren’t asking for every person on staff to be bilingual—it’s front-line staff who interact with patients. So there are plenty of other opportunities for employment in the hospital that don’t require the second language.”

Several of those interviewed by The Epoch Times at the rally agreed that francophones deserve to be served in their native language.

However, they also believe that hiring practices at the hospital shouldn’t prevent unilingual English workers from being employed when the majority of those served by the hospital speak English.

Ottawa City Hall. The City of Ottawa has been recognized as being among Canada’s top diversity leaders in the 2012 Canada’s Best Diversity Employers competition. (The Epoch Times)

The City of Ottawa has been recognized as being among Canada’s top diversity leaders in an annual competition that evaluates employers based on a range of workplace diversity and inclusiveness programs.

More than 2,750 employers of all sizes from the public and private sectors across Canada competed in this year’s Canada’s Best Diversity Employers competition.

“The City strives to build diversity awareness among our employees as a direct reflection of the makeup of the community that we serve,” said Mayor Jim Watson in a news release. “This distinction recognizes our continuing commitment to having a workplace that is inclusive and accessible to all.”

Among the initiatives that earned Ottawa the recognition include a partnership with the City for All Women Initiative to help identify barriers to employment and to eliminate discrimination.

The city co-leads a committee with the Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition to work with community groups on finding solutions to issues affecting Aboriginals, and is a member of the Employment Accessibility Resource Network, working with service providers and employers to help persons with disabilities find jobs.

Hire Immigrants Ottawa is another partnership between the city and community groups, focusing on advancing the hiring of skilled immigrants.

A program called Diversity Champion builds relationships between the Ottawa Paramedic Service and minority groups to encourage their members to consider paramedicine as a career.

And the Ottawa Fire Services runs a “female firefighters in training” camp, a mentoring program for young women aged 15 to 19.

“The City is working with the community to ensure that all residents have equal access to facilities, products, services, grants, and employment opportunities,” said city manager Kent Kirkpatrick in the release.

“Our ongoing priority is to eliminate barriers and to generate a culture at the City of Ottawa that is respectful and inclusive.”

Since 2002, the City of Ottawa has had a policy in place to ensure equitable and inclusive recruitment practices. It also offers an award that recognizes employees who have worked to advance diversity initiatives within the government.

The City of Ottawa also ranked among Mediacorp’s list of Canada’s Top 100 Employers in 2012.

In addition to diversity, Mediacorp runs several other national competitions to recognize employers for excellence in issues of special interest, such as family-friendly workplaces, environmental values, young people, and older Canadians.

In the latest episode of what some see as a battle for freedom of expression in Canada, judges heard the case of Galganov/Brisson vs. Russell Township in the Provincial Court of Appeal in Toronto on Feb. 2. No date has been set for the court’s judgement.

Howard Galganov and Jean-Serge Brisson have been fighting the 2008 Russell Township bylaw that enforces both French and English signage on businesses in the four small towns of the municipality.

Galganov, an Anglophone, argues that the bylaw is yet another example of the creeping imposition of bilingualism on the predominantly English-speaking population of Canada.

Brisson, a Francophone, says enforcing bilingual commercial signage dictates how a business can market its services and sets up the expectation that service will be available in both English and French, which may not be the case.

They also argue that it’s not the government’s place to tell businesses what language should be on their signs and that doing so infringes on their right to freedom of expression.

The language-rights activists are appealing an August 2010 ruling by the Superior Court of Ontario that Russell Township has the right to enforce bilingual signs.

In her ruling, Justice Monique Métivier dismissed Galganov’s application since he—unlike Brisson—is not a resident of the township. She also concluded the bylaw doesn’t infringe on Brisson’s right to freedom of expression.

The judge agreed with Russell Township that the bylaw was necessary to protect the survival of the French language in the community, while at the same time promoting the equality of French and English.

“The decision is excellent,” Russell Township Mayor Ken Hill said at the time, according to The Review. “It was clear from the outset. We live here together next to each other. This decision is now history in terms of respect for language rights in Canada.”

But Kim McConnell, president of Canadians for Language Fairness, says the case “has very wide implications” for Canada.

“If that law passes and it spreads—because that’s what Caza (municipality lawyer Ronald Caza) said is going to happen: ‘Once we get this passed we are going right across Ontario and do the same thing.’ That was his boast.”

Opponents say allowing the bylaw would set a precedent that could affect future judgements should other language laws be challenged.

“That’s what we hope the judges understand,” McConnell says, adding that the case needs to go all the way to the Supreme Court.

“What we’re hoping is that at least one of [the judges] will say ‘Yes, this has wider implications and should go to the Supreme Court.’ That’s what we want.”

After the 2010 ruling, Galganov wrote in an editorial on his website about the ramifications of losing the appeal.

“This court challenge against a law that blatantly violates every person’s freedom of expression is no small deal. If we lose, it will mean that every bureaucrat in Canada, including pissant mayors in small towns, will have the right to suspend civil rights and liberties.”

Stephanie Richardson, the wife of ex-NHL player Luke Richardson, poses for a photo with some of the bracelets that are being sold as part of the Do It For Daron (DIFD) night to help raise awareness about teen suicide. The event is taking place on Feb. 4 in Ottawa at Scotiabank Place prior to the start of the NHL game between the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Created by friends and family of Daron Richardson who lost her life to suicide at the age of 14, DIFD is a program focused on raising awareness about youth mental health. (Jana Chytilova/Freestyle Photography/Getty Images)

MPP Yasir Naqvi and Ezio Costanza, owner of Olga’s Deli & Catering. (GioVanni)

The 14th anniversary of the celebrated Taste in the Glebe event, a famous showcase of local and area eateries, vintners, and brewers, once again proved to be an excellent fundraiser for the Glebe Neighbourhood Activities Group (GNAG) Community Fund.

So much sipping, sampling, savouring, and socializing proved that, after all these years, Taste in the Glebe remains as fresh as Kettleman’s Bagels, seafood from Pelican Fishery & Grill, or Italian fresh cheese from Il Negozio Nicastro.

With that and a whole lot more, all graciously donated, it was next to impossible to leave with an empty stomach.

Attended by around 400 guests, the event raised approximately $18,000 before expenses for GNAG’s community fund, which has contributed to improvements and upgrades to the Glebe Community Centre that can be enjoyed by the entire community.

“I remember 14 years ago challenging the Glebe Neighbourhood activities group to see what they could do to help raise money for the renovation to the community centre,” said Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson.

“I suggested they have an event similar to Bon Apetit and invite local eateries to show off their food and drink. They then turned the tables and said, ‘Why don’t you chair it’? I did and we had a great event that I am very pleased has carried on. Taste of the Glebe is one of the most enjoyable social events of the year.”

The great success of the event is due to the continual participation of area restaurants, food providers, vintners, and brewers, as well as companies such as Naji’s, Octagon Catering, The Flour Shoppe, and MPP Yasir Naqvi, who stopped by Olga’s Deli & Catering to sample their smoked meat sandwich. Naqvi then stayed to help owner Ezio Costanza serve the other guests.

“Daytime Ottawa” co-hosts Lois Lee and Derick Fage share a moment with Mayor Jim Watson. (GioVanni)

In the room you could spot such celebs as Lawrence Greenspon, “Daytime Ottawa” co-hosts Lois Lee and Derick Fage and Fage’s girlfriend Monica, and many more recognizable faces who knew the night was all about socializing.

An ultra-special mention goes to the hard-working committee as well as all of the incredible volunteers who, as usual, went beyond expectations to ensure the success of the event.

Taste in the Glebe has evolved into a culinary extravaganza and the hottest ticket in the city. It maintains its popularity because of fabulous food from restaurants, and beverages from vintners and brewers in Ottawa and the surrounding area.

It brought people together, and from the moment the doors opened, guests enthusiastically sampled the delicious offerings.

GioVanni is an Ottawa publicist, writer/photographer, image-maker, and radio and TV host. Contact him at giovannipublicist@yahoo.ca for upcoming events.

Artist rendering of the new IKEA store that opened this week in Ottawa

Ottawa’s IKEA store re-opened its doors Wednesday to a brand new facility and crowds of shoppers and browsers alike. Ottawa city police were on hand to direct the huge volume of traffic that showed up on opening day.

A little over a year in the making, it’s now the largest IKEA store in Canada.

“It’s been a lot of learning, it’s been a lot of challenges, all these deadlines—because of course we wanted to open on time. So wow what a ride, it’s been fantastic,” said store manager Isabel Auclair.

The new store is more energy-efficient and even provides “preferred green parking” for hybrid cars. 

Customers can recycle light bulbs and batteries in the store, and energy and water consumption along with the amount of waste generated are monitored to minimize waste and be as environmentally friendly as possible.

But it’s the shopping that people come for, and the two floors offer a product line that has more than doubled. 

Of course, there are still those unpronounceable names that are meaningful in Sweden—sofas are named after cities and lakes, lighting after musical instruments, and textiles have women’s names.

There are maps throughout the store to help shoppers navigate their way. 

A bedroom setting on display at the new IKEA store. (Photo courtesy of IKEA)

As usual, many vignettes showcase the furnishings and products. Some room settings look like self-contained mini-apartments or dorms complete with kitchen, dining, and living areas. Others have a more luxurious approach, such as kitchens with granite countertops and cherrywood cabinets and bedrooms with custom storage.

Eat in or take home

You won’t go hungry while shopping as the second-floor restaurant seats 640 people and is licensed for beer and wine. 

“The nice thing about this bigger restaurant is that I will be able to offer the full menu at all times. That’s a nice change for all of us,” said Troy, the head chef.

The Bistro or exit café is on the ground floor and continues to offer the famous hot dogs, yogurt cones, and cinnamon buns. 

The adjacent Swedish Food Market, now four times larger, offers the entire private label line of IKEA foods, including a new range of salmon: smoked, marinated, and a gravalox that is both smoked and marinated.

“My favourite sandwich is the shrimp and egg sandwich. It’s a traditional Swedish dish. The recipe we serve here has been around for 100 years, but I love it. That and a nice bowl of soup is my favourite meal,” said Troy.

The old store will be refurbished and occupied by the Sears Home store in May or June 2012. 

The old Sears building will be torn down to provide more parking and better traffic flow as people will be picking up larger furniture at the same site instead of at the warehouse on Morrison Drive, which is now closed.

Tony and Grace Mariani, Dean and Luisa Mariani, Joanne Mariani, and Fabio Marrello. (GioVanni)

OTTAWA—The Sixth Annual Make-A-Wish Foundation Three Wishes Gala, which took place at the Hampton Inn and Conference Centre in Ottawa on the weekend, raised $100,000 for children who have life-threatening medical conditions.

The gala was sold out at 720 guests within just a few days of announcing the event.

Twelve families who have received a wish from the eastern Ontario chapter in the past year were invited to attend courtesy of some very special local sponsors. Brook, Victoria, and Daniel, some of the Wish children in attendance, contributed their own pieces of art that were auctioned off along with other donations.

“The support we receive on this special evening goes beyond finances,” said executive director Mike Wlotzki. “It shows our staff, volunteers, and Wish Kids how many people truly believe in our mission and are willing to support our efforts.”

Returning gala co-chairs Tony and Grace Mariani of Mar Gard Builders invited many prominent business people from the Ottawa community.

Participants included CEO of Make-A-Wish Canada Jennifer Ritter; Rick Gibbons, CEO of the Ottawa Sun; Mark Papousek of Y101 Radio; John Brule, president and CEO of Clean Water Works Inc.); Ottawa model Jessica Newton; and many other recognizable faces.

With over 100 children in eastern and northern Ontario currently in the process of having a wish granted, Make-A-Wish has an ambitious year ahead.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation of Canada is a dynamic wish-granting organization that brings hope, strength, and joy to children across the country. Along with the national office, seven independent regional chapters grant wishes to children in need from coast to coast.

People can donate unwanted vehicles to Make-A-Wish Eastern Ontario. AIM Cohen and Cohen will make a $150.00 donation in your name, and donors receive a $150.00 tax receipt. Towing is provided free of charge by CAA North & Eastern Ontario. To learn more visit www.makeawisheo.ca.

For upcoming events contact Giovanni at giovannipublicist@yahoo.ca

Women raise and sell goats to generate income for themselves and their families in the village of Kimokouwa. Each woman receives two female Isiolo goats to raise and, eventually, sell at market. The women will keep 90 percent of the money from the sale, while 10 percent is returned to Project TEMBO to support the purchase of more goats, which ensures the long-term sustainability of the project. (Jo Marchant/ TEMBO co-founder)

For a number of Algonquin College students, their partnership with TEMBO (Tanzania Education and Micro-Business Opportunity) has fulfilled more than their academic and practical requirements.

TEMBO is an Ottawa-based charity that provides education for girls and micro-finance loans or micro-business opportunities for women affected by abject poverty and gender and cultural barriers in two villages in northern Tanzania—Longido and Kimokouwa.

Earlier this year, the students held fundraisers for TEMBO at the college, including a bake sale, a vending table displaying beautiful Tanzanian jewellery, art, and books, and a pool tournament.

Beginning with virtually nothing, the students faced challenges such as finding sponsors, creating their own resources, and maintaining group efficiency. The results were well worth the effort. They raised $3,901, which will help send Tanzanian girls to secondary school through scholarships and create self-employment opportunities for women.

Lori Hadley, a Child and Youth Worker Program Professor who runs the Community Service Learning course and oversees all aspects of fundraising, says the students’ involvement heightened their awareness of local and international community needs, the resources available to fulfill those needs, and above all their unique abilities to empower themselves by empowering others.

According to Marchant, the initiative was quickly adopted. “Once we told students about how many other girls and women were living in rural northern Tanzania, they wanted to do something.”

She echoes the mutually beneficial nature of the relationship.

“Our association and partnership with programs like the Child and Youth Worker at Algonquin College results in a win-win situation. The lives of girls and women in Tanzania are improved by the funds that are raised. In Canada, students learn about how small amounts of money can make such a big difference in a developing country.”

Masaii women in a Tanzanian marketplace (Dr. Maureen Law/Administrative Coordinator of TEMBO)

Students achieved similar results for TEMBO fundraising coordinator Sandra Hession’s “Adopt a Grapevine” fundraiser. It was the talent of three Culinary Arts students that made the annual event a sweet success this year.

Monique Gruzecki, John Rudzinski, and Denise Lavergne prepared and cooked delicious food throughout the event as part of their required practical hours. Hession says their exceptional presentation, organization, and the flow of service really stood out. In exchange for their efforts, each student received a glowing letter of reference.

For Fatouma Haibe Houssein, a former accounting assistant and current Job Readiness Training student, helping women in Africa is close to her heart. To complete her two-week job placement, she participated in all aspects of TEMBO fundraising, including cooking, gift-card assembly, administration, sponsorship, and tax receipts. Both she and TEMBO members are confident that her efforts will solidify her goal of re-entering the industry of finance.

Houssein will volunteer at TEMBO’s upcoming 7th Annual Fundraising Luncheon on Saturday, Dec. 3 at 10:30 a.m. at First Unitarian Church on 30 Cleary Avenue in Westboro. Dr. Gail Webber will give a presentation on “Saving Mothers: Preventing Maternal Deaths in Rural Tanzania.”

There will be an African marketplace, silent auction and raffles, and a lunch featuring delicious Tanzanian dishes. Tickets are $45.00 (includes a $25.00 tax receipt). To buy tickets, please call (613) 569-0599 or e-mail info@projectembo.org .

To learn more about TEMBO, visit their website or visit their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/projectembo.

A Wedgwood teapot and cup and saucer once owned by Barbra Streisand that was sold at auction in 2009. Ottawa's first annual tea festival will be held at City Hall on Nov. 5. (Reuters/ Fred Prouser)

For those who love a good cuppa, the first annual Ottawa Tea Festival, whose theme is “Sharing culture through the language of tea,” will be held at City Hall on Saturday, Nov. 5.

From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. there will be presentations about tea-producing countries, tea tastings, dance performances, and a chance to see tea ceremonies form Korea, Japan, and China. Presenters include festival creator/founder and certified tea specialist Kimi Urlu, certified tea sommelier Tao Wu, and Korean Tea Master Yoon Hee Kim.

Several tea-related workshops will also take place at various times and locations in the Market area on Nov. 6, including pairing tea with food or chocolate à la fine wines, tea retailing, and how to blend teas with a focus on the medicinal properties of teas. You can register online for the workshops at kimicha.com.

What makes the festival unique is that monies raised will go to support humanitarian projects in a tea-producing country. This year’s recipient will be Ashinaga, a Japanese not-for-profit that provides emotional and financial support to children who have lost one or both parents in a natural disaster. In the aftermath of the recent earthquake and tsunami, many Japanese children were orphaned and left homeless. Information about the Tokyo-based group can be found at Ashinaga.org.

Every country seems to consume predominantly either tea or coffee. Canadians drink more coffee than tea but that may be changing. According to an Agriculture Canada website, of all beverages consumed in Canada, 16 percent is coffee and 12 percent tea. Although the consumption of coffee has steadily increased over the years, tea consumption has recently “exploded,” and this increase is predicted to continue until at least 2020.

The many different teas produced in the world are generally categorized according to colour: black, green, red, and white. Teas mainly come from the Camellia sinensis plant, and it is the curing that changes the colour of the leaves. Green teas contain more antioxidants because they are not fermented during the drying process the way black teas are. Perhaps because green teas contain higher levels of flavonoids that contribute to their antioxidant properties, they are seen as a healthy beverage.

There are also herbal and fruit teas that do not contain any tea at all, such as chamomile, mint, and rosehip.

The Chinese emperor Shen Nung is credited with discovering tea in 2737 B.C. when a tea leaf fell into the cup of hot water he was drinking. Tea was called either te or cha in China, and countries all over the world have adapted a derivative of one of those two words to describe the beverage.

The traditional way to make tea is to add boiling water to the leaves, which may be in an infuser or strained while serving, allow it to steep for the requisite amount of time, and serve it clear or with any combination of milk, sugar, lemon, or spices.

Tickets and information about the tea festival can be found at ottawateafestival.com. The Epoch Times is a sponsor of the festival.

The Violet Hill Wine Imports tasting table. (Susan Saigal)

Ottawa’s Juniper Kitchen and Wine at 245 Richmond Road proved to be the ideal venue on a sunny September afternoon for tasting wines from the various wine-growing regions in Austria.

Eurovintage International importers were pouring a very tasty Winzer Krems Gruner Veltliner. This refreshing white is a slightly spicy, dry wine, best served well-chilled.

The grape variety that is most typically Austrian, occupying more space in vineyards than any other variety, is Gruner Veltliner. The wine made from these grapes, a white variety that has a unique taste, is light on the palate yet has a dry spiciness akin to white peppercorns that is reminiscent of wines from Alsace.

The busiest tasting table seemed to be Violet Hill Wine Imports, where Dee Ellies and Pierre Hallett were pouring two superb Judith Beck wines: a 2009 Zweigelt and a 2007 Judith, 50 percent Blaufrankisch—definitely something to rave about. The other knockout wine was a Herbert Zillinger 2007 Trockenbeerenauslese/Chardonnay Essenzial, sweet but not too sweet, and according to Ellies, marvellous with a chocolate dessert.

The Judith Beck wines come from Burgenland, near the Hungarian border. In this “micro-climate” the fig trees grow alongside the vineyards.

Violet Hill Imports had a second knockout, the Weinrieder 2008 Roter Icewine called Rarity, of St. Laurent grapes. This one, from Niederosterreich, is for very special occasions.

I particularly liked the Sattlerhof Morillon Sterische Klassik 2009, a Chardonnay from the Austrian state of Styria. Presented by Le Sommelier Inc., this wine scored 90 out of 100 according to the Falstaff Wine Guide of July 2010.

There was a standout beer from Cojocaru Ltd., called Kaiser Beer, nicknamed “The Emperor of Beers,” and a chance to taste Stroh 54, an Austrian spiced rum imported by Vinexx. This rum specialty is also great in dessert sauces, puddings, and cakes.

Susan Saigal is an editor and writer specializing in travel, food, art, and wine.

Dr. Mykhailo M. Khomenko, Ukraine's Charge d'affaires interim, speaks at the raising of the Ukrainian flag to mark the 20th anniversary of Ukraine independence from the Soviet Union. (Edward Melnychuk)

The blue and yellow Ukrainian flag was raised in Ottawa on Aug. 24 and now flies proudly on the grounds of Ottawa City Hall. It celebrates the 20th anniversary of Ukraine independence from the Soviet Union, something that was very difficult to achieve.

Nykolai Bilaniuk, chair of the Ottawa branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, gave a well-received, heartfelt speech, which he said later was “totally ad-libbed.”

“It was something of a miracle that, after 70 years of living under the Soviet Union, one of the most brutal regimes in history, Ukraine regained independence without bloodshed,” Bilaniuk told the crowd.

The path was not easy, however, for although it was a new beginning, Bilaniuk noted that under the centrally planned economy of the Soviet system, “all the decisions were made in Moscow and the people who knew how to make decisions were in Moscow too.”

What that meant was that Ukraine had to build the workings of a state, including a functioning civil service, almost from scratch.

Between 1931 and 1932, Joseph Stalin, who had lusted after the rich wheat harvests of the kulaks as well as their land, which he wanted to make into collective farms, had his goons confiscate the entire Ukrainian wheat harvest. It was done by force and nothing was left for the farmers or their families. They had nothing to eat. The wheat was sold by the Soviets to Western countries for a huge profit.

It was both tragic and ironic that 1933 saw a huge crop of grain ripen in the Ukrainian steppes. But by autumn, harvest-time all over Europe, no one was left to gather the precious wheat. Stalin had exterminated 10 million Ukrainians by forced famine. This extermination by starvation joins the Holocaust as one of the world’s greatest evils.

Bilaniuk said that Ukraine “did a good job” as “Ukraine has a free and open press, and genuinely contested elections.”

He added that Ukraine became the first major nuclear power to give up this category of weapons completely. Only the small Baltic states “did a better job of democratization.” That contrasts with the “stans” of Central Asia, Belarus, and also Russia itself, where there has been a return to government that is actually more authoritarian than democratic.

That is why Ukraine is of “great strategic importance to the West,” he said, as it can be a shining beacon, “the example to the rest of the former Soviet Union of a country that successfully adopted Western values and democracy.”

He noted, however, that there has been “some slippage” in Ukraine recently. The free press appears to be under pressure, and “persecution of opposition politicians has begun.” In fact, opposition leader Julia Tymoshenko was arrested on what some say are spurious charges, which has somewhat dampened the enthusiasm of official celebrations.

But the situation is not hopeless, Bilaniuk said.

It is only with the support of Western countries like Canada and “the occasional firm nudge” that the future of Ukraine will be bright and on a pro-Western course.

Susan Hallett is an award-winning writer and editor who has written for The Beaver, The Globe & Mail, Wine Tidings and Doctor’s Review among many others. Email: hallett_susan@hotmail.com .

Ottawa Falun Gong practitioners are applauding the decision after the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ruled against the Ottawa Chinese Seniors Association for expelling an elderly Chinese woman because she practices a meditation discipline persecuted in China.

The case arose after the association forced out Daiming Huang, a 78-year-old Canadian citizen, because she practices Falun Gong. The association went on to publicly criticize her beliefs using terminology the Chinese Communist Party uses in China to justify a 12-year violent suppression of the group.

“The case arises in the context of the Chinese regime’s international campaign against Falun Gong, with its Embassy and Consulates in Canada mobilizing the Chinese community to denounce and ostracize practitioners,” reads a statement from the Ottawa Falun Dafa Association.

Huang was attending a New Year’s celebration at the association on Dec. 29, 2001, when she noticed a Chinese Embassy official in attendance was looking at her. Minutes later, the secretary of the association, Feng Xu, approached her and told her the board of directors had decided they would no longer accept Falun Gong practitioners.

When she returned in February for a Chinese New Year celebration and to ask the chair about the decision to cancel her membership, she was berated by other board members who said she was part of an “evil cult,” while seniors visiting the centre looked on.

The tribunal ruled that Falun Gong constitutes a creed and is protected within the meaning of Ontario’s Human Rights Code, and that the association breached that code when it ejected Huang on the basis of her belief.

The tribunal also ruled that the public attack on her beliefs was an affront on Huang’s dignity and caused her to lose face within her community, and that she is made more vulnerable because Falun Gong is persecuted in China.

The association was ordered to pay $15,000 in damages to Huang and invite her back to the association within 30 days of the order.

“This is not just a success for Daiming Huang, it is a victory in the worldwide battle against the Communist Party’s oppression of Falun Gong,” said David Matas, legal counsel for Huang.

The ruling was the second victory for Ottawa Falun Gong practitioners this year after the City of Ottawa's  Public Health Department issued an apology because Sally Zhang, a nurse with the department and a member of the fair's organizing committee, kicked the group out of a health fair in 2008 because of pressure from the Chinese Community Centre.

“I extend my sincere apologies for the events that led to you being excluded from the 2008 Asian Heritage Month Health is Wealth Fair. Ottawa Public Health is committed to the continual improvement of its point-of-contact experiences with the citizens of Ottawa and every effort has been made to ensure that similar situations do not arise again,” read the Jan 28 apology letter from Esther Moghadam, a senior manager.

After an attempt to participate in the fair in 2009 was also rejected, Lee filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. The city issued the apology after the matter went to mediation early this year.

(L-R) Luke Campbell formerly of Spicy Luke's restaurant, Algonquin College executive chef Mark Steele, His Excellency Kaoru Ishikawa, Ambassador of Japan Russell Weir, and Ikou Kanbayashi (Giovanni)

L-R: Kevin McCort, CEO, of CARE Canada, Britta Herrmann, volunteer organizer, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, and His Excellency Kaoru Ishikawa, Ambassador of Japan (Giovanni)

The fundraising repast consisted of such delicacies as sushi and carpaccio; thinly shaved slices of peppered elk filet; Pacific black cod, Gyoza Friends Japanese mountain yam & truffled duck confit; matcha crème brulee; and azuki ice cream.

Ottawa Citizen food editor Ron Eade was the splendid emcee for the evening. Dignitaries included His Excellency Kaaru Ishikawa, Ambassador of Japan; Third Secretary Yoichi Fujaiwara, Embassy of Japan; Jim Watson, Mayor of Ottawa; and Kevin McCort, CEO of CARE Canada.

The event was put together by Britta Gerwin and a group of volunteers who donated their time, services, and sourced all products and food to help a stellar group of executive chefs from a variety of hotels and eateries around town, as well as several Canadian Culinary Federation executives.

Approximately $50,000 was raised, with an event prep time of seven days and event matching from the OJLS (Ottawa Japanese Language School), bringing the total to about $100,000. All monies will be donated to CARE Canada & CARE Japan to assist in the reconstruction and immediate needs of those living in the disaster areas.

E-mail giovannipublicist@yahoo.ca or giovannipublicist@gmail.com .

Spring tulips on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, with the Peace Tower in the background. This year, for the second time in a row and the fourth time in six years, the nation's capital was rated the 'Best Place to Live' in Canada by MoneySense magazine. Ottawa- (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

For the second year in a row, Ottawa-Gatineau has been named “Canada’s best place to live” in the annual ranking by Moneysense magazine that measures factors such as affordable housing, crime rates, job prospects, and healthcare.

The personal finance magazine compiled data from 180 Canadian cities and towns with populations of over 10,000 and gave points to each community based on a number of categories and subcategories.

Ottawa-Gatineau scored 71.77 points out of a maximum 105 points to receive the top honour. Three provincial capitals also made the top 10, including Victoria, Fredericton, and Winnipeg. Vancouver ranked 29, Toronto 88, and Montreal 123.

The categories include the percentage of people who walk or bike to work, weather and air quality, population growth, unemployment, housing, household and discretionary income, new cars, income taxes and sales taxes, crime, doctors and health professionals, transit, amenities, and culture.

“While Ottawa-Gatineau isn’t tops in any one particular category, it consistently rates high in most categories, beating out picturesque Victoria, B.C., by just one point,” according to Moneysense.

Canada's Top 25 Best Places to Live

1. Ottawa-Gatineau
2. Victoria. B.C.
3. Burlington, Ont.
4. Kingston, Ont.
5. St. Albert, Alta.
6. Fredericton, N.B.
7. Brandon, Man.
8. Edmonton, Alta.
9. Repentigny, Que.
10. Winnipeg, Man.
11. Moncton, N.B.
12. Whitehorse, Yukon
13. Levis, Que.
14. London, Ont.
15. Saskatoon, Sask.
16. Calgary, Alta.
17. Laval, Que.
18. Guelph, Ont.
19. Lethbridge, Alta.
20. Thunder Bay, Ont.
21. Halifax, N.S.
22. North Bay, Ont.
23. Regina, Sask.
24. Newmarket, Ont.
25. Quebec City, Que.

Canada's Best Cities to Live by Category

Best weather: Oakville, Ont.
Best job prospects: Estevan, Sask.
Best population growth: Wellington, Ont.
Highest household income: Wood Buffalo, Alta.
Highest discretionary income: St. Albert, Alta.
Highest number of new cars on the road: Whitehorse, Yukon
Most affordable housing: Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Jantine Van Kregten, Ottawa Tourism's communications director (L), and Joanne Sasvari, president of the Travel Media Association of Canada. (Susan Hallett)

The Travel Media Association of Canada (TMAC) held its annual conference between March 9 and 13 in Canada’s fair capital city.

Jantine Van Kregten, Ottawa Tourism’s communications director, invited the local press to attend the gala opening reception at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier. Deneen Perrin, director of public relations for the hotel was on hand, dressed in a costume dating back to the early years of the 20th century. The reason? The Fairmont Chateau Laurier first opened its doors in 1912. It will be celebrating its 100th birthday this spring.

TMAC is Canada’s answer to SATW, the Society of American Travel Writers. It is the premier travel media association in Canada, bringing together travel media and tourism industry members. The aim is to foster excellence, uphold ethical standards, and promote professional development.

According to Van Kregten, there were over 90 working travel journalists from across the country at the conference, which is held every year, sometimes in faraway places such as Cardiff, Wales. Four pre- and post-tours were also organized, so that the media could explore other story ideas themed to culture, the outdoors, and Savpur Ottawa, the local foods initiative.

There was tremendous support from some of Ottawa’s most famous places, such as the Canada Aviation and Space Museum where one can see our country’s premier aeronautical collection. Support also came from producers—Fulton’s, for example, known far and wide for its superb maple products, and businesses, such as Holtz Spa. Holtz is where “ancient healing therapies from the East meet contemporary services from the West to offer total health and wellness.” It is considered by many of Ottawa’s elite to be the best spa in the city.

Vancouver-based TMAC president Joanne Sasvari said, “We chose Ottawa because we feel it has the expertise to pull together a rewarding itinerary for our members, and enough story ideas to keep us busy for a while.”

One of the highlights of the event was probably the dine-around evening involving a dozen local restaurants, showcasing Ottawa’s much-improved culinary scene.

Ottawa Tourism, which provides industry leadership and destination marketing to service the travel media and attract visitors, tours, and conventions, should be proud. Visit at www.ottawatourism.ca.

Susan Hallett is an award-winning writer and editor who has written for The Beaver, The Globe & Mail, Wine Tidings, and Doctor’s Review, among many others. E-mail: hallett_susan@hotmail.com.

Lost Generation: A member of a delegation of Sayisi Dene holds a photograph of children standing on the shore of the Hudson Bay after the Sayisi Dene were forcefully relocated there 50 years ago. The delegation came to Ottawa Tuesday to ask the government (Matthew Little/The Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—It’s the kind of story that could never happen today. The outrage at even suggesting such a plan would be enough to frighten any aspiring public servant or elected official into silence.

Not so 50 years ago.

That was when the Canadian federal government, in agreement with the Hudson Bay Company, miscalculated the cause of declining caribou herds and decided the Sayisi Dene Native tribe had to leave its traditional home around Duck Lake, Manitoba, and be dropped off 310 miles northeast in the town of Churchill, on the unforgiving shores of Hudson Bay.

The community was forced to give up their traditional life of hunting caribou and take up permanent residence in the relatively “urban” town setting.

What followed was the sad tale of a broken people. Many died from causes ranging from tuberculosis to house fires, including the parents of Maria A. Duck, an elder who came to the Canadian Parliament on Tuesday with other tribe members to call on the government to apologize and make amends.

“The Sayisi Dene, who were a self-sufficient, caribou-hunting nation who lived off the land, endured immeasurable hardships and persistent social challenges as a result of the forced relocation,” said New Democratic Party member for Churchill Niki Ashton, during the press conference.

She said the government needed to make a formal apology and a plan for compensation.

The community today is still in poverty. There is high rate of suicide, addiction—you name it.

“If something would be done immediately, it would [be] appreciated by the people, beneficial to the people to move forward,” he said.

Ashton also called on the government to release the recommendation of Dr. Jeremiah Bartram’s report on the issue. Responding to a question from Ashton in Parliament that day, Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan said he was working on it.

“We recognize the Sayisi Dene First Nation’s difficult history. Addressing historical grievances is a complex process that requires significant time and care in order to ensure they are resolved in a manner that will satisfy all parties and stand the test of time,” said Duncan.

Sayisi Dene author Ila Bussidor says time has a cost for her people.

Steve Paikin, host and senior editor of TVO's current affairs program 'The Agenda with Steve Paikin' (Pam McLennan/Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—Steve Paikin has a long history of interviewing newsmakers, analysts, and experts since he started working at TVO in 1992 as host of the political series Between The Lines. Approximately 10,000 interviews later, The Epoch Times put Paikin on the other side of the interview table so readers could get to know him.

Asking probing questions five days a week about the events filling the news of the day would likely be a fairly demanding job for anyone. But that’s not how Paikin feels.

“I never think of the job as being particularly stressful, I think it’s a very enjoyable job. You don’t always get a direct answer to a direct question and that’s fine, so you go at it again. Sometimes I think I’ve had to ask a question four times in a row before saying ‘OK, you’re not going to answer it and that’s the way it goes.’ But I never think of it as stressful.”

He said there are questions he wouldn’t ask of a guest on his show. “I come from the school where, unlike in the U.S., there are certain aspects of people’s private life that I think is nobody else’s business and I’m sure if I had the premier or prime minister of something, I would not be asking either one of them about private details about their private life. That’s nobody’s business but their own.

“I think that most other channels on television want to book the most extreme voices they can in order to promote the food fight because theoretically, that’s more entertaining and gets more viewers. I take the opposite approach, which is, there are 200 channels on TV where you can get that already, you don’t need us to do that.”

Paikin’s interest in politics started when he was a youngster. It was through his parents that he “learned from an early age that to have an active interest in these things was important, and I think that stuck with me.”

“I don’t have a particularly partisan interest in politics, but I am interested in the issues they deal with, how they make decisions, what drives them, what the pitfalls are in their lives, how we can make them do a better job for us—these are all questions that concern me. I’ve written a couple of books about them, and we’ve talked with them most nights of the week on The Agenda.”

He has adopted the John Sawatsky approach to interviewing. Sawatsky is an adjunct professor at Carleton University in Ottawa who has written about and teaches how to properly conduct an interview.

PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—Several MPs have been seen with crutches around Parliament Hill this week with injuries ranging from torn ligaments to a fractured hip.

Treasury Board President Stockwell Day takes the prize for the best war story as for why he’s been hobbling around with the help of an aluminum limb.

“I got hit by a high speed dog, an unleashed high-speed dog, and it sent me for a flying loop,” said Day after question period on Monday.

“When I landed, my ankle twisted all around and tore all the ligaments and the dog ran off with the shirt that I was carrying.”

His purple extremity will be examined weekly until he can get permission to walk without the crutch, he said.

NDP leader Jack Layton, too, has had to resort to crutches. NDP press secretary Jesse Brady said Layton has a micro-fracture in his hip but didn’t give any further details about the injury.

“It’s minor, but he has to be nice to it for a while.”

Ezio Costanzo (Olga's Kitchen) serves Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson (Giovanni)

The 13th annual Taste in the Glebe event, a renowned showcase of local and area eateries, vintners, bakers, and brewers, once again proved to be an excellent fundraiser for the Glebe Neighbourhood Activities Group (GNAG) Community Fund.

So much sampling, sipping, savouring, and socializing proved that, even after 13 years, Taste in the Glebe remains fresh. Food and beverages from Kettleman’s Bagels, soup from Plates Kitchen Wine Bar, seafood from Von’s and Flippers restaurants and much more were served at the event on Jan. 20. The tasty wine and food, graciously donated, made it next to impossible to leave without feeling satisfied.

The event raised over $17,000 for the GNAG Community Fund, which has enabled improvements and upgrades to the Glebe Community Centre that can be used by the entire community.

“I remember 13 years ago challenging the Glebe neighbourhood activities group to see what they could do to help raise money for the renovation to the community centre,” said Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson.

“I suggested they have an event similar to Bon Apetit and invite local eateries to show off their food and drink. They then turned the tables and said why don't you chair it? I did, and we had a great event that I am very pleased has carried on. Taste of the Glebe is one of the most enjoyable social events of the year.”

The great success of the event was in large part due to the participating restaurants and food beverage providers, as well as companies such as The Clock Tower, Octagon Catering, The Works ( Bank Street Location), The Flour Shoppe, The MVP Lounge, 101 Fourth Avenue, and Mayor Watson, who stopped by Olga’s Kitchen to try out the food.

Contact Giovanni at giovannipublicist@yahoo.ca for upcoming events.

PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—CSIS Director Richard Fadden unleashed a political firestorm with allegations Canadian politicians were under the influence of the Chinese and other foreign regimes, but we still haven’t learned the lesson.

That was one theme of a forum at 131 Queen Street on Wednesday night. In an office building where Parliamentary committees sometimes meet to scrutinize possible legislation, panellists told attendees about the shadowy world of espionage and the risk of ignoring Fadden’s warning.

The Opposition's Position

While the government has stood behind Fadden, the opposition parties have denounced the director as a racist who smeared politicians and Chinese Canadians alike.

A Liberal motion tabled at the Public Safety committee Oct. 27 called for Fadden to resign and apologize for comments given in a CBC interview alleging some municipal and provincial elected officials looked to be under the influence of a foreign regime. Fadden also suggested some agents of influence were recruited while still in university in Canadian schools and that some people didn’t even realize they were being used by a foreign power.

But denouncing Fadden’s warnings as racist is a betrayal of Canadian interests that Michel Juneau-Katsuya, former head of the Asia desk for CSIS, thinks is aimed at garnering ethnic votes.

Speaking at the forum on Wednesday, Juneau-Katsuya questioned the loyalties of elected representatives who focused their outrage on Fadden rather than any foreign regime that may be trying to undermine Canadian interests.

“This practice is as old as the world, where there are people in power, there will be people trying to get access to them… So why are MPS acting like it does not happen?”

Ignoring the Canary

Juneau-Katsuya said if Canada is naive about the threat, that makes it easier for spies, especially if those inclined to speak out about the danger will be attacked by the people who should push for action.

Overlooked, he said, were the ethnic communities that often feel the brunt of foreign influence exercised in Canada, like Iranians and Chinese dissidents who are subject to coercion, threats and intimidation by foreign regimes. Instead of protecting their constituents, Juneau-Katsuya said some politicians ended up helping tyrannies from abroad.

“Rather than shoot the messenger … you should look at your own riding,” he advised elected officials.

“I invite you to rethink whose interest you are serving. Rest assured, foreign spies are smiling on you.”

Victims of Silence

Sheng Xue knows what it means to speak out on human rights from within the Chinese community. After witnessing the Tiananmen Square Massacre, she fled to Canada and started calling for democracy in China. Attempts to go back to China years later to visit her mother after her father died were met with detention there and expulsion back to Canada.

It is a threat every Chinese Canadian knows well, she said.

Like the friend who wanted to meet her with but wouldn’t talk to her on the phone or come to her house. Instead they met at a coffee shop. When asked why he would not come to her home, he said her house was being monitored by Chinese agents.

“People don’t feel safe even though they are living in Canada,” she said.

She went on to recount tale after similar tale. Chinese Canadians afraid to attend protests, public events, or raise their voice about issues in China out of fear they would be forever banned from their motherland or expose their families there to a backlash from the authorities.

It is a lesson most Chinese learned in China, she said. “They have been trained to be very well self-censored.”

NDP MP Paul Dewar holds up a copy of the most recent budget, saying MPs don't have enough support to evaluate the true costs of the programs and legislation they are debating. (Matthew Little/The Epoch Times)

PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—A real fiscal detective—that’s what Ottawa needs according to NDP MP Paul Dewar, who wants to give the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) more power and independence.

Not that the current PBO, Kevin Page hasn’t done a bang up job, but that is more by sheer determination rather than the powers invoked by his office, notes Dewar.

“He has been able to recruit and incredible team of people because of the force of his personality and his determination to have transparency and accountability, but he has been limited,” he says.

He credits Page with improving transparency in Ottawa through his work to detail the costs of the Afghanistan war, a study Dewar requested that came out in 2008.

“Up to that point, we had no idea how much the war was going to cost.”

Another example has been the cost of programs to implement the government’s tough-on-crime legislation.

“Those are two key examples of how the PBO can help Parliamentarians better understand the cost implications of government policy,” Dewar says.

And Page could do with better resources and true independence, he argues.

Dewar tabled a bill Monday morning to grant the budget officer full independence, and to take the power to hire and fire the officer away from the Prime Minister and give it to Parliament.

“There have been challenges around independence and this bill . . . will simply ensure that there is full independence of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.”

The NDP supported the original creation of the PBO to ensure “truth in advertising” after successive Liberal budgets would finish with “miraculous” billion dollar surpluses, says Dewar.

But he says the job was left unfinished because the PBO operates under the supervision of the Library of Parliament and is not independent.

He noted that the government has said it will support seeing the bill get to committee where it would get a careful review, taking it one step closer to becoming law. Dewar says it is not a partisan issue and he has seen support from the other parties, including Conservative Senator Hugh Segal.

Holding up a copy of the supplementary estimates from the most recent budget, Dewar said without a well-resourced and independent PBO it is difficult for new MPs to unpack the information in there.

“If anyone has seen how the estimates are passed in this place, it is astonishingly quick and it’s not because everyone is fully aware of what is being decided and that should alarm everyone. That is something that we need to do a better job of, passing budgets and passing estimates.”

With support from across the parties, Dewar said the bill could become law as early as spring.

Michelline de Bellefeuille's works in the foreground. (Joyce MacPhee)

“Emergence” is a thought-provoking exhibit of contemporary ceramic art on display at the Atrium Gallery in Ottawa. The exhibit, which showcases both sculptural and functional pieces, is the work of five artists with very different expressions of the show’s theme.

The artists belong to a collective known as In Flux, a group that provides a stimulating environment supporting each member’s artistic voice, and promotes the recognition of ceramics as a contemporary fine art form.

Francine Bellanger’s work includes elements of nature, including representations of vegetation, shells, and pebbles. The most powerful piece is a narrow, flat, rectangular, brown sculpture that is positioned on a table to appear aligned with another of her pieces, a flat circular sculpture. She also created three female torsos, representing three phases of life: fertility, experience, and death.

Geraldine Pétit-Gras is fascinated with the possibilities of unexpected combining of elements, such as the wood and clay in her work. She successfully brought together pieces of salvaged wooden farm machinery with ceramic forms. The contrasting textures and shapes create very interesting images. Pétit-Gras says her work in the exhibit represented the emergence of possibilities, whether situations or people.

Maryl Morris is influenced by her dreams. There is a strong sense of spirituality displayed in her work. For example, a sculpture of a nude meditating woman is joyous and peaceful. The woman has a three-dimensional star suspended above her head. The star, called a Merkabah star, was an image revealed to Morris in a dream.

Maryl Morris' sculpture of a meditating female. (Joyce MacPhee)

Isobel Salole loves to create functional pieces such as vases, and is fond of dark clay and colourful glazes. Two of her most appealing vases are intended for tulips. One is a contemporary flat brown vase flecked with small bright chips of colour, while another has a mottled green glaze that gives it an ancient appearance.

This unusual exhibit runs until Dec. 1 and provides an enjoyable feast for the eyes and mind.

The Atrium Gallery is located in Ben Franklin Places, at 101 Centrepointe Drive in Nepean. From Monday to Thursday the gallery is open from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The hours vary the rest of the week: Friday: 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday: 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free and the public is welcome.

Joyce MacPhee is an Ottawa writer and editor.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff tells reporters on Monday he wants to know the details of Canada's post-2011 role in Afghanistan before commenting on reports that Canada could stay until 2014 to train Afghan military and police. (Matthew Little/The Epoch Times)

PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—Canada could remain in Afghanistan after the July 2011 mission end date with up to 1,000 troops in a non-combat role training Afghan security forces if the Liberals agree to the plan.

But that cooperation isn’t assured, although the Liberals suggested the idea soon after the special committee on the Afghan mission broached the topic last June. The Liberals followed up on the committee’s recommendation to immediately start discussion on a post-2011 training mission, with a major foreign policy document saying much the same.

Although the government hasn’t issued details of the plan besides confirming it is looking into it, the Liberal plan called for a fixed-period role training police and military in a staff college in Kabul.

The plan also included training for public administrators vital to building a stable Afghanistan.

“The objective is to help the Afghan people build a better future for themselves. A responsible, transparent decision process on such a role will require the Harper government to engage in dialogue and provide information to the Canadian public, and Parliamentarians,” said the document.

But no such discourse has taken place, Ignatieff told reporters on Parliament Hill on Monday.

Asked twice whether he supported the move in principle, Ignatieff refused comment directly. Nor would he acknowledge the Liberals first proposed the training role nearly five months ago.

Rather than claim the possible policy change as a Liberal victory (the government had been standing fast by a Parliamentary motion to have the military out of Afghanistan by 2011), Ignatieff said it was impossible to comment without details of the new role, including the number of troops, training targets, scope of the mission, and which allies would be joining Canada.

“This isn’t the kind of thing you want to do some secret deal with the Liberals about. This is a conversation that has to be had with Canadians,” he said.

“We’ve had 10 years there. If there’s a mission after 2011 the government owes Canadians an explanation.”

Although Ignatieff says the government broached the topic just two weeks out from an important NATO meeting in Lisbon under pressure from its allies, the Canadian press reports that the British and Americans have been trying to charm Canada into to the new job for three months by being careful not to play too heavy a hand.

“I wouldn’t want to describe it as being pressured or being leaned on. We all know Prime Minister Harper has very clear views about what he wants to do, and a very clear picture of what’s going on in Afghanistan, so there’s no point in us trying to put pressure. If anything, that would just blow up in our face,” one foreign diplomat told CP.

On Sunday, Defence Minister Peter Mackay confirmed the government was considering a non-combat role for Canadian forces after the withdrawal date and suggested that a decision could come within 10 days.
Dimitri Soudas, spokesperson for the prime minister, told CTV on Monday the government was reviewing three options: aid, development, and training in a non-combat role.

The NDP and Bloc Quebecois remain opposed to any post-2011 role and want Canadian forces out of Afghanistan.

Canadian foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon announces sanctions against North Korea at a press conference in Ottawa on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010. (Matthew Little/The Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—Canada is cracking down on North Korea, cutting off all communication on everything but a handful of topics, prohibiting any new investment there, and cutting all trade.

Foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon announced the sanctions at a press conference in Ottawa Thursday. Cannon admitted Canada has negligible trade with North Korea and described the move as being about principle.

“North Korea’s aggressive actions represent a grave threat to international security and are particularly troubling with regard to stability in Northeast Asia,” said Minister Cannon. “North Korea must take tangible steps in improving its behavior and complying with its obligations under international law.”

Cannon said the sanctions were not meant to harm the people of North Korea, but that they targeted the regime. He said that the G-8 leaders had called upon the international community to enforce all existing United Nations Security Council Resolutions addressing the country.

Under the Controlled Engagement Policy adopted by Canada vis-a-vis North Korea, all bilateral contact will be limited to regional security concerns, human rights/humanitarian situation, inter-Korean relations, and consular issues.

The move comes in response the regime's attack on South Korean naval ship the Cheonan and the death of 46 of the sailors on board.

OTTAWA—Controversy continues to stalk embattled Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis after reports emerged that his former department was implicated in a scandal involving possible influence peddling.

The scandal came front and centre during question period on Wednesday when opposition MPs went as far as to allege Paradis was under investigation by the RCMP, an assertion impossible to confirm based on the RCMP’s long-standing policy not to comment on whether someone is under investigation.

The scandal relates to a Globe and Mail and Radio-Canada investigation into kickbacks to an unregistered lobbyist for securing a $9-million renovation contract on Parliament Hill.

The contract was awarded to now-bankrupt LM Sauvé with the help of long-time Conservative supporter and organizer Gilles Varin. Varin received $140,000 from the construction firm for securing the contract to restore the historic West Block building of Parliament Hill, according to documents obtained by the news agencies.

Varin is not registered as a lobbyist and it is alleged he used his backroom connections to secure the deal. Varin told Radio-Canada all he did was pass along Sauvé’s resume to a friend.

While the RCMP acknowledges their Montreal detachment is investigating, they will not comment beyond that.

Paradis was not the minister of public works when the department awarded LM Sauvé the contract, but he did attend a fundraiser put on by former president Paul Sauvé in January 2009 after being made minister.

Paradis did not deny his attendance when asked during question period, saying it was a routine fundraiser and no ministerial business was discussed.

Under Paradis, the department later removed LM Sauvé from the project for missing multiple deadlines.

Political pundits noted on Wednesday that whether Paradis is under investigation is a moot point given recent scandals that have cropped up in his vicinity.

Paradis was already under fire after it came to light his former aide at his current post as Minister of Natural Resources, Sebastien Togneri, had repeatedly interfered with access to information requests, a crime punishable by up to two years in jail or a maximum $10,000 fine.

Some experts believe Togneri could be the first person ever charged under the law.

While Togneri resigned, the government has faced challenges to its policy of ministerial responsibility under which ministers claim responsibility for the work of staffers and answer calls to testify before committees in place of political staffers.

Paradis is the second Conservative minister to face multiple scandals back to back.

In April, former minister for the status of women Helena Guergis was ejected from caucus after a series of scandals that climaxed when her husband was accused of illegal lobbying and Guergis was implicated in the affair. She was cleared of wrongdoing by the RCMP in July.

On Monday, House leaders who worked opposite Hill rose in the House of Commons to both pay him tribute and roast him, including former Liberal House leader Ralph Goodale.

“I hope that these few minutes in the House today may prove to be one of those rare occasions when this place can climb above itself to a better plane,” said Goodale as he began his speech.

“The member for Prince George-Peace River was one of those MPs who could hear and understand and respect somebody else’s different point of view. I found that I could always deal with him on a straight-up basis.

“More generally, we could have candid discussions about serious issues as House leaders. We would rarely agree, as I mentioned before, but we could come to a conclusion about how the parliamentary procedural dimensions of those issues ought to be handled. We could look each other in the eye, shake hands on it, and be absolutely confident that each would keep his word.

“That element of trust is fundamental to the functioning of this place and is a rare quality, and I always respected that in that particular gentleman.

“I say to my friend from Prince George-Peace River, yes indeed I am sorry to see you go. I will not have to listen anymore to your long-winded answers to my very short and succinct Thursday questions about House business, but I will miss your goodwill and your respect for Parliament and for the people who work here on all sides of the chamber.

“I want, on behalf of the official opposition, to wish all the best to the member for Prince George-Peace River, to his wife and to his family. He leaves this place with a reputation for decency, and that is a high accomplishment for all of us who serve in public life.

“May I leave him with a short poem that I think neatly sums up the life of a House leader in the House of Commons. All party leaders should pay attention to this:

“It’s not my place
To run the train
The whistle I can’t blow.
It’s not my place
To say how far
The train’s allowed to go.
It’s not my place
To shoot off steam
Nor even clang the bell.
But let the damn thing
Jump the track…
And see who catches hell!”

Hill has said he will leave his seat on Oct. 25 which will prompt a by-election in his riding.

OTTAWA—Hopes that Question Period might become more civil were dashed on Wednesday when the Conservative Caucus began again to return the insulting questions of the opposition with insulting answers, the conduct that typified QP in the previous session of Parliament.

But for two days at least, there was hope.

When Parliament returned on Monday, the press gallery in the balcony above the floor of the House of Commons was unusually full and government MPs were on their best behaviour. While the tone of questions from opposition parties was not noticeably different from the previous session, there was less heckling, according to MPs.

Even Liberal Deputy Leader Ralph Goodale, and NDP citizenship critic Olivia Chow, after prodding, admitted that they had noticed improvement in the government’s conduct.

In Question Period, opposition leaders and MPs ask the government questions on any given topic, usually aimed at embarrassing the government or calling some policy or recent action into disrepute. The government typically answers each question, or evades it to varying degrees, and tries to in turn cast aspersions on the policies of the opposition party that asked the question.

Questions and answers are limited in length, ruling out substantive responses to often-challenging questions, and the period plays out in a series of sound bites.

But for the first two days of the current session, the Conservatives held back. Questions were met with answers but hardly any direct insults, though there were a couple of exceptions, notably from Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

The most noticeable difference though was in the conduct of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper set the tone that followed with the first question of the session Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff asked, “Why is he ignoring the real concerns of Canadians?”

Harper’s response: “This government’s main priority is Canada’s economy. That is one reason Canada’s economy is outperforming other economies. I toured the country as well and I saw 16,000 job-creating projects across Canada. A recent study by the OECD shows that Canada’s national assets and the government’s timely decisions are what minimized the financial and economic damages caused by the global recession. Canadians should be pleased about that.”

That relatively good behaviour even held over on Tuesday, when new Conservative House Leader and noted partisan strongman John Baird answered for the absent PM. Baird even brought attention to the improvement later that QP.

“I should point out that the actions of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition appointing me and the member for Ottawa South [Liberal MP David McGuinty] has seen a significant reduction in the heckling in the House. Those two should get some just reward for their actions on decorum. There is leadership.”

But by Wednesday, it was business as usual.

Ignatieff: “Yesterday the Minister of Finance delivered himself of a wild partisan rant. I assume that the prime minister approved this speech because, after all, he makes the rules. But what I wanted to know is whether the prime minister understands that this was a classic example of the politics of fear, division, envy and resentment at a time when Canadians need to hear a message of hope and unity.”

Harper: “As for the government’s economic policy, we are, of course, providing hope and opportunity through the economic action plan and stand strongly against the tax and spend policies of the Liberal Party.”

The Westin Hotel in Ottawa prior to the arrival of Chinese leader Hu Jintao. (above) The same hotel shown in Google street view without the wall placed in front. (below) The hotel manager says the wall was erected for the 'safety and quiet enjoyment' of Hu and his delegation. (Top -Lin Yue/The Epoch Times & Street View/Goolge maps)

OTTAWA—Call it the Great Wall of the Chinese Delegation. The Westin Hotel in Ottawa has erected a roughly eight-foot high cream-coloured, wooden wall in front of its main entrance on Colonel By Drive for the “safety and quiet enjoyment” of visiting Chinese leader Hu Jintao and his delegation, says the hotel's General Manager John Jarvis.

“When you have a head of state, there is a very heightened level of security,” Jarvis said, adding that the hotel paid for the wall, but that it was part of a package for the Chinese delegation, one of the largest the hotel has ever had.

The wall conceals the hotel's drop-off and lobby areas from the space across the street where protesters concerned with human rights abuses in China were expected to gather.

The wall was not there the last time Hu visited Canada in 2005. But this time, the embassy is making a larger effort to ensure Hu is only exposed to flag-waving Chinese nationals, not protesters.

In a speech delivered Friday at the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa to students on Chinese state-funded scholarships, an embassy official said this time authorities in Beijing had set a “high requirement” for Hu's visit.

"In 2005, when President Hu visited, there were a lot [of protests],” says Liu Shaohua, the embassy's first secretary of education in a recording obtained by The Epoch Times. “The Canadian side did not cooperate with us. Inside China, there was furor.”

This time, Liu says, the Chinese side “negotiated sternly” and were able to gain “guarantees” from the Canadian side on “some parts.”

“Some parts cannot be guaranteed because this country is particular about so-called freedom,” Liu says.

Dimitri Soudas, communications director for the Canadian prime minister, declined to comment on the tape recording, noting he wasn't familiar with it and hadn't heard it. He also did not say whether Canada had taken any steps to ensure Hu was not met with protesters on this trip.

Hu is visiting Ottawa Wednesday through Friday ahead of the G-20 summit in Toronto this weekend.

As early as 2 a.m. Wednesday morning, hundreds of pro-Beijing greeters had already arrived outside Hu's hotel, long before the communist leader arrived.

On Thursday, when Hu arrived on Parliament Hill for a photo op with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, his car took a route past the half of the hill blocked off for red-flag-waving Chinese students and others. On the other side, where he was unlikely to see them, were Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, and Taiwanese concerned about human rights in China.

As Liu explained on the tape, the embassy was covering “all expenses” for what he estimated would be 3,000 Chinese who would welcome Hu during his three-day visit to Ottawa. Many of the students were bused in from other cities in eastern Canada. Some students, including those Liu addressed at the embassy Friday, were told their attendance at the welcome rallies was mandatory.

The goal of the large pro-Beijing contingent, Liu explained, was to overshadow the protesters from groups like Falun Gong as well as Tibetans, Uyghurs, and democracy activists.

“This is a battle that relates to defending the reputation of our motherland,” Liu said.

PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—A scorching of the government by the opposition parties over spending on the G8 and G20 summits has dominated question period for weeks now, displacing parliamentary privilege and other issues.

With costs purportedly breaching $1.3 billion, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is charging that the government lost control of the spending for the events.

“It is also a question of the government changing the venue at the last minute, splurging on decorations, inviting half the guest list with 10 days left, and the prime minister is going to shut down the entire neighbourhood. A bake sale would not be run like this. A children’s birthday party would not be planned like this,” said Ignatieff during question period on Wednesday.

Prime Minster Stephen Harper and his ministers have largely deflected allegations of misspending by saying that security costs have climbed due to the ongoing threat of terrorism and that world-class events like the G8 or G20 summits have associated costs.

They have also pointed to the events as a way of marketing Canada, suggesting there could be some return on money put toward the summits.

Harper has also used Canada’s relatively booming economy to divert attention from the cost of the summits to an arena where he has little to apologize for.

“The Liberal Party seems extremely angry that Canada is leading the world right now in terms of the economy, not just through chairmanship of the G8 and G20 but also, obviously, through the strong performance of the Canadian economy, some of the strongest job creation in the advanced world, the lowest debts, the lowest taxes, the strongest banking system, the strongest balance sheets,” he countered in his exchange with Ignatieff on Wednesday.

Besides the amount spent, there were also questions about how that money was spent. The opposition is alleging that 85 percent of the contracts went out through sole-source contracts, while the government says fully 90 percent were tendered out for bids. The Liberals have begun asking the government to let the auditor general review the contracts.

The opposition parties have failed to get traction with other issues in terms of public opinion, perhaps explaining why those issues have largely dropped off the radar.

“It’s because they haven’t got anything better to talk about,” said Ned Franks, a professor emeritus in the department of political studies at Queen’s University and a respected expert on Parliament.

He said the extraordinary cost of the G20 and the inconvenience of having it in downtown Toronto have raised the ire of citizens like himself.

“I would be happy to see them held in some other country,” he said.

That sentiment seems to be shared by a good many Canadians. An Ipsos Reid poll released last week found that two-thirds of Canadians thought the money spent to host the summit was a waste, with one-third thinking it was a worthwhile investment.

Falun Gong practitioners celebrate Falun Dafa Day on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in May 2009. (Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—Ottawa City Council on Wednesday unanimously passed a motion to proclaim June 9 as Falun Dafa Day. What makes this noteworthy is that the councillors had to sidestep Mayor Larry O’Brien to approve what should have been a routine proclamation.

The original request, made in April, was for the city to declare May 13 Falun Dafa Day in Ottawa, which coincides with World Falun Dafa Day.

However, after the city’s protocol office informed the Ottawa Falun Dafa group that the mayor would proclaim the day, O’Brien refused to sign.

Both acting mayor Michel Bellemare—who temporarily replaced O’Brien while he faced bribery charges—as well as former mayor Bob Chiarelli had granted the proclamation in two previous years. O’Brien had also issued a proclamation himself in a previous year.

Although initially O’Brien did not explain why he wouldn’t sign the proclamation, he eventually stated that it was “in the interest of maintaining and developing a continuing stronger economic relation with a country that’s going to be important to our future,” according to the Ottawa Citizen.

Councillor Alex Cullen told the Citizen that when he asked the mayor why he would not sign the proclamation, O’Brien answered, “I made a commitment.”

When councillors learned that O’Brien had refused to sign the proclamation, several expressed their surprise, and Cullen stepped forward to table a motion to proclaim Falun Dafa Day.

“We’re talking about people who are residents here in the city of Ottawa who contribute to our community and I don’t understand why he [O’Brien] would change his mind,” Cullen told The Epoch Times.

O’Brien was not present at the council meeting on Wednesday when councillors unanimously passed the motion.

Falun Dafa, also called Falun Gong, is a spiritual practice founded on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance that was first introduced to the public in China in 1992.

The practice rapidly grew in popularity and some members of the Chinese communist regime saw it as a threat. In 1999, then-leader Jiang Zemin declared that he would “eradicate” Falun Gong, and adherents in China have been persecuted ever since.

Over the years, Falun Gong practitioners have expressed concern that the communist regime has constantly tried to influence overseas governments not to support Falun Gong in their countries. Like Cullen, many officials stand their ground and refuse to comply.

The motion was seconded by Councillor Peggy Feltmate, who said she was “very pleased that [the councillors] have recognized the contributions to the community of the Falun Dafa—Falun Gong—group.”

She disagreed with O’Brien’s refusal to sign the proclamation.

“We are a legitimate, elected-by-the-people government, with the right to make our own decisions,” she said. “I feel that it is very disappointing that [the Chinese regime] tried to influence in Canada what we think and how we act.”

“The mayor should not be coerced into doing or not doing something by any outside government,” said Jim Watson, a former mayor of Ottawa and a mayoral candidate in the upcoming municipal elections in October.

“Human rights should always trump economic development. This is a matter of human rights, the right to proclaim a day in recognition of Falun Gong, and Mr. O’Brien made the wrong decision by folding to some kind of pressure by someone outside of our own country,” Watson said.

“I don’t know who [O’Brien] made a commitment to. I don’t think it was very wise of him to do so,” agreed Cullen.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced legislation for a new national securities regulator in Ottawa on May 26, 2010. (PMO)

PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—Finance Minister Jim Flaherty released his proposed Canadian Securities Act for review on Wednesday, taking a step forward on a plan for a national securities regulator—a move embraced by some provinces, denounced by others.

Flaherty’s act calls for a national regulator to replace the 13 provincial and territorial regulators currently in place. Under the new plan, a company seeking investment would only need approval from the national regulator to pursue investment across the country, rather than gaining approval from each provincial regulator as is the case now.

Pundits are describing the act as Flaherty’s legacy legislation, and it has gained tacit approval from Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. While Ontario and most other provinces have embraced it, both Alberta and Quebec object, saying the new regulator usurps provincial jurisdiction.

To address that, Flaherty has referred his proposed legislation to the Supreme Court of Canada, which could take up to two years to rule whether it is constitutional. In the meantime, the government has already been working to bring provincial regulators together in preparation for a national regime.

“The idea of a national securities regulator is not new, it goes back at least as far as 1935,” Flaherty told reporters in announcing the legislation.

“Over the years, it seems that almost every generation has taken up the idea,” he said, adding that experts, international organizations, and others have supported it as an improvement over the “Balkanized system” currently in place.

“However, in each case, jurisdictional concerns have prevented progress and maintained the status quo.”

Flaherty said a new system will save fees and better protect investors. It will also make it easier for police to investigate fraudsters.

“In today’s world of interconnected capital markets, where investors can move billions of dollars at the click of a mouse, we need to lower barriers, not multiply them.”

Opposition in Quebec has been particularly intense where a coalition of business and government has spoken out against the plan, calling it a power grab that could lead to an exodus of business from the province.

Flaherty says it is an important step in protecting ordinary Canadians from investment fraudsters like Earl Jones.

Jones, a Montreal financial adviser sentenced to 11 years in prison last February, cost many of his victims their life savings with a $50 million Ponzi scheme that returned none of its investments.

“Those who commit securities fraud will face a tougher, more comprehensive regime. No more falling through the cracks,” Flaherty said.

He noted that Canada remains the only industrialized country without a national regulator.

“International organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have identified this key weakness,” he said.

While he maintains that provinces will have the option to join or remain independent of the new regulator, critics argue that business will flock to the new regime for its cost savings and simplicity.

PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—Parliamentarians have taken a public opinion beating in recent weeks over their refusal to allow the auditor general to scrutinize their books. However, the issue could be resolved soon, said several MPs this week.

Auditor General Sheila Fraser asked Parliament to do a performance audit on their books but was denied by the Board of Internal Economy, a reclusive all-party committee that oversees the workings of Parliament.

MPs have been hounded by questions about why they would refuse an audit and what they have to hide after all parties except the Bloc Quebecois voiced opposition to the scrutiny.

Many MPs have defended the decision, saying their books are examined in other ways and they don’t want the auditor general casting judgements on what they do.

On Wednesday, Government House Leader Jay Hill told reporters his party had agreed on a possible compromise that could appease the auditor general while blunting the concerns of parliamentarians. He would not spell out the details of that deal, saying it still needed to be discussed at the Board of Internal Economy.

Joe Comartin, Deputy House Leader for the NDP, voiced similar optimism on Tuesday, saying he hoped a compromise could be reached that would give Canadians a clearer view of how Parliament spends its money but would not grant Fraser powers he doesn’t think she should have.

“She’s in a conflict. A public servant should not be making the judgement calls that a performance audit would require her to make. If she was doing a regular audit, it wouldn’t be nearly so bad but she doesn’t do regular audits.”

The difference between the two is that in a performance audit, Fraser would actually voice her opinion on spending, rather than just detailing what spending took place.

Comartin gave an example that came out of Nova Scotia.

“They did a performance audit there and the auditor general decided that the premier of the province, a whole province, was not entitled to two laptop computers. That was a judgement call that he made.”

Comartin said MPs were also uncomfortable with Fraser deciding how well they spent advertising dollars and other expenses.

“Her office has some real authority and she should not be making those judgement calls, they should be made by the electorate.”

But Fraser can’t currently do a regular audit either, Comartin admitted, and that is why a compromise is needed.

“We want to see more information come out, but it’s got to come out in a format that people are able to understand. … We’ve got be sure that the information that gets out, people can judge it.”

Canadians fearful that their representatives could be indulging in the kind of errant spending that ruptured faith in Britain’s Parliament needn’t be worried, said Comartin.

He said egregious spending on personal items for one’s home, including renovations, is not possible in Canada.

“You just get turned down. It is not within the categories that you can spend money on.”

In Britain, MPs were caught expensing everything from home furnishings to getting a moat cleared.

Liberal MP Bob Rae said he is also confident an agreement will happen soon.

“I would say that if the auditor general wants to look into something, I’m sure that is something that is going to be worked out. I don’t think that is going to be a problem at all.”

“I’m absolutely sure that when the Board of Internal Economy gets together, a sensible decision is going to be reached.”

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has asked the auditor general to sit down and talk with the Board of Internal Economy, he said.

“The one unfortunate impression that has been left by all this is that our expenses are not audited or reviewed. They are audited and reviewed on a very regular basis, not only by government officials but also by a very respected auditing firm. So you know, this notion that somehow there is no review of what is taking place is simply not true.”

PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—The battle over access to information reached a fever pitch on Tuesday with MPs on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics accusing each other of everything from opposition intimidation to government secrecy.

The dispute is the latest in an ongoing tug-of-war between opposition MPs and the government over parliamentary privilege and what rights Parliament and opposition MPs have to make demands on the government. In April, Speaker of the House, Peter Milliken, ruled in favour of opposition MPs who were demanding access to documents surrounding the Afghan-detainee controversy.

For a month now, the ethics committee has been calling witnesses for its investigation into allegations that the government is interfering with access to information requests.

On Tuesday, the scheduled appearance of Dimitri Soudas, Director Communications for the Prime Minister’s Office, sparked a fierce argument when Minister of Transport John Baird showed up in his stead on behalf of the prime minister.

Earlier that day, Jay Hill, the Government House Leader, announced that the government has instructed ministerial staffers not to appear when requested by committees. In explaining the decision, Mr. Hill said these staffers acted on behalf of ministers and that it should be the ministers themselves who appear.

“They bring to us many talents, and I expect for many of them, when they accepted their jobs, they never imagined that one of the skills required was to stand up to the interrogation of a bitterly partisan parliamentary committee,” said Mr. Hill.

But in the current matter before the committee, that responsible minister would be the prime minister who, according to tradition, is not called to testify before committees.

This left many of the opposition MPs, particularly Liberal MP and former solicitor general Wayne Easter, visibly upset.

In one of the most charged exchanges, Mr. Easter said Mr. Baird’s appearance before the committee represented the kind of “systematic political interference” the committee was investigating.

Mr. Baird countered that it was ministers who must be held accountable and that it was unfair for committees, which can often run roughshod over witnesses, to call political staffers to testify.

“We accept ministerial accountability. The days where you call in 25-year-old young people before this committee and beat up staff who can’t defend themselves are over, Mr. Easter. … If you have any questions about the matter that’s before the committee, I’m here and prepared to respond.”

Mr. Easter countered that Soudas is an experienced political hand, able to handle himself.

“He’s more of a spokesman than our ministers of the Crown. We see more of the PMO through Dimitri Soudas than we do of ministers that have ministerial responsibility in this government. If he can be the spokesman, don’t try to say he’s a 25-year-old being intimidated by this committee.”

“You’re affronting parliamentary democracy by your appearance here today when the committee has invited Dimitri Soudas,” accused Mr. Easter.

“I understand you’re making a mockery of Parliament,” countered Mr. Baird.

Mr. Baird never finished reading the one-page statement he had brought to committee after being interrupted by Liberal MP and committee chair Paul Szabo. Mr. Szabo objected to the content of Mr. Baird’s statement which focused on the issue of ministerial responsibility rather than access to information.

The committee spent the majority of its time debating two motions over whether to suspend Mr. Baird’s testimony, which it ultimately did. Speaking during the debate of the second motion, NDP MP Bill Siksay said there was no point continuing because Baird had none of the answers they were looking for from Mr. Soudas.

“It is very clear that the Minister of Transport has no direct supervisory responsibility for Mr. Soudas. I can’t imagine that he has knowledge of his day-to-day activities. I can’t even imagine that he’s been briefed about Mr. Soudas’ activities in any detail that would be helpful to this committee, and certainly he hasn’t provided any evidence that he is willing to do that or has been briefed on that,” Mr. Siksay said.

Mr. Siksay dismissed Mr. Baird’s suggestion that as a senior minister in the government, he shared a collective responsibility for all the government’s actions.

“I don’t know what the notion of collective responsibility is that the minister has mentioned this morning. It seems to me that ministers have specific responsibility for their departments, and I can’t believe we’re going to get into a situation where we can ask any minister any question about the conduct of any department. It seems we are going down a very strange path.”

After suspending Mr. Baird’s testimony, the committee granted Mr. Szabo the authority to issue a summons for any of the other listed witnesses if they refused an invitation before committee. Parliamentary committees have a level of authority not unlike a court of law, including the ability to issue subpoenas to compel reluctant witnesses to testify.

Mr. Siksay said he would introduce a motion in the next meeting of the committee to have a summons issued for Mr. Soudas.

Speaking to reporters later that day, Liberal MP Bob Rae said the tussle in committee was going to put the government back at odds with parliament over the rights of MPs.

"The government has created its own problem. The committee is supposed to be master of its own affairs. The speaker told us in his ruling at the end of April that the House could determine what documents it would see. The House can also determine which witnesses it will see. So once again, the government is setting us on a collision course."

PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—He says he is a card-carrying member of the Conservative Party and will stay that way as long as they keep taking his money.

Derrick Snowdy, the private investigator who alerted the Prime Minister’s Office to the questionable conduct of former Minister Helena Guergis, testified before a parliamentary committee on Wednesday.

Snowdy stumbled across the alleged questionable dealings of Guergis and her husband, Rahim Jaffer, while investigating Toronto businessman Nazim Gillani.

Snowdy describes Gillani as a “serial fraudster,” a charge backed up by the Toronto Star whose investigative story on Gillani says he was under investigation by two major police departments and the federal taxman for fraud or tax evasion allegations.

Gillani, alleged Snowdy, was a perpetrator of “pump and dump” schemes, a type of stock fraud where a company’s stock is inflated through misleading positive statements and then dumped for a profit. Spam emails purporting to be stock tips are a common way fraudsters try to pump up stocks. When the stock is dumped, the value tanks and unwary investors lose their money.

Guergis was ejected from the Conservative Party last month because of unspecified “serious allegations” that appear to be connected to her husband’s ties to Gillani. Jaffer, a former MP and one-time chair of the Conservative caucus, is currently under investigation for illegal lobbying, some of which is alleged to have been conducted on behalf of Gillani.

Among the biggest surprises revealed during the hearing was Snowdy’s allegation that Liberal Party president Alfred Apps was the “getaway driver” for Gillani’s cons. Snowdy said Apps, who works as a lawyer for Fasken Martineau, a leading international business law and litigation firm, represented Gillani in a case that bankrupted one of his previous victims.

Contradicting this charge were documents presented at the hearing that say Apps and his firm turned down Gillani’s request for representation.

The statement from Apps’s firm said Gillani requested representation through Apps in 2006 but the firm turned him down and Apps returned the retainer cheque.

Not much of the hearing focused on the matter at hand, which was whether or not Jaffer has participated in unregistered lobbying, a situation Snowdy said he knew little about because his focus was on Gillani and his knowledge of Jaffer’s dealings was incidental to that investigation.

Another surprise was that Snowdy had met with Conservative Party lawyer Arthur Hamilton four times to discuss the Gilani-Jaffer-Guergis affair. Although Snowdy met Hamilton as recently as this week, the private investigator says the two did not discuss his upcoming testimony before the committee.

The Tian Guo Marching Band on Parliament Hill at the Falun Dafa Day celebration, May 2010. (Donna He/The Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—Falun Gong practitioners and friends celebrated Falun Dafa Day on Wednesday in Ottawa. Festivities included a parade through downtown followed by speeches, dance and music performances, and Falun Dafa exercise demonstrations on Parliament Hill in the nation’s capital.

The events marked the 18th anniversary of the self-improvement discipline’s introduction to the public on May 13, 1992. The traditional Chinese practice includes a set of meditation exercises and is centred on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

Among the speakers were Senator Consiglio Di Nino; MPs Stephen Woodworth, Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Bill Siksay, and Rob Anders; former Secretary of State David Kilgour; Lyle Notice, pastor of the Ottawa Seventh-day Adventist Church; and former diplomat Brian McAdam.

Falun Gong practitioners hold banners and signs in downtown Ottawa with their Tian Guo Marching Band playing in the background as part of a celebration of Falun Dafa Day on Wednesday. (Donna He/The Epoch Times)

A dancer performing Chinese dance at the Ottawa Falun Dafa Day celebration, May 2010. (Donna He/The Epoch Times)

Pastor Lyle Notice of the Ottawa Seventh-day Adventist Church speaks at the Falun Dafa Day celebration on Parliament Hill, May 2010. (Donna He/The Epoch Times)

Member of Parliament Stephen Woodworth at the Falun Dafa Day celebration in Ottawa, May 2010. (Donna He/The Epoch Times)

Member of Parliament Borys Wzesnewskyj at the Ottawa Falun Dafa Day celebration, May 2010. (Donna He/The Epoch Times)

Member of Parliament Rob Anders at the Falun Dafa Day celebration in Ottawa, May 2010. (Donna He/The Epoch Times)

Senator Consiglio Di Nino speaks at the Falun Dafa Day celebration in Ottawa, May 2010. (Donna He/The Epoch Times)

Member of Parliament Bill Siksay at the Falun Dafa Day celebration in Ottawa, May 2010. (Donna He/The Epoch Times)

Former Secretary of State David Kilgour speaks at a Falun Dafa Day celebration on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, May 2010. (Donna He/The Epoch Times)

Falun Dafa Association of Canada received greetings letters from Prime Minister Stephen Harper as well as a host of other government officials.

Clive Ansley, the China monitor for Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada, spoke at a lunch forum on Parliament Hill Wednesday that explored the status of the Chinese judicial system. (Annie Wu/The Epoch Times)

PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—He Lizhi was an engineer in China who was sent to jail in 2000 for three-and-a-half years just before emigrating to Canada because of letters he wrote to friends that were intercepted by the Chinese regime.

His letters contradicted the state line on Falun Gong, a meditation practice he says helped him recover his health.

“The practice was demonized day and night by the state propaganda media. … I felt it my responsibility to tell my friends the truth before I left China.”

When he tried to hire a lawyer he found only one that was willing to take his case, but that didn’t last long. “On the second visit, this lawyer told my wife that his licence to practise law was revoked.”

Like many others, the lawyer was punished for his previous defense of another Falun Gong practitioner.

Mr. He shared his story at a lunch forum organized by Conservative MP Scott Reid (and supported by MPs from all parties) on Parliament Hill on Wednesday that analyzed the status of the Chinese judicial system.

Clive Ansley, one of the speakers to address the packed room, was among the first Canadians to practise law in China and represented foreign firms there for 14 years. He said the reports that come back from Canadian officials touring Chinese courts and declaring how far the Chinese judicial system has progressed are completely off-base.

He recounted the tale of a judge who visited China and came back to tell 300 trial lawyers that the Chinese judicial system was “so far ahead of us that we will never catch up” because the courthouse he visited was decked out in a mountain of marble and featured plasma televisions.

What the judge had failed to recognize, said Ansley, is that that in that courtroom decisions on cases are made by political authorities rather than judges, and that despite the reams of new laws being written by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), no law stands above the regime or can be used to hold government authorities to account.

Ansley said anyone relying on these wined-and-dined “banquet visitors” for a fair appraisal of the Chinese judiciary will be ill-served because such people see the form of the courts but not the function.

“They are just totally and utterly divorced from reality,” he said.

A clear example, he added, can be found in the fact that China’s current chief justice does not have a law degree and has no legal training, but has risen to his position because he advocates a legal philosophy that directs the courts to first be loyal to the CCP, then to the Chinese people (according to what the Party says they need) and lastly, the law.

Lawyers who try to challenge the directives of the Party according to the law face imprisonment themselves, he said.

“Lawyers are being imprisoned today on totally bogus charges.”

Like the lawyer Mr. He tried to hire, lawyers in China are not supposed to represent anyone targeted by the regime, or bring cases that can embarrass authorities.

As the China monitor for Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, a group that advocates for lawyers and the rule of law by trying to protect lawyers, Ansley said he is flooded with appeals from Chinese lawyers facing severe punishments that can arise for anything from representing Christians to sticking up for farmers whose land was seized for development by local authorities.

“We are inundated with them, there isn’t a week that goes by that there isn’t another appeal,” he said.

‘The impact of crime in Canada is huge and organized crime is perhaps the biggest perpetrator of serious and violent crime in Canada.’ —MP Ed Fast

PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—Organized crime in Canada has grown steadily in recent decades, moving from the street to the boardroom with new types of gangs emerging along the way. Now Parliament is looking into how to tackle these groups before they get too big and too entrenched to deal with.

It's a problem Parliament has been aware of for some time, and has been looking into through the Committee on Justice and Human Rights for several weeks now, holding hearings with experts across the country leading up to a report and recommendations to be released by October.

But with a country as large as Canada and organized crime taking different forms in different regions, it is a complicated issue to resolve. In the prairies, Aboriginal gangs have grown rapidly, replacing family-based criminal networks, while more established crime groups like the Hell's Angels, widely recognized as an outlaw motorcycle gang, and the Mafia operating in Quebec, have moved steadily to find legitimate business activities.

Police are hard pressed to challenge the growth of these criminal networks and their almost inexhaustible resources and lightning-quick adoption of the latest technology. And while police and prosecutors are strictly confined by the letter of the law, criminal groups operate with no such restriction.

But one thing criminals won't be able to count on is partisan differences to keep MPs from coming up with recommendations likely to get all-party support, said senior members of the committee.

Conservative MP Ed Fast, chair of the justice committee, says while some differences over minimum sentences and gun registration divide the parties, all MPs on the justice committee agree on the vast majority of what needs to be done. His comments were echoed by Liberal vice-chair Brian Murphy.

Both agreed that with such a variety of organized crime in Canada, the problem will need to be tackled on several levels, from funding social programs to keep young people from getting involved in crime groups, to making it easier for law enforcement to gather intelligence and—perhaps most importantly—attacking the profits of criminal activity, something the committee heard from several witnesses.

“We've definitely heard a lot about taking the financial incentive out of organized crime. That's going to involve a number of strategies including meeting up our forfeiture laws and ensuring that we can go out after some of the hard-core assets that some of these organizations accumulate over years of crime,” Fast said.

That goal is made more difficult by the efforts of more established criminal groups to diversify away from street-level crime and invest the proceeds of drug sales and human trafficking into mainstream businesses.

“I think it just makes the challenges that much greater because actually every criminal organization has its goal to attain some level of legitimacy, because what you're trying to do is hide your illegal activities behind the guise of operating legitimate businesses, and the Mafia is certainly one example of that. The biker-gangs of course use surrogates to do much of their business,” Fast said.

Those surrogates are often lower level street gangs. The Mafia in Montreal has charted the same course, leading to speculation that they have lost control of the street and are now being challenged by the very gangs they once employed. The slaying last December of Nick Rizzuto Jr., the eldest son of reputed Canadian mob boss Vito Rizzuto, is an example of this says Antonio Nicaso, a journalist and internationally recognized expert on organized crime. Nicaso testified before the committee in March.

Hiding behind lawyers and chartered accountants, some criminal groups are making every effort to gain influence over the very institutions designed to suppress them, including the judicial system. Some witnesses testifying before the committee talked about threats, intimidation and home invasions being carried out against Crown attorneys, but it could get worse if something isn't done, said Fast.

“Once you get infiltration to the higher levels of government it's almost impossible to turn the tide on it, which is why this organized crime study we're conducting is so important. We're hoping it's going to provide at least a partial roadmap to our federal government on how to move forward in ensuring that organized crime is not something that we accept as an ongoing reality in our free, democratic society.”

That is one of Nicaso’s greatest concerns. While action to attack the kind of street-level crime like drug trafficking and extortion can be effective, Nicaso said the people that commit those crimes are easily replaced. Referring specifically to the networks employed by highly organized crime groups like the Mafia, he said the only way to really attack these organizations is to target the grey area where the criminal world meets the corporate.

“If we cannot dismantle the grey area, we will never do anything," he said.

While some provinces have legislation that targets the proceeds of crime, it is rarely used outside Quebec. Nicaso said such laws in Ontario have been almost entirely ignored.

“So what we should do is start using those pieces of legislation, but most importantly we should focus on the right side, the corporate side of legislation.”

Brian Murphy, the Liberal vice-chair of the justice committee, said one possible way to address this problem is to remove the anonymity that helps organized criminal groups hide themselves in the corporate world.

He said ownership issues are a major challenge because criminal groups can incorporate a company through a lawyer and never have the names of the actual equity holders appear on any record.

“It doesn't get you to the real owner of the actual physical property, which is what people in this business are converting their drug sales into,” Murphy said.

He suggested a high priority for premiers across the country would be to change provincial incorporation laws to eliminate this anonymity and make it easier to track the proceeds of crime.

Nicaso said that kind of legislation would be a step in the right direction—the kind of move needed if Canada is going to keep organized crime from becoming further entrenched.

And entrenched it is. Recent reports have uncovered prolific organized criminal activity in Quebec where the Mafia has possibly siphoned billions from infrastructure spending by controlling the construction companies bidding on public projects, driving costs up by as much as 35 percent, said Radio-Canada.

Gang violence swept Vancouver last year when cocaine prices skyrocketed due to drug wars in Mexico, making the business more profitable and leading to turf wars as new entrants battled for a piece of the market. Besides several gangland slayings, innocent victims have also died, such Ed Schellenberg and Christopher Mohan who were shot when a Vancouver gang executed four members of a rival group.

A 2008 RCMP investigation uncovered that dozens of criminal groups had infiltrated Canada's airports. The investigation concluded that hundreds of people, including close to 300 current or former airline employees, were involved in smuggling operations.

With the costs of organized crime reaching as high as $80 billion for everything from medical costs to insurance claims and policing, organized crime can no longer be ignored, said Fast.

“The impact of crime in Canada is huge and organized crime is perhaps the biggest perpetrator of serious and violent crime in Canada. So yes, Canadians do need to take notice.”

OTTAWA—Helena Guergis was the darling of the Conservative party before the avalanche of controversy made her first an embarrassment and then a political outcast possibly facing a criminal investigation.

A former beauty queen nicknamed “Gorgeous,” her seat in the House of Commons just behind the Prime Minister placed her face on millions of television screens whenever the PM would speak during debates. (Since her banishment to the backbenches, where she will sit as an independent, the seats have been shuffled to move another attractive female MP, Rona Ambrose, into view behind the PM.)

Guergis rose from the back benches to cabinet, landing the role as defender of women when Prime Minister Stephen Harper named her the Minister of State for the Status of Women after the last election.
Her dramatic fall from favour began when she exploded in a now infamous outburst at the Charlottetown Airport where she arrived late for a flight and refused to cooperate with airport security.

One airport staff member said it was the worst meltdown he had ever seen, with Guergis cursing and beating on doors. Guergis apologized, but for weeks following the incident opposition MPs hounded the Prime Minister to call for her resignation.

Later a series of letters defending Guergis as an MP sparked further controversy when it was uncovered that they were written by some of Guergis’s staffers.

The latest controversy, which alleges she was involved in her husband’s business dealings and therefore in a conflict of interest as a Member of Parliament, has spiralled into allegations involving drugs and prostitutes.

Questions swirl about the former minister's role in the business dealings of her husband, Rahim Jaffer, a former Conservative star himself whose own fall from political grace began in 2008 when he was the only Conservative MP in Alberta to not get elected.

That fall reached a new low on Wednesday when it became apparent that any political capital he might have had on Parliament Hill had evaporated. That was the day Jaffer faced a parliamentary committee probing allegations that he and business partner Patrick Glémaud were involved in unregistered and therefore illegal business lobbying.

Jaffer, who might have expected a lighter hand from his former Conservative colleagues, faced charges from two Conservatives that he had sullied the names of all MPs.

Jaffer said he had previously promised Prime Minister Stephen Harper not to get involved in any business that involved lobbying because of the effect it could have on his wife's career.

“I assured him at that time because of my wife's involvement in the government that I would never, ever undertake any business that involved any sort of lobbying activities or that would put any unfair demands on the government to put them in any conflict of interest,” he told the committee, recalling his discussion with the PM after he lost the 2008 election.

But as the details of accusations against Guergis and Jaffer have emerged, including that an alleged con man has pictures of the couple partying with expensive prostitutes where cocaine was being used, the opposition parties have pounced.

On Monday, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff pressed the Harper on why he had not asked Guegis about the controversy when Jaffer was arrested for drunk driving and cocaine possession in September 2009.

“The Prime Minister did not call in his minister and ask her about her involvement in Mr. Jaffer's tangled affairs, nor of her possible involvement in some of the criminal charges. He defended her in public for seven months after she made mistake after mistake after mistake,” charged Ignatieff.

While it is not clear how the PM would have known about Jaffer's business dealings at that time, the opposition has not stopped trying to construe the current allegations against Guergis as reflecting a lapse of judgement in the PMO.

Allegations against Guergis got serious on the previous Friday when Liberal MP Mark Holland brought up a letter dating back to September from Guergis to her cousin, the most senior municipal officials in Simcoe county, urging that he and his council hire Wright Tech Systems and adopt its bio-dryer technology.

“What the letter failed to mention was that her husband, Rahim Jaffer, and his business partner were in a position to personally profit from a company whose business plan had a projected value of more than $1 billion,” said Holland.

Guergis has not addressed the allegations yet except to say she will defend herself in detail when she knows the full range of the allegations against her.

OTTAWA—Rahim Jaffer, once a rising star in the Conservative Party, was blasted by MPs from all parties in an explosive committee hearing on Parliament Hill Wednesday over allegations that he had used political connections from his former position as an MP and chair of the Conservative caucus to carry out illegal lobbying.

Jaffer and business partner Patrick Glémaud denied any wrongdoing in the operations of their company, Green Power Generation Corp, at times trying to frame the allegations against them as a Liberal smear campaign.

But as the committee members took turns grilling the pair, MPs from all parties, including the Conservatives, questioned the two businessmens' honesty and denigrated Jaffer for tarnishing the reputation of elected officials.

Neither Jaffer, Glémaud, nor their company are registered to work as lobbyists on Parliament Hill, raising concerns about work both men did on behalf of clients they refused to name during the hearing.

Among the people Green Power Generation worked with was Nazim Gillani, an alleged conman being pursued by authorities for fraud or tax evasion. Gillani boasted in an email that Jaffer would open doors to the Prime Minister's Office after the two had a meeting last September.

It was after that meeting that Jaffer was pulled over by police and charged with drunk driving and cocaine possession. The charges were dropped last month when crown prosecutors decided the case would fail due to problems with admission of evidence as a result of questionable police work.

The strongest allegations of the hearing put that issue front and centre when NDP MP Pat Martin asked Jaffer whether the cocaine was payment for lobbying services.

Jaffer and Glémaud repeatedly stated they received no funds to lobby the government and that their company has never received government grants or other money. Jaffer said their business with Gillani went nowhere because there was “no synergy” between the two companies.

Martin, however, suggested otherwise.

“You left with 'no synergy' and a pocket full of cocaine … he was left with the impression that you were going to be great business partners,” he said.

Jaffer's wife, Helena Guergis, was ejected from the Conservative caucus and fired from her role as Minister of State on the Status of Women when the PMO was tipped off that she might be entangled in the Gillani affair.

Green Power Generation bills itself as a business that can help bring new green energy companies to market but to date the company has made no money despite working with several companies—at least three looking to secure funds from the federal government.

Glémaud was pressed and later ordered by the committee chair to name the three companies whose projects he submitted for consideration for the Green Infrastructure Fund. However, he said that he could not remember after earlier saying that two of the companies were not Wright Tech Systems, but he could not remember who the third company was.

Wright Tech has attracted specific attention because the owner of the company has a home in Guergis' riding and it was Wright Tech that Gillani was talking about when he boasted that Jaffer would open access to the PMO. There are also reports that Wright Tech was about to be taken public, and the Toronto Star has reported on Gillani's reputation as a “pump and dump” conman that inflates the price of a company so the stock can be sold off for a lucrative profit.

One of the most contentions points in Wednesday's hearing was how Jaffer described himself on his personal website and whether he was presenting himself as someone with personal connections in the government and able to exploit those connections for potential clients.

Jaffer flip-flopped over specific wording, at times saying a key phrase suggesting he could secure support for projects from the government was not on his site, at other times saying it was on his personal website but was being taken out of context.

Conservative MP Chris Warkentin was incredulous when, after quizzing Jaffer on this specific point, he was later given a print-out from the website which contradicted Jaffer’s previous denial.

“This kind of behaviour sullies all of our names,” said Warkentin.

While the Liberals have continued to try to link the scandal to the PMO due to allegations Guergis's involvement and Gillani's boast that Jaffer had access there, news commentators were saying after the hearings that Jaffer received no help from his former colleagues.

Jaffer himself said after the hearing that he felt like he had been hung out to dry.

There were some emotional moments during the hearing, particularly at the beginning when Jaffer was close to tears while describing his sorrow for the “almost insufferable” pain he had brought to his family—especially Guergis—over the drunk driving incident.

“She is the most important person in my life and I love her dearly. And it is very unfortunate that her good name has been dragged into my problems so unfairly,” he said.

However, he denied ever using drugs, making no allusion to or explanation for the cocaine found in his car.

Jaffer, who was the only Conservative MP in Alberta not to get elected in 2008, said he was confident his wife would be cleared of any wrongdoing as the commissioner of lobbying looked into the matter.

A rally in front of the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa on Jan. 24, 2010, condemned the Hong Kong and Chinese governments for denying entry visas to several key members of the Shen Yun Performing Arts company scheduled to present seven sold-out shows in Hong Kong from (Donna He/The Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—Organizers and fans of Shen Yun Performing Arts’ shows held a protest outside the Chinese embassy in Ottawa on Sunday after learning that members of one of the company’s touring groups had been denied entry to Hong Kong.

“Shen Yun Performing Arts regrets to inform that seven sold-out shows in Hong Kong have been cancelled due to Hong Kong authorities’ last-minute denial of entry visas to several of our key production staff,” the company said in a statement.

The shows were scheduled to play at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts’ Lyric Theatre Jan. 27-31. But on Jan. 21, Hong Kong’s Immigration Department denied entry visas to seven core members of the production team.

“The reason given by Hong Kong immigration is that these production jobs could be filled locally,” the statement said.

Shen Yun is a New York-based company that has been reviving China’s artistic traditions and spiritual heritage that were almost wiped out after the current communist regime took power in China.

It was the first time that Shen Yun, which is currently on a 20-country world tour, would have brought its show to Hong Kong. All seven scheduled shows were sold out about a week after tickets became available.

“It is a very, very sad day for the residents of Hong Kong. They have been known around the world as believers in the rule of law and democracy and respect for people. This decision to deny the visas shows that it’s the party state in Beijing that is running the affairs in Hong Kong,” said David Kilgour, a former MP and Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific.

“I have been to Hong Kong many times and have met with the officials of the government of Hong Kong, and I suspect that most of them are as dismayed about this decision as are most of the people who have heard of it around the world. It’s appalling.”

Show organizers in various countries say the Chinese regime has for years tried to interfere with the group’s performances by pressuring officials not to attend and pressuring theatres to cancel scheduled shows.

Shen Yun’s performances showcase classical Chinese dance and music along with a full orchestra that combines Chinese and Western instruments. The production portrays ancient legends as well as contemporary events, including artistic representations of Chinese citizens standing up against persecution. Performances around the world have been marked by sold-out shows, standing ovations, and multiple curtain calls.

Protestors gather at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Toronto on Jan. 25, 2010. (Matthew Little/The Epoch Times)

Mr. Kilgour and David Matas, a Winnipeg-based international human rights lawyer and Order of Canada recipient, sent a joint letter to Hong Kong’s chief executive Donald Tsang on Jan. 26 asking him to reverse the decision so that the shows can be rescheduled.

“The visa denials were, in our view, the result of an attempt to cater to the wishes of the regime,” the letter said.

It noted that the denials violate the freedom of the Hong Kong people and throw into question the principle of “one country two systems” that forms the basis of Hong Kong’s status in China.

“Hong Kong should not be part of Chinese repression of innocence,” said Mr. Matas in an interview.

While the show represents “a continuity with the old China and a celebration and remembrance of it,the communists in China tend to look askance at ancient Chinese traditions and they often see themselves as breaking away from them.”

Maggie Hou, who attended the Ottawa rally, recently came to Canada from China. As a human rights defender she says life was difficult in China. She is now a University of Ottawa visiting professor teaching a course on the state of human rights in China.

“The Hong Kong Government, to a certain extent, has become a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party. We condemn what the Hong Kong Government has done to the group, and also hope that they will make reparations,” she said in Chinese.

Speaking in Vancouver on Wednesday, NDP MP Peter Julian said the issue raises concerns about “what it means for the future of the free expression in Hong Kong.”

“That a show like this received a lot of support from the public—that’s why it sold out, and so to keep the commitment around ‘one country two systems’ these kinds of events should go ahead, and it’s important for the Chinese government to recognize that.”

A protest was also held at the Hong Kong Economic And Trade Office in Toronto on Monday.

Hill Times publisher Ross Dickson (Courtesy of The Hill Times)

OTTAWA—The publisher of one of Canada's most influential newspapers took in Shen Yun Performing Arts' third and final sold-out show at the National Arts Centre Monday night.

"It's been wonderful. I really liked the music. I loved the different styles and of course the dancing is wonderful as well," said Mr. Dickson, publisher of The Hill Times during the intermission.

He said he was enjoying hearing the Chinese themes and musical instruments mixed in with the western instruments in Shen Yun's unique symphony orchestra. But it was the dancing he found especially captivating.

"I really liked that handkerchief dance the best, that was really cute, and it was fun. With 17 or 18 [dancers] out there they are quite extraordinary. They are young and they're very talented."

In “Handkerchiefs,” one of the all-female dances in Shen Yun’s 2010 world tour, the dancers twirl and toss their handkerchiefs with practiced ease.

Mr. Dickson thought the performance helped him understand Chinese culture a bit better.

"There is a billion Chinese, I am sure their culture is very diverse, and we are seeing a part of it here which is extremely enjoyable."

"I am just loving it. It's great. I think we have got some of the best seats in the house; it's just marvelous being able to see so well."

Mr. Dickson was joined by Ms. Bracegirdle, an Ottawa piano teacher who also enjoyed the performance.

"The pianist is fantastic," she said of the accompanist to the soloists, two sopranos and a tenor.

"I loved the style of some of the dancing. The women in particular seem to float along the stage … It is quite different from our classical dance. There is a lot of leaping, but it is very delicate at the same time. It seemed extremely effortless, as if they weren't trying—and yet they were. And they all looked very happy."

"It is full of joy and happiness and it's very wonderful," she said of the performance overall, adding that she absolutely loved the music.

"It is very dramatic, very dramatic. It is always coming to a crescendo. It builds, and then it dies down, and then it builds. It is very dramatic music."

She also said the sound of Shen Yun's orchestra is very diverse and fit well with the dance.

"There is the Chinese sound and scale, but there is also some very Western sounds in there. I just loved the music … It is quite brilliant, the whole thing."

Shen Yun will have a few days rest before staging four shows in Montreal where seats also sold out last year. To meet the demand, the organizers of Montreal's show moved to a larger theatre with double the capacity.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. For more information, visit www.ShenYunPerformingArts.org .

UP ON THE ROOF: Ashbury College students from the Junior School Environmental Club pose for a photo on the roof of the school's theatre where a green roof will be built. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—When the students of Ottawa’s Ashbury College suggested building a green roof a few years ago, it sowed the seed for a first-of-its-kind eco-project among Canadian independent schools that promises much more than conventional environmental goals.

While other schools have built green roofs to help reduce energy use and contribute to cleaner air, Ashbury’s roof will be more functional, allowing students to actually use it for classes and gardening.

Ashbury’s fundraising for the 525-square-metre octagon-shaped green space above the school’s theatre is halfway completed. It will double as an outdoor classroom for the all-boys Junior School (grades 4 to and co-ed Senior School (grades 9 to 12).

“They can get their hands dirty, they can do measurements, they can make use of the gardens, there’s no barrier between them and the green roof,” said Kendal Young, Assistant Director of the Junior School.

She noted that the Junior School students “have been just real champions of this project and unbelievably excited.”

Wildlife such as birds and insects will allow the students to study habitats and the diversity of living things, right on the roof, Ms. Young said.

And the green roof will help integrate environmental education and protection into the curriculum.

LEARNING WITHIN A SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT: Kendal Young, Assistant Director of the Junior School at Ashbury College, explains the plans for building a green roof on top of Ashbury Theatre that will serve as both a garden and a classroom. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Ashbury plans to divide the roof into four quadrants to grow indigenous grasses, native herbs, native flowers, and vegetables, and build a classroom island in the middle with tables and chairs.

“We plan to use part of the roof garden to grow vegetables which can either be used in our kitchen or donated to a local food bank, as well as share with organizations such as the Shepherds of Good Hope,” said Tim Putt.

Mr. Putt is Assistant Headmaster, Planning and Technology, and chairs Ashbury’s “Green School” committee that comprises students, parents, community representatives, staff, and board members.

“Our green roof will challenge other schools to stretch their own environmental goals. They may not be able to fundraise to build a green roof but they can each take some steps to reduce their environmental footprint like introducing a composting program,” he said.

A green roof typically lasts at least twice as long as a traditional roof. It is estimated that Ashbury’s green roof will last 40 years.

Another aspect is cost savings. The school estimates it will save 8 percent on its heating and cooling bills, amounting to about $900 per year.

The green roof is part of Ashbury’s broader plan to become a leading Canadian independent school in environmental stewardship. Earlier this month, the school received the “Honourable Mention High School of the Year” award from Ecology Ottawa, a non-profit group working to make Ottawa “the green capital of Canada.”

On behalf of Ashbury College, Bill Eastwood, a 1956 graduate of the college, accepts the 'Hounourable Mention High School of the Year' award from Ecology Ottawa on Nov. 12, 2009. (Courtesy of Ashbury College)

The award also recognized Ashbury for other eco-initiatives such as its organic gardens, school-wide composting, online carpooling system, waterless urinals, and active Earth Week.

As well, Ashbury has committed toward achieving “gold” status for its new boys’ residence under the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building certification system.

The green roof project needs $100,000 to complete. It will include reinforcing the existing roof, installing the green roof, and constructing a new access walkway.

About $55,000 has already been raised. The school is seeking donations and sponsorships from individuals and foundations and hopes the rooftop classroom will be up and running within the next two years.

Once the funding is in place, the construction will take one to two months.

Building the green roof itself will only take a few days. It will involve installing a waterproof membrane, root barrier, drainage layer, filter membrane, and then the growing medium with the initial pre-grown vegetation, along with some irrigation.

Of the two types of green roofs available, Ashbury will be installing the low-maintenance, light-weight “extensive” type with drought- and heat-tolerant plants such as various kinds of sedum, as opposed to the “intensive” type that requires deeper soil and are meant to support small trees, said Ms. Young.

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What Ashbury’s Green Roof Means to Its Junior School Environmental Club Students

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CALENDULA: Tending the calendula plant. The petals are edible and add a bright colour to salads. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

GARDENING: Students from Ashbury College's Junior School Environmental Club work in their organic garden with Ian Walker, manager of Mariposa Farm in Plantagenet, Ontario. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

BEANS: Boys from the Junior School taking beans from their pods for planting. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

“It’s nature-friendly because it will attract animal life to go up there.”
-- Joshua, Grade 4

“It helps insulate the theatre as well, so in summer it can stay cooler and in the winter stay warmer. That’s an advantage because it’s more comfortable for people.”
-- David, Grade 5

“The air there is going to be very fresh because there are lots of plants and they absorb a lot of carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.”
-- Anthony, Grade 5

“I think it will be good because it will help the earth because it says in 2012 the earth might be destroyed.”
-- Harry, Grade 5

“I think it’s very good because if we do it other people might decide to build green roofs as well, so it might start off a chain.”
-- Arthur, Grade 5

“If it rains a lot or floods, all the plants will absorb the water. It will attract monarch butterflies and other insects that are endangered.”
-- Veraj, Grade 5

“I think it’s very good for the environment and it will be fun to do classes and stuff up there because it’s better for your body, your health.”
-- Aidan, Grade 5

“I think it will be really good because we can use some of the edible plants in the cafeteria.”
-- Jeffrey, Grade 5

“I think a green roof is very good because we need more plants because forests are being cut down and just completely destroyed for housing and farmland.”
-- Elias, Grade 4

“I think the green roof will be good because it would attract lots of wildlife and it would be cool to see if you could see wildlife at break time.”
-- Adam, Grade 4

“I think having a green roof would be a great idea because it means more oxygen for us and it also helps keep my conscience a bit cleaner.”
-- Gianni, Grade 5

“In the garden outside we are having problems with [wildlife] eating some of the plants, like the squirrels eat the tulips. So if we can put other things that they can’t eat up on the green roof, they can go there.”
-- Jake, Grade 6

Ashbury College is holding an entertainment, information, and fundraising event for its Green Roof Initiative on Wednesday, December 2, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., at Indigo Chapters’ Gloucester store, 2401 City Park Drive.

OTTAWA—The 16th annual Ottawa Folk Festival was a scaled down affair this year, but the high level of musical artistry, creativity in presentations, and “green” sensibility came together in one captivating event after another.

With its Dig Your Roots theme, over the weekend over 120 artists, on seven stages staggered throughout beautiful Brittania Park in Ottawa, crossed cultures, musical genres, and generations as they presented their unique musical talents, gardening information, and kid-friendly entertainment .

Not only did performers, like Canadian icon Bruce Cockburn, present their own shows, but they also participated in workshops that saw as many as 17 (the record number) people on the stage at one time taking turns to entertain the crowds and blend their musical vibes with one another.

This format enabled the artists to enjoy the moment while they shared the stage and jammed with often disparate groups and performers. The result was a series of relaxed and harmonious shows that embodied true folk roots.

The following is a very small sampling of Festival events.

Jah Jousseff and The Woodchoppers had the crowd on their feet and dancing (Pam McLennan/Epoch Times)

Aboriginal trio Asani were on stage with Jah Youssouf, members of The Woodchoppers, and Catriona Sturton (Pam McLennan/Epoch Times)

One of the I just cannot help myself because the music is so darned good members of the audience (Pam McLennan/Epoch Times)

Bruce Cockburn and Steven Page enjoying a lighthearted moment on stage (Pam McLennan/Epoch Times)

Nova Scotian Joel Plaskett- singer, songwriter, and record producer was on stage with Cockburn and Page (Pam McLennan/Epoch Times)

Frontman Johan Hultqvist and members of Mr. Something Something the Afrobeat jazz pop fusion group (Pam McLennan/Epoch Times)

Acadian group Vishten worked the fiddle and sang their own compositions (Pam McLennan/Epoch Times)

Another audience member moved by the music in the beautiful park setting of the festival (Pam McLennan/Epoch Times)

A demonstrator lights candles to commemorate the 14 Iranians killed during the raid on Camp Ashraf. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—To protest attacks by Iraqi forces on Iranian exiles at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, ten Iranian expatriates have been holding a hunger strike in front of the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa.

The ten, all of whom have family and friends at the camp, have been joined daily by about 100 other Iranians since they began their hunger strike on July 29.

The attacks at Camp Ashraf, home to the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI) dissident group, has left 14 residents dead and about 500 injured, according to camp residents.

On July 28, Iraqi security forces entered the camp, located an hour north of Baghdad, armed with guns, clubs, tear gas, water cannons, and batons.

The residents in the camp tried to stop the army trucks by forming a human chain. But the Iraqi troops waded into the crowd, hitting people in the head and body with wooden clubs. Shots were also fired.

Numerous videos and still shots have been posted on the Internet showing the residents being clubbed by the troops. The residents did not appear to fight back. Thirty six were arrested. The attack resumed on July 29.

Hunger striker Vahideh Khorram-Roudi remembers the slain at Camp Ashraf. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

The hunger strikers in Ottawa are waiting for a response to their request that the U.S. government reinstate protection of camp residents and work toward getting the Iraqi government to abandon plans to send them back to Iran or to another country.

They also want the 36 arrested, many of whom were injured in the attacks, to be given medical care and released. U.S. embassy staff has so far not met with the demonstrators or accepted a letter outlining their requests.

“If protection by the U.S. is not given, the people in Ashraf are facing genocide. That is why we will stay here day in and day out, no matter what, to protect them from the genocide,” said Vahideh Khorram-Roudi, one of the hunger strikers.

Supporters have also undertaken hunger strikes in Washington D.C. outside the White House and opposite U.S. embassies in London and Berlin. News reports say some of the hunger strikers are in a poor state of health and have been hospitalized.

Iraqi officials have disputed the details surrounding the attack, blaming rioting and snipers within the camp. According to Human Rights Watch, an Iraqi security commander wounded in the raid told the media that camp residents resisted security forces with stones, knives, and sharp tools.

The PMOI have been designated a terrorist group by the U.S., Iraq and Iran. Camp residents surrendered their weapons to U.S. forces in 2003.

The U.S. protected Camp Ashraf from 2003 until it handed over responsibility for the camp and its 3,500 residents to the Iraqi government in January as part of an initiative to have Baghdad look after Iraq’s security needs.

“The July 29 attack proves that there is no protection for the people in Ashraf and the Iraqi government can’t be trusted to keep their promise to not harm the people,” Khorram-Roudi said.

The Iraqi government has prevented any external agencies from providing aid for camp residents, 1,100 of whom are women. The authorities have also cut off the camp’s water, electricity, and medical supplies.

A young girl holds white doves as a symbol of peace during a commemorative ceremony in front of the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Iraq wants to close the camp and send the refugees to Iran or another country, although no date for the eviction has been announced. Iran wants them returned to Iran to face charges related to their dissident activities.

The demonstrators believe that repatriating camp residents to Iran would mean certain imprisonment for all and execution for some, given the fact that the PMOI opposes the Iranian theocracy.

Most of the residents in Camp Ashraf, which was established 25 years ago, were dissidents fighting for democracy in Iran under the PMOI. The PMOI was welcomed into Iraq in 1986 by then-leader Saddam Hussein and helped conduct operations against Iran in the Iran-Iraq War.

They also provided the U.S. government with information about Iran’s nuclear arms.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has closer ties with Tehran than did Hussein, met with Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei on February 28. They signed a bilateral agreement to repatriate the Iranians.

In addition to the U.S. embassy, the demonstrators have been spending some of their time in front of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). Other than accepting a statement, DFAIT has not responded to the group.

At a rally in front of DFAIT on Friday, former MP David Kilgour said Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki “is ultimately responsible for the grim statistics” among Camp Ashraf's residents.

“This initiative complied with the wish of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei and ignored the views of the many Iraqis who want Iraq to be a sovereign country and to conform to international standards,” he said.

Camp Ashraf residents have been recognized as “protected persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention since 2004.

The International Committee of Jurists, a group of hundreds of lawyers of which Kilgour is one of three Canadian members, has applied to the Iraqi Embassy and the Iraqi Foreign Minister for permission to enter the country in order see firsthand the condition of the residents.

The committee also wants to press the Iraqi government to live up to its promise to protect the people in Ashraf and not repatriate them to Iran or any hostile country.

For now, the hunger strikers and their supporters vow to continue their vigil in front of the U.S. Embassy and DFAIT, hoping for justice for their family members at camp Ashraf

Movements are an integral part of taiko drumming as shown by Laura Chambers. (Pam McLennan/The Epoch Times)

Charlene Jack plays the odaiku (Pam McLennan/The Epoch Times)

Composer Dan Morphy watches as his work is performed by OnnanoKo. (Pam McLennan/The Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—As part of Chamberfest 09, which kicked off on Saturday, one of the free concerts taking place around Ottawa over the weekend was presented by OnnanoKo, a percussion quartet, who played on the open grounds of Rideau Hall in conjunction with the Governor General’s Summer Concerts.

Fusion doesn’t begin to describe the music of this lively percussive group. They played Japanese drum music, an Irish reel, rudimentary drumming, and one piece that included spoken word alongside the Irish flute.

The ensemble of four young women played with fierce intensity, and the concentration this required showed on their faces. Taiko drumming includes stylized and synchronized movements and music that kept the audience of adults and children alike enthralled.

The group played a diverse range of drums including the taiko, snare, and Udu, played by Laura Savage. The Udu is an African drum that looks like a clay pot with openings that you might grow herbs in.

The four met and formed a bond while studying at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music. OnnanoKo means young woman in Japanese. Under the tutelage of the Kiyoshi Nagata Japanese taiko music ensemble, the group debuted in April 2004—then, as now, playing traditional, original, and newly arranged pieces.

At the Ottawa show, OnnanoKo debuted an original work by percussionist Dan Morphy that gave flautist Laura Chambers a workout. There were so many notes played at breakneck speed that it’s amazing she made it through the piece without needing a hit of oxygen. The crowd loved it, and it brought a smile to Morphy who was in the audience.

Each musician has her own skill set and takes centre stage to showcase a talent at various times throughout the show. As well as this group, the women work on other projects and with symphony orchestras. For instance, Savage is a musician, music educator, and the principal percussionist with the Northumberland Symphony Orchestra.

Founding member Charlene Jack plays drums, marimba, and is an expert on the bodhran, an Irish frame drum which she knows so well that it was the subject of her MA dissertation.

Laura Chambers plays the conch shell, the Irish flute, and various types of drums.

The larger the drum the wider the stance, as drumming requires physical effort—especially on the large taiko, called an odaiko (literally translated as big round drum), mounted on a stand so the player is pounding the drumskin above her head. The show ended with “Zoku,” a piece written by Kodu drummers, that featured a dramatic solo on the odaiko by Charlene Jack.

“This was our first big outdoor show and I want to thank you for your positive energy,” said Tricia Mangat before the farewell number.

Janet on violin, Phil viola, cellist Dave, and violinist Timᾰmembers of the Ying Quartet (Courtesy of the artist)

OTTAWA—Originally from Chicago, the Ying Quartet is composed of four siblings who have been playing together since childhood. Although they started out playing the piano, strings seemed a better fit, and due to their love of chamber music each child chose a stringed instrument. The result is this dedicated quartet that wants to share their love of chamber music with the world.

Phil Ying says he initially chose the violin, but switched to the viola when he was in the seventh grade. He realized that when the group was old enough to start playing chamber music they would need a violist. “I kind of jumped at the opportunity to have my own instrument and always have my own part.”

Dim Sum, the group’s last CD, was a musical exploration of their Chinese-American heritage. Some of the pieces sound like they’re played on traditional Chinese instruments and use the Chinese musical scale. This fusion of techniques and instruments was not easy to achieve.

“The composers of those pieces did an extraordinary job of translating the sounds, the techniques, and the nuances of traditional Chinese music, and made it clear in the score how they would like us to do them,” Ying says.

“So we use our ears, and we see what they wrote, and we use their judgment as well to come up with a fantastic blend of Western classical music of the traditional sting quartet with Eastern influences. It’s a really exciting concert to play.”

The group likes to play with other musicians and has played as a quintet when an erhu player joined them. The erhu is a Chinese two-stringed instrument that produces haunting and evocative music.

They also enjoy incorporating different styles of music and are currently working with a jazz pianist to explore that genre.

Ying noted that the group will share their music in many different situations, for any kind of audience. “In fact sometimes it’s even more exciting to play for people who are discovering this music for the first time or rarely listen to this kind of music.”

He says kids in particular “respond to something that is genuine and you are passionate about,”—and they ask a lot of questions.

“They want to know all about the instruments, and they want to know why we move so much when we play. I think that somehow they have this idea that if you play serious classical music that you are supposed to stand still or sit still, and for them to see how emotionally and physically we get into the music—that’s a revelation to them I think.”

The quartet is not fussy about venues, and has played at schools, places of business, and even public libraries. “We’re really open to performing in lots of places,” says Ying.

The siblings get along well, he adds. Musical disagreements are resolved by “forging an interpretation that combines the strength of everyone’s point of view.”

“As siblings we have an advantage in the amount of trust and closeness that we share—I think that’s kind of unusual how we really enjoy each other’s company. We have been close ever since we were kids, and we think it’s worth it to have the kind of tension in rehearsal and the kind of hard work that it takes to forge right [musical] interpretation.”

What’s special about chamber music, Ying explains, is that the great composers, starting with Beethoven, “turned to the string quartet to express their deepest feelings.”

“Someone like Beethoven, in the last years of his life when he was very sick and probably knew he wasn’t going to live much longer, wrote string quartets. So there’s been this tradition of composers writing very personal and expressive works for this combination of instruments, not just the string quartet but also other small ensembles.”

The Ying Quartet will play at Ottawa’s Chamberfest 09 at Dominion-Chalmers United church on August 6 at 7:30 p.m.

WIRED TO ENTERTAIN: A clean and wire-free home theatre in the Sohowest living room with a wall-mounted LCD TV. All the components are out of sight in the basement and connected to the TV through in-wall wiring. (Cindy Chan/The Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—It was fifteen years ago that Denzil Doyle, regarded as the father of high technology in Canada, provided consulting services to Brian Karam, a principal partner in a development project.

Mr. Karam wanted the high tech guru to outline a future vision of the Ottawa west-end suburb of Kanata, which at that time had become known as “Silicon Valley North” for its concentration of high tech companies.

”In that report I talked about the fact that people would be working more out of their home, and it was rather a new concept. That’s where the term ‘soho’ came from: ‘small office / home office,’” said Mr. Doyle.

That concept inspired Sohowest, an innovative housing development currently being built in south Kanata.

“The concept for which he planted the seed is now being brought to life,” says William Karam, Brian Karam’s son, one of the project’s lead developers.

Sohowest is Ottawa’s first planned future-proof community of its kind where every home is wired with a high-speed fibre optic connection and a complete home network as standard features. Rogers is providing the fibre to deliver high-speed Internet, high-definition TV, and home phone services, all free for the first year.

Every “smart home” in this “Smart Community” model also comes with a turnkey setup that simplifies the technology and makes everything ready to go as soon as the new owner moves in.

And while the high-speed connection will provide people with the same fast Internet service they have in their office, the neighbourhood’s attraction goes far beyond the ability to work from home.

Here, smart wiring-enabled advanced home entertainment and control—mainly seen in much more expensive custom houses—have been made affordable options in neatly designed executive townhomes, semi-detached homes, and what’s called “connected singles” built by some of the region’s top builders, Monarch, Tartan, and Valecraft.

The three features people are most interested in are smart lighting, energy control and management, and multi-room music, says the younger Mr. Karam, who helps put together technology upgrade packages from Best Buy, Geek Squad, and Control4 “to help buyers create their ideal home.”

The package cost of those three popular options ranges from about $9,000 to $12,000.

Single-button, single-remote control

ONE-TOUCH HOME CONTROL: Control4 is the glue that pulls together multiple consumer electronics and home systems in Sohowest homes and enables their control with the touch of a button on a single remote, such as this Apple iPod Touch. (Cindy Chan/The Epoch Times)

This week, homebuyers moved into the first of about 1,200 homes that are expected to be built on the 125-acre property over a period of three to five years.

Tabatha Smith and Alastair Luft are among the 50 to 100 new homeowners who will join them in the coming months.

In mid-November, they will move into one of Tartan’s connected singles, a unique design where two or more homes joined together are connected at the garage only, with no common walls between living spaces.

The couple has added on a smart home package that will allow them to play MP3s from their computers and FM radio through in-ceiling speakers throughout the home, including in the patio via two weatherproof outdoor speakers.

“I like entertaining a lot, so being able to play music throughout the entire house and in different rooms as well as out on the patio without having to lug a sound system outside—it’s pretty appealing,” says Ms. Smith.

They will also be able to play music from their iPod through an iPod dock that will distribute the sound throughout their home.

Their living room home theatre will have a wall-mounted LCD TV that’s also visible from the kitchen. The room will be clean and wire free since their DVD player and other components will be out of sight in a cabinet in their finished basement, connected to the TV through in-wall wiring.

Their $12,000 package will also let them control most of the lights in the house. Among the different functions, they can turn off all the lights at once via a remote, dim them to a preset level for movies, and reduce energy usage by ensuring the lights are off when not needed.

Through a simple-to-use interface provided by Control4, they will be able to control all of these functions in their whole house, including their home theatre, from a single remote or an Apple iPod Touch or iPhone.

Mr. Luft says he appreciates “being able to work with Best Buy and the tech team in the development and design stage.”

“It’s nice that we can design it with Tartan and they’ll run wires through the wall so everything is already taken care of. They’ll even coordinate with Best Buy to get it all set up once we move in,” he added.

‘A whole new service industry’

WIRED AND CONNECTED: Models of the connected singles, executive townhomes, and semi-detached homes being built by Monarch, Tartan, and Valecraft in the Kanata Smart Community neighbourhood of Sohowest in the west end of Ottawa. (Cindy Chan/The Epoch Times)

The price of Sohowest homes ranges from the lower $200,000 to the mid $300,000 range. The core sizes, from 1,700 to 2,200 square feet, are big enough to accommodate small growing families. The homes are attracting not only young families and first- and second-time homebuyers, but downsizing couples as well, says Mr. Karam.

“The technology really resonates with everybody of all ages,” he says, and most buyers are adding technology options.

Meanwhile, although other communities have brought optical fibre to the home, “we’ve gone a step further and brought a business model that helps to support all of [the technology] on a long-term basis.”

The team of companies, including Rogers, Cisco, Best Buy, Geek Squad, Control4, Commscope, and RBC Royal Bank, are “all really big, strong, energetic, the best in their area.”

Along with partnerships with established builders, “this approach also avoids many of the shortcomings of past similar initiatives which did not offer a complete video solution, did not fully integrate with and wire the home, and were not nearly as affordable as our Smart Communities model,” Mr. Karam says.

In addition, the developers put such a high priority on competition and consumer choice that they worked very hard to get Bell to come into the community.

Bell is coming in with copper rather than fibre. Although only Rogers is providing free services for the first year, homeowners can choose to be either a Rogers or a Bell customer or switch back and forth between the two.

Mr. Doyle thinks the collaboration of companies in Sohowest is “tremendous” and may be the precursor to an entirely new industry.

“It’s not easy to pull all of those players together, and maybe there is a need for a new type of service where somebody would pull the Rogers and the Ciscos and everybody together the way Brian has done it, so he may be starting a whole new service industry,” he said.

Adjacent to Sohowest are another 1,100 acres of land that are planned for development.

“Hopefully we will get to influence those so maybe they will be smart communities,” Mr. Karam says.

“We’ve tried to create a working template model to do this in other communities. Our primary concern is making sure that communities and homes are built smarter and greener than they are today.”