Vancouver Information and Newspaper

Archive for October, 2009

VANCOUVER, B.C. – The government is raising security questions during detention hearings for a number of the 76 Tamil migrants who arrived off the West Coast on a decrepit little freighter earlier this month.

The men, at least three of whom crewed the Ocean Lady across the Pacific from Sri Lanka until it was intercepted in Canadian waters on Oct. 17, are undergoing their second and third mandatory detention hearings before the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Details of the hearings are under a publication ban because the men are being treated as potential refugee claimants, though not all have made formal claims.

While the board approved detention initially based on questions about their identities, counsel for the Canadian Border Services Agency has begun raising public security as grounds for further detention.

As of Friday, hearings of at least a dozen claimants were adjourned because border services’ lawyers “introduced a new ground for detention and disclosed supporting documents that needed to be reviewed by the parties in order to prepare for the hearing,” said board spokeswoman Melissa Anderson.

A rarely-used section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act allows the immigration minister to request detention in order to “inquire into a reasonable suspicion that they are inadmissible on grounds of security or for violating human or international rights.”

There are concerns the migrants may include those who may have links to the Tamil Tigers, the military arm of the Tamil separatist movement that’s been at war with the Sri Lankan government for decades.

The Tigers are banned in Canada as a terrorist organization because, among other things, they used suicide bombings to attack targets in the Sinhalese-dominated parts of the country.

The Sri Lankan army crushed the rebellion last May but officials of the Canadian Tamil Congress have said the young men chose the risky ocean journey because Tamils are still persecuted and it’s nearly impossible for them to come to Canada legally.

By late Friday, the board had wrapped up 15 more mandatory seven-day detention reviews – for a total of 63 – ordering continued detention in all cases.

Most remain in custody because identity documents have not been verified. The migrants get another mandatory review within 30 days.

The hearings are taking place at the board’s downtown Vancouver offices, though often their lawyers are taking part via telephone link from Toronto.

Those whose families haven’t hired lawyers are being represented by duty counsel from the B.C. Legal Services Society.

Hearings have gone well into the evening as the men face seven-day and 30-day detention reviews.

Dressed in red prison T-shirts and pants, often with long underwear underneath, the men shuffle to their hearings in leg shackles and handcuffs.

The board ordered one migrant released last Friday under restrictions.

VANCOUVER, B.C. – The government is raising security questions during detention hearings for a number of the 76 Tamil migrants who arrived off the West Coast on a decrepit little freighter earlier this month.

The men, at least three of whom crewed the Ocean Lady across the Pacific from Sri Lanka until it was intercepted in Canadian waters on Oct. 17, are undergoing their second and third mandatory detention hearings before the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Details of the hearings are under a publication ban because the men are being treated as potential refugee claimants, though not all have made formal claims.

While the board approved detention initially based on questions about their identities, counsel for the Canadian Border Services Agency has begun raising public security as grounds for further detention.

As of Friday, hearings of at least a dozen claimants were adjourned because border services’ lawyers “introduced a new ground for detention and disclosed supporting documents that needed to be reviewed by the parties in order to prepare for the hearing,” said board spokeswoman Melissa Anderson.

A rarely-used section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act allows the immigration minister to request detention in order to “inquire into a reasonable suspicion that they are inadmissible on grounds of security or for violating human or international rights.”

There are concerns the migrants may include those who may have links to the Tamil Tigers, the military arm of the Tamil separatist movement that’s been at war with the Sri Lankan government for decades.

The Tigers are banned in Canada as a terrorist organization because, among other things, they used suicide bombings to attack targets in the Sinhalese-dominated parts of the country.

The Sri Lankan army crushed the rebellion last May but officials of the Canadian Tamil Congress have said the young men chose the risky ocean journey because Tamils are still persecuted and it’s nearly impossible for them to come to Canada legally.

By late Friday, the board had wrapped up 15 more mandatory seven-day detention reviews – for a total of 63 – ordering continued detention in all cases.

Most remain in custody because identity documents have not been verified. The migrants get another mandatory review within 30 days.

The hearings are taking place at the board’s downtown Vancouver offices, though often their lawyers are taking part via telephone link from Toronto.

Those whose families haven’t hired lawyers are being represented by duty counsel from the B.C. Legal Services Society.

Hearings have gone well into the evening as the men face seven-day and 30-day detention reviews.

Dressed in red prison T-shirts and pants, often with long underwear underneath, the men shuffle to their hearings in leg shackles and handcuffs.

The board ordered one migrant released last Friday under restrictions.

WINDSOR, Ont. – Awarding an untendered contract to operate an $81-million energy centre that powers the Caesar’s Windsor casino was the right step “under the circumstances,” Premier Dalton McGuinty said Friday.

His government ended the longstanding practice of awarding contracts without competitive bids in the wake of a spending scandal at eHealth Ontario, but handing a sole-sourced deal to keep the Windsor Energy Centre running was a special case, he said.

“I’m confident that we took the right steps under the circumstances,” McGuinty said before heading to Caesar’s Windsor for his party’s annual meeting.

The deal with Angus Consulting Management Ltd. to temporarily run the energy centre – which is currently the subject of a lawsuit – was done before those measures were announced, he added.

“There was a circumstance that arose where, because of difficulties, we had to have somebody on the job effectively right away to keep the lights on,” McGuinty said.

The search for a permanent operator of the plant is currently underway and that contract will be open to competitive bids, he added.

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, who represents a Windsor riding, has come under fire in recent weeks over the soaring cost of the energy centre, which even he admits came in way over its initial $40-million budget.

The Opposition Conservatives have suggested that the plant, which was commissioned by the problem-plagued Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., amounts to political pork-barrelling – an accusation Duncan vehemently denies.

“I wasn’t even minister at the time,” he said Friday. “They’ve also said it’s in my riding. It’s not. There are just a lot of factual errors there.”

The Tories have also questioned why the province’s lottery agency got into the energy business in the first place and spent millions of taxpayers’ dollars on a plant that isn’t providing power to the provincial grid.

According to the OLG, the energy centre provides heating, cooling and backup power to the new hotel tower, convention areas and entertainment centre at Caesar’s Windsor casino, which opened in July 2008. It sits in the riding of Liberal cabinet minister Sandra Pupatello.

Buttcon Ltd. started construction on the plant for the OLG in 2007 and Buttcon Energy Inc. had operated the plant until recently, it said. Angus is currently operating the plant in the short term.

The contract with Buttcon regarding the energy centre was also untendered, Duncan’s spokeswoman confirmed. That contract is currently the subject of a $355-million lawsuit filed by Buttcon Energy against the OLG in August.

The lawsuit alleges breach of contract, “misfeasance (and) misrepresentation,” among other claims which have not been proven in court. The OLG said it will fight those allegations in court.

Duncan has said the enormous price tag attached to the plant caused him “great concern” and was one of the reasons why he cleaned house at the OLG just a few weeks after he took over responsibility for the corporation from Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman.

Duncan replaced the OLG board and fired its CEO, Kelly McDougald, in August. That same day, the government released thousands of pages of what were deemed “unacceptable” expense claims filed by lottery executives.

McDougald has launched an $8.4-million wrongful dismissal suit against OLG, the Crown and Duncan, claiming breach of contract, moral and punitive damages, defamation and “loss of opportunity to enhance reputation.” The Ontario government has said it will dispute the claim.

WINDSOR, Ont. – Awarding an untendered contract to operate an $81-million energy centre that powers the Caesar’s Windsor casino was the right step “under the circumstances,” Premier Dalton McGuinty said Friday.

His government ended the longstanding practice of awarding contracts without competitive bids in the wake of a spending scandal at eHealth Ontario, but handing a sole-sourced deal to keep the Windsor Energy Centre running was a special case, he said.

“I’m confident that we took the right steps under the circumstances,” McGuinty said before heading to Caesar’s Windsor for his party’s annual meeting.

The deal with Angus Consulting Management Ltd. to temporarily run the energy centre – which is currently the subject of a lawsuit – was done before those measures were announced, he added.

“There was a circumstance that arose where, because of difficulties, we had to have somebody on the job effectively right away to keep the lights on,” McGuinty said.

The search for a permanent operator of the plant is currently underway and that contract will be open to competitive bids, he added.

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, who represents a Windsor riding, has come under fire in recent weeks over the soaring cost of the energy centre, which even he admits came in way over its initial $40-million budget.

The Opposition Conservatives have suggested that the plant, which was commissioned by the problem-plagued Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., amounts to political pork-barrelling – an accusation Duncan vehemently denies.

“I wasn’t even minister at the time,” he said Friday. “They’ve also said it’s in my riding. It’s not. There are just a lot of factual errors there.”

The Tories have also questioned why the province’s lottery agency got into the energy business in the first place and spent millions of taxpayers’ dollars on a plant that isn’t providing power to the provincial grid.

According to the OLG, the energy centre provides heating, cooling and backup power to the new hotel tower, convention areas and entertainment centre at Caesar’s Windsor casino, which opened in July 2008. It sits in the riding of Liberal cabinet minister Sandra Pupatello.

Buttcon Ltd. started construction on the plant for the OLG in 2007 and Buttcon Energy Inc. had operated the plant until recently, it said. Angus is currently operating the plant in the short term.

The contract with Buttcon regarding the energy centre was also untendered, Duncan’s spokeswoman confirmed. That contract is currently the subject of a $355-million lawsuit filed by Buttcon Energy against the OLG in August.

The lawsuit alleges breach of contract, “misfeasance (and) misrepresentation,” among other claims which have not been proven in court. The OLG said it will fight those allegations in court.

Duncan has said the enormous price tag attached to the plant caused him “great concern” and was one of the reasons why he cleaned house at the OLG just a few weeks after he took over responsibility for the corporation from Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman.

Duncan replaced the OLG board and fired its CEO, Kelly McDougald, in August. That same day, the government released thousands of pages of what were deemed “unacceptable” expense claims filed by lottery executives.

McDougald has launched an $8.4-million wrongful dismissal suit against OLG, the Crown and Duncan, claiming breach of contract, moral and punitive damages, defamation and “loss of opportunity to enhance reputation.” The Ontario government has said it will dispute the claim.

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. – A southern Alberta man has been found guilty of manslaughter in the death of his former girlfriend’s two-year-old son.

The judge hearing the case said he couldn’t accept the version of events given to investigators by Cody Allen Tomlinson.

Carter Murfin was injured in his home in Brooks, Alta., in August 2005 and rushed to hospital.

Court heard that the night before, Tomlinson had been pulling him on a short board used for body-surfing and the child hit his head on a chair.

But Justice James Langston pointed to several minutes shortly before the toddler passed out when Tomlinson was alone with him in a bathroom.

The judge adjourned sentencing to Nov. 19.

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. – A southern Alberta man has been found guilty of manslaughter in the death of his former girlfriend’s two-year-old son.

The judge hearing the case said he couldn’t accept the version of events given to investigators by Cody Allen Tomlinson.

Carter Murfin was injured in his home in Brooks, Alta., in August 2005 and rushed to hospital.

Court heard that the night before, Tomlinson had been pulling him on a short board used for body-surfing and the child hit his head on a chair.

But Justice James Langston pointed to several minutes shortly before the toddler passed out when Tomlinson was alone with him in a bathroom.

The judge adjourned sentencing to Nov. 19.