The Legislature Raids

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Adjusting our minds to CanWest's concept of news:

It's NEWZ that a Bollywood star is out of jail.

It's NEWZ that abdominal fat is worse for Asians and that a Victoria City Council-person just had a baby.

It's NEWZ that there's way too much long unsightly grass in Vancouver parks but the washrooms are OK.

But according to CanWest it is not news that another milestone in the BC Rail Case was dealt with in Supreme Court yesterday ... therefore, there's no acknowledgement of that milestone or information about Madam Justice Bennett's decision in either Vancouver Sun, The Province or Victoria Times Colonist.

Readers who rely upon CanWest for up-to-date information, therefore, might think that Case No. 23299 taking up 7 pages of Supreme Court listings for appearance on Monday 21 August 2007 just never happened. Blank. Did not compute. The issue is gone ... and besides, as the Sun's Managing Editor said, they "haven't been consuming resources during this heavy holiday season on non-news." But wait ...!

The Province -- CanWest's other Vancouver newspaper -- did send a reporter to B.C. Supreme Court yesterday to cover another case which apparently was big enough or suitable enough to qualify as NEWZ ["Charges stayed against accused in McMynn kidnapping case" after "a short pre-trial conference". See full story at: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.htm]

But as for the pre-trial hearing for Basi Virk Basi BC Rail, we only know -- from doing our own checking of the completed Supreme Court listings online -- that the next milestone event in B.C. Supreme Court is scheduled for 17 September 2007. And that, so far, is all we've found out about yesterday's hearing.

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Noted in passing: There's a worthy article in today's media on Ujjal Dosanjh and the renewed threats he is receiving. For this, however, British Columbians must look to The Globe and Mail, Thursday 23 August 2007. [See update below.]

In looking for B.C. news, one thing tends to lead to another. Check out last week's Business in Vancouver and read up on the Powder Mountain Ski Resort issue. RCMP Inspector DeBruyckere, who heads the Basi-Virk investigation, is working on that case, too, which first erupted in BC Supreme Court about 10 years ago, when then-Premier Vander Zalm was the defendant. Many familiar names in this story but this, too, was NOT NEWZ for quite some time. And will probably be NOT NEWZ even now that it's connected to VANOC issues, either.
- BC Mary

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CanWest apparently is not going to touch the Ujjal Dosanjh story although he's a Vancouver MP and former B.C. Premier. How come?? You decide. Here's the story:


SIKH EXTREMISM
VANCOUVER MP RECEIVES CHILLING THREAT
ROD MICKLEBURGH
The Globe and Mail Section A front - August 23, 2007

VANCOUVER -- The vile message was posted, of all places, on Facebook. While this was new, the sentiments, sadly, were not. Once again, MP Ujjal Dosanjh had been targeted for a threat to his physical safety.

An e-mail sent late last week to the Vancouver MP's Facebook site said that he should be beaten "just like they did before," a chilling reference to the near-fatal beating Mr. Dosanjh received in 1985 after speaking out against violence within the Sikh community.

It was the second reference to violence against the federal Liberals' foreign affairs critic and one-time NDP premier in recent months.

An editorial in an Ontario Sikh newspaper last May referred to the brutal attack on Mr. Dosanjh as a time when "some guru's loved one beat him well" and left it as an open question for readers to decide whether the beating was deserved or not.

Yesterday, an undeterred Mr. Dosanjh said the time has come for politicians of all stripes to wake up to the dangers such threats pose to the fabric of free speech in the country.

"We like to believe these things can't happen in Canada. That's naive. They can happen here," Mr. Dosanjh said.

"I've never been afraid in my life and I don't intend to be afraid. But the fact is, there are always dangers lurking out there and people need to speak out. We can't allow these hate-mongers to stifle the free expression of those they don't agree with."

The most recent threats against Mr. Dosanjh follow his call for police to investigate a huge Sikh parade this spring that featured a float extolling Talwinder Singh Parmar as a martyr.

Mr. Parmar, named in the Air India judgment as ringleader of the 1985 terrorist bombing plot that claimed 331 lives, was subsequently killed by police in India.

The Facebook e-mail that urged Mr. Dosanjh's beating referred to the veteran politician as "the biggest disgrace to the Sikh panth [community].

"It's disgusting to know that a person like you calls themselves a Sikh. ... you support those moderates."

The sender's Facebook site contained pictures of some elderly Sikhs and the Sikh Golden Temple of Amritsar. The sender identified himself as Jag Singh.

Mr. Dosanjh, who has turned both recent threats over to the RCMP, said he is taking the Facebook warning far more seriously than the provocative editorial.

"I hope it is a harmless crank. Nothing would make me happier. But this is a strong threat. More direct. You just never know. One has to be concerned," said Mr. Dosanjh, for years a consistent, outspoken opponent of Sikh extremism.

"The fact that there have been two of these so close together tells me that there is a systematic campaign going on out there to intimidate and silence anyone who has the courage to speak out."
[BC Mary received one such e.mail following Terry Melewski's CBC documentary on Sikh militant extremists.]

In 1998, Surrey, B.C. newspaper publisher Tara Singh Hayer, who wrote numerous scathing editorials against Sikh extremists and their sometimes violent quest for an independent Sikh homeland, was assassinated.

Mr. Hayer's son David, a member of the provincial legislature, joined Mr. Dosanjh yesterday in urging politicians of all parties to begin speaking out more forcefully against groups who support such terrorism.

David Hayer said that he, too, receives threats when he condemns supporters of Sikh violence.

"All politicians have to stand up and say clearly that terrorism is wrong, and societies that promote terrorism are not acceptable," he said. "If we close our minds to it, then these kinds of threats will just continue."

Mr. Dosanjh, 59, said the many threats he has weathered over the years have taken a toll.

"My kids were young in the 1980s when I used to receive dozens of threats. They've grown up with it," he said. "They're always worried about their father, and their father's always worried about them."

But neither the savage beating he received more than 20 years ago, nor the fire-bombing of his office in the 1990s, nor any of the numerous verbal threats have weakened his will to speak his mind.

"I've lived through this stuff for years. If anything, it always makes me more determined to exercise my right to free speech," Mr. Dosanjh said.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070824.wnowak0824/BNStory/Front/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20070824.wnowak0824

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