Conrad Black Not a Prisoner of Political Correctness

Conrad Black wrote in the May 9th National Post,

"The Europeans have become frightened by their own weakness; by their own failure to regain great influence in the world for the European Union; or even to respond effectively to Islamic infiltration."

He may be in jail but he can see where the real erosion of freedom is going on.

Comment Published on CNN About Parallels Between Blog Burning by Vancouver and Saudi Arabian Governments

Carnegie Board member, Rachel Davis, notified the DTES Enquirer of a CNN piece by Hala Gorani, "Friends Stand Up for Jailed Blogger", about a jailed blogger in Saudi Arabia. There are parallels between this case and the Bill Simpson case. The following comment by the DTES Enquirer was left on
Inside the Middle East, Gorani's blog on the CNN website.


The jailing of a blogger in Saudi Arabia for criticizing the government is not that different from what has happened in Canada.

Police were called by Vancouver City government staff and managers on citizens believed to be associated with the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog which criticized City government supervisors and managers. In fact a comment remains on the DTES Enquirer blog from Vancouver Police Detective Mark Fenton requesting that someone from the blog contact him.

One suspected blogger received a visit from a police detective at his home. The detective admitted that no charges would be laid as it had been determined that the content of the blog was not false, but he issued a warning that he had grave concerns about the content of the blog.

Even a homeless Vancouver man, William “Bill” Simpson, received an email from a Vancouver police officer who wanted to speak to him about the content of the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog on which he was believed to be blogging. Simpson told the officer that he wasn’t a blogger.

The calling of police on citizens suspected of being associated with the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog is part of a campaign of harassment by the Vancouver City government to apparently deter blogging. In Jan. 2007, a Carnegie staff person led Simpson to the office of Carnegie Head of Security where he was told that he was banned from the Carnegie Learning Center (on the third floor of Carnegie Community Center) for daring to blog on the Downtown Eastside Enquirer. Simpson wasn’t even a blogger.

In June 2007, Simpson was elected to the Carnegie Board of Directors by low income Downtown Eastside residents upset that he had been banned from the Carnegie Learning Center. Two weeks later, a City government manager, Ethel Whitty, personally delivered Simpson a letter on City of Vancouver government stationery signed by a top City manager, Jacquie Forbes-Roberts, informing him that he was now banned from the entire Carnegie Community Center. The reason given in the letter for the banning was that Simpson operates a website that “features links” to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog. Simpson asked Whitty if he could enter the Carnegie building to attend Board meetings and she said no. He also asked Whitty to identify anything on the blog that was inaccurate. She offered nothing.

At one point City managers and supervisors at the City-run Carnegie Community Center were accused of launching a witch hunt for bloggers. A long term volunteer at Carnegie said that four government managers and/or supervisors separately interrogated him about whether a female friend of his was blogging. Two teachers also teamed up and interrogated him. And he was not the only person encouraged to turn in suspected bloggers. It was after those interrogations in Jan. 2007 that Bill Simpson ended up banned.

For the entire year of 2007, criticisms of the Vancouver City government for their persecution of bloggers were kept alive on the internet. Only in the last couple of weeks has Vancouver’s mainstream media, the Vancouver Sun and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio, picked up the story.

Nobody in Vancouver has yet been jailed for blogging. But the Vancouver government is moving dangerously close to Saudi intimidation tactics to deter criticism of government by bloggers.

Jail for Grandson of Medicare

Booking photo of Keifer Sutherland taken Dec. 5, 2007 and released by the Glendale Police Department.


Keifer Sutherland started his 48 day jail sentence for his third drunk driving conviction on Dec. 5th. Sutherland is known as the character, Jack Bauer, in the television series '24'. But Canadians know who he really is.

Keifer Sutherland is the grandson of Tommy Douglas, father of Canada's universal medicare system.

Keifer Sutherland was born to Shirley Douglas, the only biological child of Tommy Douglas. An actor herself, Shirley Douglas gave birth to Keifer and his twin sister, Rachel, when she was married to actor Donald Sutherland.

Keifer Sutherland is not the only star in the family. Tommy Douglas was voted "The Greatest Canadian" of all time in a televised contest hosted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 2004. And he had been dead for decades.


Douglas was known as a modest man. He wasn't above giving a speech standing in the back of a farmer's manure spreader, although he did joke that he was standing on the platform of the opposition. And he always took the position that if it wasn't for the hard-working grassroots people promoting him, he wouldn't be in the position he was in. Some of that was his Saskatchewan upbringing: in Saskatchewan, you never act like you're better than anybody else.

You can see that lack of snobbery in Keifer Sutherland. Autograph collector Michael Wehrmann told the New York Post newspaper that until his arrest, Sutherland had not snubbed people seeking autographs: "He was one of the best. He would always stand and sign for a half hour...."

It was when Sutherland's grandfather became leader of North America's first socialist government, the New Democratic Party government in Saskatchewan, that he pushed for a universal medicare program. As a child, Douglas had injured his leg and it would have been amputated if a doctor, who saw the condition as one his students could learn from, had agreed to give him free treatment. But that experience solidified Douglas' belief that health care was a right, not something that should be dependent on the generosity of others.

Douglas pushed for a Canada wide medicare program when he left provincial politics and became leader of the federal New Democratic Party, a party which claims to be committed to improving the lives of the working class. That was the class that famed Canadian writer Alice Munroe grew up in, and she says it wasn't all bad. Now in her 70's, Munroe says there was a freedom in growing up in the working class, not a lot of pressure about what you did with your life, as long as you stayed out of jail.