Was It Something I Wrote?
     
Hernando Calvo Ospina, Progreso-Weekly, May 4, 2009

Air France Flight 438, from Paris, was to land at Mexico City at 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 18. Five hours before landing, the captain's voice announced that U.S. authorities had prohibited the plane from flying over U.S. territory. The explanation: among the passengers aboard was a person who was not welcome in the United States for reasons of national security.

A few minutes later, the same voice told the startled passengers that the plane was heading for Fort-de-France, Martinique, because the detour the plan needed to take to reach its destination was too long and the fuel was insufficient.

The stopover in that French territory in the Caribbean would be only to refuel the plane. Exhaustion was becoming an issue among the passengers. But the central question, spoken in undertones, was the identity of the "terrorist" passenger, because if the "gringos" say it, "it must be because he must be a terrorist."

Looking at those of us sitting in the back of the plane, two passengers said no terrorist could be there because "nobody there looks like a Muslim."

CSIS is proving to be just as inept and dysfunctional as the discredited RCMP Security Service it replaced in 1984

Andrew Mitrovica, Toronto Star, 17 April 2008

The case that was supposed to be a defining moment in Canada's so-called "war on terror" is becoming a national embarrassment.

Earlier this week, federal lawyers stayed charges against the four "ringleaders" of a "homegrown terror" group that police and security officials once insisted with great fanfare were the spiritual and ideological architects of sinister plans to launch terrorist attacks in this country.

The media dubbed the gang "The Toronto 18." The catalogue of crimes they were apparently poised to unleash was astonishing. The plans included storming Parliament Hill, beheading the Prime Minister and seizing control of CBC's Toronto headquarters to issue a jihadist manifesto.

Today, the number of alleged "terrorists" involved in this conspiracy sits at 11 and is bound, despite the bravado of government lawyers, to plummet further.

Bob Robertson, The Ottawa Citizen, March 17, 2008
 
OTTAWA -- This is an open letter to the minister of Public Safety, Border Security and Wacky Haircuts, Mr. Stockwell Day.
 
Dear Minister Day,
 
I am writing to you because I think someone has to say these things. I have volunteered myself for the job because, perhaps, you might personally read it, knowing it came from me. Remember, you heard my routine once, then stole some of my jokes? But that's a story for another day (or another Day).
 
I was at the airport heading out on another comedy jaunt into the hinterland, bringing quality laughs to the humour-starved residents of postal codes with a lot of zeroes in them.
 

Highlights of "security" spending in the 2008 budget  (also see Globe and Mail article below):

Group no major threat

Ian MacLeod, The Ottawa Citizen, 7 March 2008

Canada's biggest case of alleged homegrown terrorism -- the "Toronto 18" -- is turning out to be little more than a bunch of "wannabe jihadists" who posed little real danger, says a national security adviser to the federal cabinet.

David Charters, an expert on modern warfare and terrorism, and a member of the Advisory Council on National Security to the Harper cabinet, says what initially appeared to be a frightening plot to bomb Toronto landmarks and storm Parliament by a group dubbed the "Toronto 18," appears to be something far less sinister.

**DOWNLOAD FLYER.**

Screening: