Baird says Canada cannot allow Syria to act with impunity

As world leaders wrapped up their meetings at the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Canada supports calls for a military intervention against the Assad regime in Syria as a direct response to that government's use of chemical weapons against civilians.

"What are people going to say next week if 5,000 people are gassed? What are people going to say next month if 25,000 people are gassed?" he said in an exclusive interview with host Evan Solomon on CBC Radio's The House, following a meeting with Sergei Lavrov, Baird's Russian counterpart. "This is a poor man's weapons of mass destruction and this guy cannot be allowed to get away with it."

The civil war in Syria dominated much of the St. Petersburg summit, where U.S. President Barack Obama sought support from world leaders for a military intervention, while Russian President Vladimir Putin affirmed his support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"We have a fundamental difference of opinion," said Baird. "Russia has been an ally of Assad. They've helped arm Assad. Their support has allowed him to soldier on for more than two years now."

Baird also said he is not optimistic that Russia will change its position on any upcoming Security Council vote on Syria, where Russia and China have blocked resolutions calling for intervention.

'What are people going to say next week if 5,000 people are gassed? What are people going to say next month if 25,000 people are gassed?'—Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird

On Tuesday, Obama will address the American people as he seeks congressional approval for military strikes against Syria, which the United States has said it would lead. Opinion polls show public support for such an intervention is low.

Baird said Canada has not been asked to contribute militarily to that effort, but that the United States has Canada's full diplomatic and political support. Baird also announced $45 million in new humanitarian relief funding in response to an urgent appeal from the United Nations. More than two million Syrians have fled to surrounding countries to escape the violence, which has killed more than 100,000 Syrians since the begining of the conflict.

'New territory'

Prime Minister Stephen Harper also expressed grave concerns over the use of chemical weapons, which American, Turkish and French intelligence say was used by Assad's forces in an attack outside a Damascus suburb that killed more than 1,400 people on August 21, 2013.

"I believe that what we've been seing over the past several months is the Syrian government, which finds itself in a stalemate, believes that it can win the war, the civil war in Syria, through the use of chemical weapons," Harper said in a news confernece on Friday from St. Petersburg.

"And they have been step by step ratcheting up that usage to see if anyone is going to challenge it. And I fear that if no one does challenge it they will use chemical weapons way beyond a scale that we have seen today to win that war. And if that ever happens, as I told the leaders last night, that is a precedent that humanity will regret for generations to come," he said.

Responsibility to protect

Former U.S. Ambassador Richard Williamson says there is a moral obligation to respond to the use of chemical weapons by Assad.

"Monsters like Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussien used chemical weapons," Williamson said in an interview with Solomon on The House. Williamson served as ambassador to Somalia under former U.S. president George W. Bush.

"We don't want it to become something that is used more frequently. Assad's use of chemical weapons is a particularly urgent challenge not only to deter him from continuing to use chemical weapons but also as a signal for the others, because we have some 80 or 90 countries with chemical weapons in stockpile and don't want them unleashed against innocent people or anyone for that matter."

Williamson thinks Obama has a tough sell as far as convincing the American people that the United States should launch military strikes inside Syria, strikes that Williamson thinks needs to be sustained and targeted at major military and communications infrastructure.

"In Kosovo there were no boots on the ground but NATO engaged in 78 days of brutal aerial assault and bombing and brought that ethnic cleansing to an end. I think it has to be targeted to eliminate some of their military assests — their six airfields that primarily are the ones used by the Syrian military — those should be and can be destroyed," Williamson said.

"We also have the capacity to destroy their communications centres. These would be steps that would not seek to have massive human casualties but would substantially change facts on the ground and hopefully lead Damascus to go to the bargaining table to seek a political settlement," he said.

Listen to the full interviews with Minister Baird and Richard Williamson on CBC Radio's The House.

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Harper offers Obama climate plan to win Keystone approval

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama formally proposing "joint action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector," if that is what's needed to gain approval of the Keystone XL pipeline through America's heartland, CBC News has learned.

Sources told CBC News the prime minister is willing to accept targets proposed by the United States for reducing the climate-changing emissions and is prepared to work in concert with Obama to provide whatever political cover he needs to approve the project.

The letter, sent in late August, is a clear signal Canada is prepared to make concessions to get the presidential permit for TransCanada Corp.'s controversial $7-billion pipeline, which will connect the Alberta oilsands to refineries in Texas.

But there's a huge snag. Obama hasn't said what he wants, or needs, to assuage environmentalists that Keystone XL is in America's national interest, or to convince congressional Democrats facing re-election next year that it can be approved without sabotaging their campaigns.

And the White House has yet to respond to the letter.

Harper and Obama met on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday, but the president's pre-occupation with Syria sidelined the Keystone issue, which is what the prime minister really wanted to discuss.

Canada has been waging a concerted lobbying effort and advertising campaign in the United States for some time, but it appears to have had little impact. Those efforts intensified this summer, when the president spoke publicly about the project.

"Our national interest will be served," Obama said in June, "only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline's impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward."

Not long after, the president told the New York Times that proponents of the pipeline, including his Republican opponents, are overstating the jobs it will create.

Which way is Obama leaning?

Environmentalists were thrilled. Trade unions not so much. But these days it appears the environmental lobby wields more clout on the file in Washington. Keystone XL opponents are the ones who demonstrated outside the White House last fall. They're the ones who moved most quickly after Obama's statement, trumpeting the not-unreasonable interpretation that the president is finally prepared to live up to his promise to champion climate change in his second term.

And they stepped up their campaign against Keystone XL, arguing that stopping the pipeline is critical to keeping what they call the world's dirtiest oil in the ground.

Canadian proponents weren't exactly thrilled, either, though the official response at the time was more muted.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver insisted the project is in the national interests of both countries. He argued Americans will need the millions of barrels of oilsands bitumen that would be shipped from Alberta to Texas refineries each week.

Other Canadian officials were quick to note that this country has done as much, or more, to curb emissions than the U.S. They say coal-fired electricity plants south of the border produce something like 32 times the amount of greenhouse gases as the oilsands, and argue the massive Keystone project will not significantly add to emissions.

What Harper can do

For Harper, Keystone is the biggest, but not the only, pipeline project needed to carry Alberta's oilsands crude to world markets. Where his government can act, it has: streamlining the federal environmental review process for major energy projects, cultivating new markets in Asia and approving more foreign investment in Canada's energy sector.

He and Obama initiated the Clean Energy Dialogue in 2009, committing the two countries to working together to reduce the impact of climate change. Canada and the U.S. have already adopted the same regulations to reduce car and truck emissions.

But, for all that, approval of Keystone XL remains a huge hurdle, especially for Harper.

The prime minister treats politics as a game of chess, every move thought out in advance as part of a strategy to checkmate his opponents. Obama's plays are unorthodox and unpredictable, making it hard to anticipate, let alone counter, his moves.

For all of Harper's speeches about Canada's emergence as an energy superpower, for all the time he has played up the proximity and security offered by Canada's energy reserves, the oilsands approval process drags on. A decision by the president, once expected soon after the 2012 election, might not be made until 2014.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government insists oilsands crude is far more carbon-intensive than other oil used by Americans.

And the president's own position on the project remains ambiguous, to say the least.

Canadian officials had hoped that Friday's quick chat at the G20 summit would be a chance to flesh some of that out, or at the very least, to hear something more tangible than the hints dropped by David Jacobson, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada, who told Canadian reporters before he left the job that the White House would like to see more progress in Canada to reduce emissions.

"Give us a hard target," one source told CBC. "Don't make us guess."

So the Harper government grimly plays on.

Millions are being spent on the "Go with Canada" ad campaign that pops up on major U.S. websites, reminding Americans that Canada and the U.S. adopted the same greenhouse gas reduction targets at Copenhagen, that Canada is a friend and ally and that, together, the two countries can achieve energy independence.

Canadian oil companies are looking at shipping bitumen by truck, rail and tanker.

And the review process south of the border drags on.

Regulations twice delayed

In the meantime, work continues to move Canada closer to its target to reduce emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, a target critics in this country argue can't be met even without further development of the oilsands.

Canada has been promising to bring in regulations for the energy sector for years, but missed deadlines set by the former environment minister, Peter Kent, the first one for the end of 2012, the other this past summer. There's no indication now, with a new environment minister, when those regulations will be ready.

Alberta is proposing what's known as 40/40 solution: a 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases produced for each unit of oil produced, and a $40-a-tonne charge on any emissions above that regulated level.

Industry says it's too much. Environmentalists say it isn't enough.

And south of the border, the environmental movement continues its drumbeat. A report released this week by the Sierra Club and others, titled FAIL: How the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline Flunks the Climate Test, concluded, once again, that the best thing to avoid climate armageddon is to say no to the pipeline, and leave the oilsands in the ground.

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Canadian Rangers: the thin red line patrolling our harshest terrain

Imagine maintaining a military presence over roughly four million square kilometres of exceedingly harsh terrain using the residents of just one small town — a place like Smithers, B.C., for instance, which boasts a little more than 5,000 people.

That's the tricky thing about keeping "boots on the ground" in Canada's Arctic, where the Canadian Rangers have, since 1947, been patrolling the front lines.

The Rangers enjoyed a rare moment in the spotlight recently when Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a stop on his tour across the North — to spend a night on the tundra and shoot targets with a few of the largely aboriginal part-time reservists who, in his words, "defend our territory from potential threats and emergencies."

Shooting at these threats is not a very big part of the job, mind you. The Rangers mainly watch over the North. The 5,000-plus members conduct surveillance and report any "unusual sightings or activities" according to the Canadian Armed Forces website.

They are the military's "eyes and ears," it adds.

Or — as one Ranger recently put it to author Whitney Lackenbauer — its "eyeglasses, hearing aids, and walking stick."

The Rangers are perhaps most respected for their intimate knowledge of their home territory and its unforgiving climate, says Lackenbauer, a historian at the University of Waterloo whose book The Canadian Rangers: A Living History came out earlier this summer.

"The Rangers ensure that the military's footprint doesn't crush communities," he says. "They're not trained for combat, so they're not like any other element of the Canadian regular forces or the primary reserve."

"But that should not detract from their value," Lackenbauer adds. "They are absolutely essential when it comes to being guides … and bearers of traditional knowledge."

Antique rifles

Rangers get up to 12 days of pay per year, plus extra for any additional duty or wear and tear on their personal equipment. They are issued a bright red sweatshirt and cap, and equipment including a rifle and ammunition.

The rifles are very old, 1950s-era Lee Enfields which are updated Second World War- versions of guns first introduced to the British Army in 1895.

Rangers' rifles are very old, 1950s-era Lee Enfields which are updated Second World War- versions of guns first introduced to the British Army in 1895. (Shaun Best/Reuters)

The rifles are still in service partly because they, like the Rangers themselves, can operate reliably even under harsh Arctic conditions.

"Just because something's not ultra-modern doesn't mean it's not appropriate or relevant," says Lackenbauer.

He says many of the Rangers that he has met are motivated by a mix of patriotism, community service and a love of being on the land.

One Ranger in B.C. described the job as "being paid to go camping," he recalls.

The Rangers began as the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers (PCMR) in 1942, at the height of the Second World War. They were volunteers who watched the coastlines of British Columbia and Yukon against the threat of a Japanese invasion.

At their peak they numbered 15,000 volunteers in 138 communities.

The PCMR disbanded in 1945. The Canadian Rangers took over on May 23, 1947, charged with Northern and Arctic surveillance, most often by means of "sovereignty patrols."

Their motto "Vigilans" is often interpreted as "The Watchers."

Rangers also conduct search and rescue operations and assist during other crises — for example, lending support during the drinking water crisis in Kashechewan, Ont. and in the aftermath of the 1999 avalanche at Kangiqsualujjuaq in northern Québec.

They also often come up whenever there is talk of protecting Canada's Arctic sovereignty, though that issue has cooled quite a bit since its heyday a few years ago.

Senior military officials are agreed the country faces no short- or medium-term threats in the Arctic, "but at the same time they always have to be prepared," says Lackenbauer. "That's just the responsibility of any self-respecting nation state."

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Harper climate plan prompts skepticism from eco groups

Environmentalists in Canada and the U.S. say they are cynical about reports of a prime ministerial appeal to the White House for common North American greenhouse-gas emissions standards in the oil and gas sector.

CBC News revealed Friday that Prime Minister Stephen Harper sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama last month formally proposing "joint action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the oil and gas sector" to help speed approval for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

Harper's message offers a clear sign of Ottawa's willingness to make concessions in order to get the presidential green light for TransCanada Corp.'s $7-billion pipeline, which will connect the Alberta oilsands to refineries in Texas.

Details of the letter are not public, and it's not known whether Harper made any concrete offer.

The Prime Minister's Office is refusing to confirm a letter was sent, but says harmonizing emissions policies with the U.S. has long been a government goal.

A Harper spokesman says the two countries already have integrated oil and gas economies "which underscores the importance of continuing to work together to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions."

Talk of a quid-pro-quo on Keystone has been circulating since the beginning of the year, when Obama signalled his intention to ramp up his climate change agenda.

But Canadian officials have repeatedly denied any deal was in the works. Even now, a spokesman for Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver claims no knowledge of the Harper-Obama letter, as do industry players.

Still, sources say Harper has often told his cabinet he intends to fulfil Canada's international commitments on climate change while moving cautiously for fear of alienating Alberta.

Act of desperation

Environmentalists are characterizing any offer from Canada's Conservative government as an act of desperation to save a pipeline that Harper once called a "no-brainer."

A statement from 350.org, a group of international climate-change activists, described the reported overture as "a last-ditch bait-and-switch by the Canadian government."

And the Sierra Club of Canada and Greenpeace Canada both said any Canadian promises on climate change ring hollow after years of government inaction.

Ottawa has spent the last two years in frustrating talks with the oil patch and the Alberta government to design regulations that would control rising greenhouse-gas emissions.

But even as Harper indicates flexibility to Obama, the domestic negotiations are heading in the opposite direction. Springtime talk of "40-40" — requiring producers to improve their emissions intensity by 40 per cent, with a $40-per-tonne penalty — has now been whittled down to 30-30, with governments under pressure from industry. A final agreement is still in limbo.

Analysts have said even the 40-40 scenario wouldn't meet Canada's emissions targets, a point not lost on the Americans.

And Obama has said any approval for the Keystone pipeline would depend on minimizing emissions.

The United States is currently on track to meet its 2020 target for greenhouse-gas emissions reductions, while Canada's current trajectory would leave the country 50 per cent short of its promised goal, even though Canada has a long-standing policy of mirroring the U.S. emissions regime.

Critics point out that any pipeline that increases the export capacity of oil-sands production will only make it more difficult for Canada to meet its greenhouse-gas emissions targets.

With files from CBC News

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Solitary confinement a growing issue in Canadian, American prisons

[Listen to CBC Radio Ideas documentary about solitary confinement in the audio player to the left of this page, or visit the Ideas website.]

Ashley Smith was alone in jail when she committed suicide in 2007. She died in a segregation cell, a controversial form of prison isolation that experts compare to solitary confinement.

As the ongoing inquest into her death has heard, the effects of the kind of long-term segregation she faced during her multiple years in confinement can be deeply detrimental to a person's mental well-being.

According to The Correctional Service of Canada, administrative segregation — commonly known as solitary confinement — is "not a form of punishment," but rather a means "to help ensure the safety of all inmates, staff and visitors." It is to be used only when "there is no reasonable alternative and for the shortest period of time necessary."

Furthermore, Correctional Service of Canada spokeswoman Lori Pothier told CBC News that, "Within 24 hours of admission to segregation, an offender's mental health needs and physical needs are assessed by a health care professional."

Despite this, government figures show that the use of indefinite administrative segregation is growing in Canada.

The Ombudsman for federal offenders says there were 8,221 federal inmates in segregation across Canada in 2012-2013. Many suffer mental health problems, and a third of them, according to the Ombudsman's same statistics, are aboriginal. Admissions into segregation totalled 7,137 in 2003-04.

The use of solitary confinement in Canadian prisons has been rising in Canada over the past decade, particularly in Ontario, Quebec and the Prairies, according to Correctional Service of Canada. (Source: Correctional Service of Canada)

There's a similar trend in the United States, where more than 80,000 inmates are being held in solitary confinement, many of them kept in isolation for years at a time.

In July of this year in California, an estimated 30,000 inmates began the largest hunger strike in the state's history to protest conditions of solitary confinement and sensory deprivation. In the California prison system there are more than 500 men that have been held in isolation cells for over a decade.

Life in solitary

But statistics only tell one of the story. CBC Radio's Ideas spoke to people who have been in solitary confinement about its psychological toll.

Susan Rosenberg is an American political activist who spent close to 11 years in some form of isolation during the 16 years she was incarcerated. For four of those years she was kept in solitary confinement and sensory deprivation in a highly experimental high-security unit in the basement of a prison in Lexington, Kentucky.

She says solitary confinement may not sound harsh to someone who hasn't experienced it, but it can have profound effects on a prisoner's mental health.

"If one thinks about being locked in your bathroom, where you have a bathtub in it, and you can never go anywhere except in that bathroom, right, that is the extent of your life, with only hostile and negative interactions with somebody on the other side of the door who hates you, and is feeding you, or giving you water, or telling you No! That's a beginning approximation of what it's like to be in solitary confinement."

Lee Chappelle, who spent a total of a year and a half in segregation in Ontario, describes that experience this way: "You're under constant light, 24 hours a day. There's no relief from [fluorescent] light in your cell. The days are exceptionally long. There's no reading material. There's literally no stimulation of any sort. So you're living inside your head, and your living inside this little, hard room."

Rosenberg was also under fluorescent lights 24 hours a day. The monotony of that light and lack of colour in her cell led to her and another inmate to develop something she called "white vision blindness."

"We began to not be able to see. You [can't] see past six feet, and everything is white, so that literally you lose the capacity to see colour."

Human contact

Greg McMaster is currently incarcerated at Fenbrook prison in Gravenhurst, Ont., for killing four men in 1978. He has spent more than seven years in segregation — most of that time in the U.S. prison system. He describes the lengths he and others would go to have contact with one another, even a simple conversation.

"You can take the water out of your toilet and there's an open pipeway. As disgusting as it may sound, when you're a man in solitary confinement and you have not spoken to another human being in a month, you will take that water out of your toilet.

"All you know is that you need that contact. I've known men who've actually lost the ability to speak. Or to have a rational thought. It's spiraling depressions, and you dig so deep into your soul just to stay alive. And then when you have human contact, whatever form it may be, you relish that."

Michael Jackson is a law professor at the University of British Columbia who has written about solitary confinement and advocated for prisoners in segregation for more than 40 years. He has seen first-hand the impact of segregation.

'In solitary it's not just a loneliness, it's a craziness. It's a devastating experience.'—Susan Rosenberg

"Last week I was talking to a man who I've known for 25 years, and in the last month he spent most of his time in segregation units at two prisons in Canada. And the despair in his voice, the hopelessness, the fact that over the phone I am pleading with him not to take his own life," Jackson said. "It's a despair that just calls for a human response, and it's a response that he has difficulty in finding from those who confine him."

In the experience of Susan Rosenberg, the limited contact with guards offered only antagonism.

"I think they were specifically trained what to say and told, these are the most difficult, terrible, horrible people you have ever run across in your life, and you'd better treat them as such. And when somebody would break that mould, they would be removed. They would be caught on camera being kind and they would be removed."

Rosenberg was released from prison in 2001 after having her sentence commuted by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office. While she continues to work as a writer and anti-prison activist, the effects of her time in isolation remain with her.

"In solitary it's not just a loneliness, it's a craziness. It's a devastating experience."

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RCMP's Senate expenses probe focuses on Duffy-Wright deal

While tourists were enjoying the splendours of Parliament Hill this summer, behind the scenes RCMP investigators were secretly hunkered down in a former Senate smoking room, interrogating witnesses in what has become the largest police probe involving parliamentarians in years.

CBC News has been given an exclusive glimpse inside the RCMP investigation of the Senate expenses scandal through interviews with a number of people close to the police probe. All spoke on condition of anonymity.

The investigation is being headed by Cpl. Greg Horton, a 21-year veteran of major crime investigations and now assigned to the special RCMP branch that deals with "sensitive" matters of "significant risk to Canada's political, economic and social integrity."

CBC sources were unanimous on one point: Horton and his investigators are tough, thorough, extremely well-prepared and seem deadly serious about a probe that could lead to criminal charges of fraud and breach of trust.

Sources say the federal Office of Public Prosecutions has already assigned a prosecutor to the Senate probe.

There is no indication the Mounties have interrogated any of the four senators actually at the centre of the expense scandal: Mike Duffy, Mac Harb, Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin. Sources say investigators have not knocked on the prime minister's door either.

But CBC News has learned that over the past two months, Horton and his squad have questioned at least five other senators as key witnesses.

Some of those interviews were conducted in the sumptuous Salle de la Francophonie, an ornate meeting room near the main Senate chamber, decorated in paintings and sculptures of French kings, and used as a private smoking lounge for senators until the 1980s.

Although none of the senators questioned in the Francophonie this summer has been accused of any wrongdoing, sources say a Senate lawyer was usually present anyway.

Senator Mike Duffy leaves a meeting of the Senate internal economy committee on May 9 in Ottawa. An initial report on an audit of Duffy's expense claims was altered by a Senate subcommittee. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

So far, the sources say, the line of questioning has been focused in large part on Duffy's travel and housing claims, and on the now infamous $90,000 personal cheque he got from the prime minister's chief of staff, Nigel Wright, to reimburse the government for the disputed expenses.

They say the Mounties want to know what exactly was the deal Wright made with Duffy in return for the $90,000 cheque.

Who else in government and the Conservative Party knew about the deal? The RCMP say Wright has admitted telling three other high-ranking officials in the Prime Minister's Office, but not Stephen Harper.

Was there a secret deal in place with the Conservative Party — or some other source — to repay Wright the $90,000 he gave to Duffy?

For instance, sources say the Mounties have been asking specifically about Wright's sole access, as Harper's chief of staff, to a special stash of Conservative Party funds ostensibly to pay for partisan political activities in the Prime Minister's Office, a story first reported by CBC News.

Finally, sources say the Mounties are asking a lot of questions about how and why a Senate committee report on Duffy's housing and travel allowances was altered in the senator's favour, finding that he was merely the victim of errors and unclear rules.

As Horton says in one court filing: "I believe there was an agreement between Duffy and Wright involving repayment of the $90,000 and a Senate report that would not be critical of him, constituting an offence of frauds on the government."

CBC has confirmed that all three members of that Senate committee have been interviewed by the RCMP — Conservative senators David Tkachuk and Carolyn Stewart Olsen, Harper's former press secretary, and Liberal Senator George Furey.

Horton has accused Tkachuk of being in contact with both Duffy and Wright during the audit process, while chairing the committee that eventually watered down the audit report on Duffy's expenses. Tkachuk claims he was never pressured to alter the report.

Marjory LeBreton, the Conservatives' former Senate leader, was also questioned by the Mounties this summer.

Finally, Cpl. Horton and his crew sat down with Senator Elizabeth Marshall, former auditor general of Newfoundland, and a member of a special Senate subcommittee that referred the expenses of Brazeau and Harb to the independent auditing firm Deloitte.

Until the RCMP have completed their investigation, it is impossible to predict whether criminal charges will be laid, and if so, against whom.

Most of those at the heart of the scandal have already moved to mitigate their respective situations.

Last week, Mac Harb dropped a lawsuit against the Senate over his expenses, agreed to pay back a total of $231,000, and resigned from the upper chamber, ensuring his parliamentary pension.

Senator Pamela Wallin speaks with Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a campaign rally during the 2011 federal election. A Senate report on Wallin's expenses has been forwarded to the RCMP, but the Mounties have not said whether they are investigating her. (Liam Richards/Canadian Press)

The Senate has referred an audit of Pamela Wallin's expenses to the RCMP, but the force has yet to indicate if it will investigate her.

No matter. She has already paid back $38,000 in expenses, and after an external audit, has agreed to refund the government an additional amount likely to top another $100,000.

Of course, Duffy has paid the government the $90,000 he got from Wright.

And both Duffy and Wright have hired some of the best criminal lawyers in the country.

So far, the RCMP have not indicated whether Wright is a witness or a suspect.

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Wireless competition coming even without Verizon, says minister

The conditions are right for a fourth competitor to emerge in the Canadian wireless market, despite Verizon Communications' decision not to enter Canada, Industry Minister James Moore says.

And Wind Mobile CEO Anthony Lacavera says his company is poised to become that fourth competitor with the auction of Canadian spectrum for broadband and wireless taking place this fall.

"I don't think we ever did need a Verizon for Wind to achieve its business plan," Lacavera said in an interview with CBC's Lang & O'Leary Exchange.

He said Wind, which currently has 650,000 subscribers across Canada, is already a fourth alternative in the markets where it is operating — B.C., Alberta and Ontario. Wind is partly owned by Netherlands-based Vimpelcom Ltd., which has signalled an intention to sell its stake.

Lacavera said Wind has had a tough slog establishing itself in Canada, but now plans to fill in its networks, add more stores and roll out in new areas, after acquiring new spectrum.

"The demand for our products is clearly there. Prices have come down almost 18 per cent in the markets that we operate in," he said.

"What's key for us on spectrum side is government has put in place a policy framework now that ensures the availability of spectrum for new entrants, and that wasn't so clear up until June of this year when the government announced the Telus and Mobilicity decision," Lacavera said.

Ottawa blocked a Telus takeover of struggling Mobilicity and has set aside two blocks of spectrum in its fall auction for new entrants to the market.

"It's now clear there will be four carriers in every market and all those carriers will have access to sufficient spectrum to roll out next generation wireless," Lacavera said.

Moore said those who are closely following the wireless market may be surprised at the entrants who emerge in the fall auction of spectrum.

The industry minister has engaged in a very public debate this summer with the big three wireless carriers — Bell, Telus and Rogers, over the rules for the spectrum auction and the federal government's decision to block any takeover of Wind or Mobilicity.

The big three feared U.S. giant Verizon would enter the market, but Moore said the talk about Verizon was always speculation.

"We've said all along that our policy is not dependent on whether Verizon comes or doesn't come. We always knew that it was speculation whether Verizon decided to come to Canada," Moore told The Lang & O'Leary Exchange.

"If [Verizon] had decided to come, it would have provided a different kind of competition and the incumbent firms would have to arrange their affairs differently."

He said Ottawa would not rule out an foreign telecom bidding on Canadian spectrum, nor would it change any of the terms or timing of the auction because of Verizon's announcement.

"It's a highly valued asset that players will want to bid on," he said. Moore said Ottawa expects the auction will expand the choices for Canadian consumers.

"Ottawa's policy has always been the same — more choice for consumers, more competition for the marketplace," he said.

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Verizon pullback a blow to Canadian wireless consumers

Verizon's decision to stay out of Canada deals a stinging blow to the government's efforts to make the wireless market more competitive and consumer-friendly, say industry experts.

"Without someone like Verizon, what will end up happening is the Big Three will win," says Walid Hejazi, a professor at the Rotman School of Management.

The Big Three -- Bell, Rogers and Telus -- have a combined 90 per cent market share. They have spent much of the summer telling consumers through an ad campaign that Verizon's entry into the wireless market would be "unfair" and cost Canadian jobs.

Meanwhile, critics of the Canadian telecom industry said the entry of Verizon would force the Big Three to offer better services and rates.

On Monday, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam ended the feverish speculation when he told Bloomberg news service that his company, which has more than 100 million wireless subscribers, would not be coming to Canada.

McAdam made the comments after announcing that Verizon would be paying $130 billion US to buy the 45 per cent stake in Verizon Wireless currently held by British telecom Vodafone.

Greg O'Brien, editor and publisher of Cartt.ca, a news site about the Canadian telecom and electronic media industries, says the possibility of Verizon entering the market was always tenuous and fed by the wishful thinking of Canadian consumers.

"Verizon's interest was never really all that real," says O'Brien.

"They were just kicking the tires at Wind and Mobilicity and [considering buying] some spectrum because these are all assets that would maybe provide them with some growth. And they decided in the end that it just wouldn't."

Government seeking greater competition

The federal government has stated that it would like to see more competition in the Canada's wireless market, and has been taking a number of regulatory steps to nudge this along.

It stages auctions periodically to sell telecom companies the rights to transmit signals over the electromagnetic spectrum. The federal government reserved about 40 per cent of the 2007 spectrum auction for new entrants, which led to the launch in 2008 of Wind Mobile and Mobilicity, which are co-owned by Egyptian and Dutch firms, respectively.

More recently, the federal government has said it would like to see four competing wireless companies in every market across Canada.

To that end, it relaxed ownership rules last year to allow a foreign corporation wanting to enter a specific business sector in Canada to buy companies with less than 10 per cent market share.

In June, reports emerged that U.S. wireless giant Verizon was considering buying Canadian company Wind Mobile for $700 million. (John Minchillo/AP Photo)

Bell, Rogers and Telus went on the offensive earlier this summer after reports emerged that U.S. giant Verizon had offered to buy Canadian upstart Wind Mobile for $700 million. The Big Three undertook a public relations campaign that argued the federal government was giving foreign companies preferential treatment.

The government countered with a PR campaign of its own. Industry Minister James Moore travelled across the country telling consumers that allowing foreign ownership would increase competition and lower wireless rates in Canada, which are among the highest in the world.

Despite Verizon's decision not to proceed in Canada, Hejazi said he is "encouraged" by the fact that the government is going to continue with its pro-competition strategy for the next wireless spectrum auction, which will take place in January 2014.

The Canadian government has said foreign-owned companies would be able to buy two of four blocks in the 2013 auction, leaving Bell, Rogers and Telus to bid on the other two blocks.

Tiny market

However, it's unclear whether any foreign-owned companies are currently interested in bidding on the blocks of 700 mHz spectrum.

Between the three of them, Bell, Rogers and Telus control more than 90 per cent of Canada's 26.9 million wireless subscribers. In global terms, this is a tiny market.

Kevin O'Leary, the chair of O'Leary Funds and one of the judges on Dragon's Den, told CBC's Heather Hiscox on Tuesday that to a company the size of Verizon, the Canadian wireless market is a "rounding error and it's completely irrelevant."

O'Brien says that the Canadian market is still appealing to foreign-owned companies, but "the market opportunity available now is not."

Hejazi says that Verizon was likely frightened off by the prospect of aggressive lobbying efforts by Bell, Rogers and Telus in a comparatively small market.

"They don't want to come into Canada and fight Telus, Rogers and Bell at every turn," says Hejazi.

Hejazi recently finished work on a study commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade looking into the impact of reducing restrictions on foreign investment in telecommunications, finance and transportation.

The study, which Hejazi says is expected to be released later this year, suggests that by increasing competition, foreign ownership not only improves service and lowers prices, but makes the Canadian economy as a whole more competitive.

But given that the deposits for the Jan. 14 spectrum auction are due by Sept. 16, O'Brien says it's unlikely that another major player will step into the fray.

And due to loopholes in the regulation of the wireless industry, it's conceivable that one or more of the Big Three could still gain access to some of the 700 mHz spectrum reserved for smaller players by leasing it from the successful bidders.

While Minister Moore has vowed to seek greater competition in the wireless market, O'Brien says that the process should have begun long ago.

"The point I've been making for a long time is that the federal government should have started making the foreign investment liberalization before the 2007 wireless spectrum auction, because now the industry is completely hamstrung."

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Legal marijuana: How could it work?

While the debate rages for and against legalizing marijuana, there's also a debate about how to legalize it, if that's the direction chosen.

In Canada, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau's call for legalization has spurred the discussions, while in the United States, it's Colorado and Washington moving in that direction and Alaskans voting next year on doing so.

Internationally, Uruguay is close to becoming the first country to legalize pot, although in most countries it was legal until some time in the 20th century.

Eleven years ago today, a Senate committee issued a major report recommending that Canada legalize marijuana, as well as explaining how to go about it.

"Whether or not an individual uses marijuana should be a personal choice that is not subject to criminal penalties, but we have come to the conclusion that, as a drug, it should be regulated by the state much as we do for wine and beer," committee chairman Pierre Claude Nolin said at the time.

Senator Pierre Claude Nolin addresses the media at a news conference in Ottawa Sept. 4, 2002, after releasing a special committee report recommending that Canada legalize the use of marijuana. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)

Eleven years later, the Conservative Senator tells CBC News he still stands by his committee's report. "The public is already there," Nolin observes, adding that the challenge is with the politicians.

Washington, Colorado experiment with legalization

Since then, Liberal governments twice took steps on changing marijuana laws (which went nowhere), while Colorado and Washington voters opted to legalize recreational marijuana use.

In March, Washington state named UCLA drug policy expert Mark Kleiman its marijuana guru. He sees an advantage for Canada "to hang back and see how the experiment comes out" in the two states.

But not for long. "We'll know a lot more two years from now than we know now about the risks and benefits," he tells CBC News. Kleiman does not think "legalization is going to be any screaming triumph."

A disappointed David Malmo-Levine watches televised coverage at the B.C. Marijuana Party offices in Vancouver on Dec. 23, 2003 of the Supreme Court of Canada's decision that possession of marijuana remains a crime. (Richard Lam/Canadian Press)

David Malmo-Levine, one of Canada's best-known pot activists, says legalization will be easy. "The right way to legalize marijuana is to focus on the legitimate concerns of harm from misuse of marijuana and of excluding people from the market."

The harms he has in mind are impaired driving and health problems from substandard, mouldy or contaminated cannabis.

Decriminalization not a recommended route

Nolin, Kleiman and Malmo-Levine all say that decriminalization as an interim measure is not the route to take toward legalization.

Even though he notes that about 60,000 Canadians face possession charges every year, Nolin says "I would keep the bad system we have, keeping in mind we must change it."

"We're kidding ourselves with decriminalization, because we're keeping it illegal" he argues, and that makes it more difficult to prevent problematic use.

Decriminalization would be equivalent to prohibition of alcohol in the 20th century and Kleiman notes that certainly wasn't a success.

He also says decriminalization would do nothing to get rid of the illicit market, have very little impact on consumption or address the issue "about people getting products that are completely untested, unlabelled, with no idea about what's actually in them."

"I'm not sure inching in through decriminalization matters one way or the other," he argues.

Malmo-Levine, who has studied the international record, says "decriminalization is worse than nothing at all." His view is that "harmless people don't need to be harmed less, they need to stop being harmed."

Applying a wine model to marijuana

If a wine model is used for marijuana legalization, consumers would be able to grow their own pot or buy it from a government store. (Anthony Bolante/Reuters)

Malmo-Levine also favours using a system similar to what Canada has in place for wine, at least initially, for marijuana legalization.

He says parents would be able to set the rules over their teenage children's use and, as with wine, there would be no monopoly on production or sales. People would be able to grow their own marijuana, the same way they can make their own wine at home or at a commercial operation.

Kleiman sees some problems with the wine model. He wants liquor boards to "take a much broader view of the public interest and hold themselves accountable for the total damage done by alcohol, both drunken misbehaviour and the health consequences of heavy drinking.

"And I think that applies to cannabis as well."

He's against "a purely commercial market in cannabis, like the one we now have with alcohol," because he expects it would result in the same pathologies. "I would much rather have people grow their own or form co-ops or get it from a state monopoly, where the people in charge won't have a strong vested interest in fostering addiction."

He recommends Canada allow private cultivation, but require that growers only sell their cannabis to the government retailer. That idea sounds like the old Canadian Wheat Board.

The advantage of this approach, Kleiman says, is the state can keep control of the marketing effort and hinder "the development of an economically and politically powerful industry that then can't be moved, like the existing beer industry."

He lists off some more advice. "You want to keep the price high, you want to keep the marketing down, you want to make sure that consumers know what they're getting, not just in the sense of knowing what the chemistry is, but knowing what the likely effect is, so I'd want to have very strong vendor training in place."

A binding quota for pot users

Washington state's drug guru Mark Kleiman recommends a legalization scheme that requires marijuana consumers to set a binding quota for how much they can buy each month, although they would be able to revise their quota with a month's notice. (Courtesy UCLA Luskin )

Kleiman also recommends requiring marijuana consumers to set a binding quota for how much they can buy each month, though they would be able to revise their quota with a month's notice.

"Cannabis is not a bad habit for most people who use it, any more than food is but ... we shouldn't have a laissez-faire approach towards selling it" because a limited number of people will have their bad habits run away with them.

Kleiman and Malmo-Levine both stress the need for a system of quality control, both for impurities such as pesticide residues and mould, and for the active agents in the cannabis. That requires testing and labelling.

As he did in the 2002 Senate report, Nolin today recommends that as a first step toward legalization the prime minister should appoint a special envoy on marijuana (and all psychoactive substances) who would join the Privy Council Office and convene a conference of key stakeholders. Canada should also seek amendments to United Nations conventions and treaties governing illegal drugs.

As for legislation, in the words of the report, it "should stipulate the conditions for obtaining licences as well as for producing and selling cannabis; criminal penalties for illegal trafficking and export; and the preservation of criminal penalties for all activities falling outside the scope of the exemption scheme" for cannabis.

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G20 leaders to talk growth, with Syria in the background

World leaders arrive in St. Petersburg, Russia on Wednesday for a G20 summit meant to tackle global economic uncertainty but overshadowed by international disagreement over what to do about the worsening conflict in Syria.

The likelihood that Syria and an alleged chemical weapons attack there will be a major topic in the corridors of the G20 meetings was underscored Tuesday by the late announcement that Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird would join Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty at the summit.

Before he left for the summit Wednesday morning, Harper spoke to British Prime Minister David Cameron about the summit and the situation in Syria, Harper's spokesman said.

The G20 leaders have been meeting regularly since the onset of the global recession in 2008, and this week's official agenda includes meetings on fostering freer trade, creating stronger financial regulations, red-tape reduction and job creation.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper waves as he boards a military Airbus for the flight to the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia. (Chris Rands/CBC)

Unofficially though, former prime minister Paul Martin says leaders will take advantage of the opportunity to meet face-to-face to discuss the situation in Syria and how to respond.

"There's no doubt that the discussions out of the room, in the corridors, are every bit as important as the discussions at the table, and there is no doubt that this will form an enormous amount of the informal discussion," Martin said in an interview.

Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reminded reporters that the G20 was "created to solve exclusively financial and economic problems," but that any leader is welcome to bring up Syria and that the government is prepared for the topic to come up.

That might well be an uncomfortable scenario for Russia. As one of Syria's staunchest allies, Russia is off-side in the international community, particularly since an alleged chemical weapons attack on Aug. 21 that some blame on the governing regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Andrew MacDougall, the prime minister's chief spokesperson, says Harper won't hesitate to raise objections with Russian President Vladimir Putin over human-rights abuses, whether in relation to Syria or to Russia's new law outlawing so-called homosexual propaganda.

"If the two men find themselves in the same room talking, I can assure you the prime minister will raise these matters. Obviously for us the focus of the meeting is very much of the global economy."

That's what Len Edwards will be watching for this week. The former deputy minister at Foreign Affairs was Harper's sherpa, or emissary, ahead of several past G8 and G20 summits.

"I think the maturity of an institution really is tested by these moments when difficult issues are maybe not at the table but are in the environment around that discussion at the table and certainly that's the case now," he said.

Looking for progress on debt

Another test of the institution will come in the form of an official accountability report on how nations have followed through on past commitments to get their fiscal houses in order.

MacDougall says Canada supports that kind of accountability, adding that Canada has already met all of its commitments on debt and deficit reduction. "To keep the credibility of the institution and to keep the global economy on a path of growth we think it's important for countries to meet those targets that they've committed to publicly and to have no backsliding on them."

However, Julia Kulik has studied G20 compliance rates and says they're nothing to write home about.

According to the senior researcher at the G8/G20 Research Group at the Munk School of Global Affairs, nations have the best record on labour and employment where they've followed through on just 57 per cent of their commitments.

Employment is, by any measure, one of the most important topics on the program this week. New statistics show Europe's unemployment rate at 12 per cent, meaning more than 25 million Europeans are out of work.

Scott Gilmore, CEO of Building Markets, a non-profit group, hopes leaders don't trot out plans for yet more skills training.

What's the point, Gilmore asks, when there are likely to be no jobs on the other side of it?

"You know, help the small businesses. They're the ones that are creating 86 per cent of the new jobs, so find out what you can do to help them," he said.

"Is it reducing the red tape? Is it reducing corruption? These are things you can work on. They're not as sexy, as tangible as a training program, but in the end they're going to create a lot more jobs."

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