Thursday 05 June 2008 the Metropolitain International security, trade and governance According to a legend, in creating the world, God gave to Canada British Columbia, the Gulf Islands, the Rockies and many other natural wonders. Someone asked, "Why are so many good things going to Canadians?" God replied, "Wait till you see the neighbours I'm giving them." You'll recall the similar Mexican cri de coeur, "Oh Mexico! So far from God; so close to the United States!"
Canadian International Council/Conseil International du Canada, Victoria Branch Changing Dynamics in Canada – U.S. Relations
According to a legend, in creating the world, God gave to Canada British Columbia, the Gulf Islands, the Rockies and many other natural wonders. Someone asked, “Why are so many good things going to Canadians?” God replied, “Wait till you see the neighbours I’m giving them.” You’ll recall the similar Mexican cri de coeur, “Oh Mexico! So far from God; so close to the United States!”
Our three countries are well-placed geographically and there are numerous joint approaches to common concerns. One is waterfowl co-operation among the three peoples, which is seen as the most successful international conservation plan in the world. Barry Turner of Ducks Unlimited Canada notes that since the North American waterfowl management plan partnership began in 1986, more than C$1.3 billion has been invested in securing and managing 2.4 million hectares of Canadian wetland and adjacent upland land. Canada contains a quarter of the planet’s wetlands and habitat for 80% of the continent’s waterfowl population and 310 other bird species.
Following years of spirited discussions over lunches and emails between David Jones, the former American diplomat, and myself Uneasy Neighbo(u)rs, was released last fall. Coming to the conclusion that for reasons of history, geopolitics and culture, Canada and the U.S. are different and always will be in our approaches to some core policy issues, we set out to explain these differences dispassionately on a dozen or so key issues. One chapter, for example, deals with the very differing world roles of the two countries; another looks specifically at the military in each. more
Wednesday 28 November 2007 Matas and Kilgour . China harvests organs The argument by Glen McGregor in Saturday's Citizen ("Inside China's 'crematorium'") is that the government of China must not be found guilty by world opinion to be pillaging organs from Falun Gong practitioners on the basis of circumstantial evidence, no matter how overwhelming. He wants to see a smoking scalpel, a confessing surgeon or a surviving organ "donor."
Unfortunately, none of this kind of evidence is available. The medical professionals involved are complicit in murder and are not going to talk about it. There are no surviving organ donors from the Falun Gong community across China.
The world is not a criminal courtroom, but our report, "Bloody Harvest," (which we prepared on a volunteer basis) concludes, based on evidence which is independently verifiable and available on our website (www.organharvestinvestigation.net), that the party-state in China and its agencies have over six years put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience and sold their vital organs for high prices, sometimes to "organ tourists" from abroad.
....Hospital websites post self-incriminating information, boasting a matter of days and weeks for waiting times for all organs for large payments, ranging from $30,000 U.S. for corneas to $180,000 for liver-kidney combinations. In other countries, waits are months and years.
Thursday 15 November 2007 19:00 Beyond The Red Wall: The Persecution of Falun Gong airs on The Lens, Nov. 24, at 11 p.m. ET/PT.
Re: "CBC delays Falun Gong film after Chinese protest" (Gazette, Nov. 8).
Editing films and documentaries right up to the last minute does happen in television. What is extremely rare - and quite odd - is cancelling a scheduled broadcast hours or even minutes before its advertised time. This induces consumer, audience and stakeholder dissatisfaction and loss of company sponsorship.
In cancelling Beyond the Red Wall, a film about the mistreatment of the Falun Gong movement in China, the CBC has let down all of the above. Its withdrawal also constitutes false advertising. The CBC is neither credible nor reliable.
Charmaine Millott
Victoria
Tuesday 06 November 2007
Hi all,
Good luck this week.
It was excellent being with you last week and hope to return soon.
Thanks David and Diana. David Kilgour at Wed1339
Sunday 21 October 2007 From Ottawa, the Hon. DAVID KILGOUR, international human rights advocate on Burma burning and Desmond Tutu’s call for a possible boycott of the Beijing Olympics;
SqueezePlay [09-24-07 5:00PM ET]
Part 3/3: David Kilgour, fmr. MP and author of 'Uneasy Neighbo(u)rs', discusses the Canada-U.S. divide. Thursday 27 September 2007
The relationship between the US and Canada is a long-standing friendship. But it's not without occasional tension. There are times that tension is even felt in Vermont. David Kilgour and David T. Jones have just written a
new book on the subject, called "Uneasy Neighbors: Canada, the USA, and the Dynamics of State, Industry, and
Culture." They spoke with VPR's Jane
Lindholm about the status of our relationship with Canada.
With $2 billion in trade a day crossing the U.S.–Canada border, the relations between these two nations is more than a marriage of convenience. Sharing the world’s longest undefended border, both nations are geographic Siamese twins, bound by a common interest in democratic processes, health care and education, as well as military and defense—from the perspectives of differing histories and cultures.
It is exactly these varying perspectives that make the two nations unique. Each country approaches their cultural heritage from decidedly contrary outlooks. Both Canadians and Americans are proud, but the reasons behind their pride are vastly different. At this point in our development as separate democracies united on one continent, it is important to take a look at what makes each society different from the other.
Written by two seasoned government officials, this book examines the unique destiny shared by these two nations and their vital stake in such issues as national identity, economics, culture, religion, military defense, human rights and the environment.
David W. Kilgour (Ottawa, Ontario) has had a distinguished career in Canadian federal politics as an MP in both the Conservative and Liberal parties. During over 26 years in parliament, he also served as Secretary of State for Latin America & Africa, Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific and Deputy Speaker of the House.
David T. Jones (Arlington, Virginia) is a retired U.S. senior foreign-service officer, whose diplomatic career of almost 30 years focused on NATO and armscontrol issues. He also served as a political minister counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa from 1992 to 1996.
David Kilgour
was the long-serving (May 1979 until January 2006) Member of Parliament
for the southeastern area of Edmonton.. In addition to serving as an MP
(and Secretary of State for Latin America & Africa, later for
Asia-Pacific), David is an author, with three books [1] to his credit and a new one about to be published, Uneasy Neighbors, which is co-authored with our friend, American diplomat David Jones.
Recently, David has devoted much of his energies to producing with his co-author David Matas cjlsa.ca/cdavid.the report “Bloody Harvest” on the Chinese government sanctioned harvesting of organs from members of the Falun Gong (see also).
On August 9, he launched a Global Human Rights Torch Relay
through 100 cities around the world. The year-long relay is designed to
draw attention to crimes against humanity committed by the Chinese
government against practitioners of Falun Gong. In line with his longstanding commitment to Human Rights, David is also active on issues related to Tibetand to Darfur see also
On the subject of Darfur, the Montreal Conference on Darfur,
an event organized by Beryl Wajsman’s Institute for Public Affairs of
Montreal in conjunction with The Suburban newspapers and the Dym Family
Foundation on Thursday the 16th. was a great event
Thursday 09 August 2007 Former MP wants to ignite Games boycott OTTAWA -- At the birthplace of the Olympic movement, a former Canadian member of Parliament will today ignite what he hopes will become a global movement to boycott next year's summer Games in Beijing.
Calling the 2008 Games the "Bloody Harvest Olympics," former Edmonton MP David Kilgour is inviting the media to Athens, Greece, to cover a Global Human Rights Torch Relay. Once lit in Athens, the torch will travel through 100 cities around the world.
The “Bloody Harvest Olympics” is what former Edmonton
MP David Kilgour is calling the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Kilgour is
pushing for a worldwide boycott of the Games to protest the alleged crimes
against humanity committed by the Chinese government against practitioners
of the Falun Gong faith. Kilgour and Winnipeg lawyer
David Matas made international headlines last year with a report
detailing the persecution of the Falun Gong, describing the process in
which the Chinese government harvests the organs of Falun Gong
practitioners for sale to foreign tourists. Supporters have charged that
the Chinese government operated a facility, much like a concentration
camp, where practitioners were imprisoned, executed, their organs removed
and their bodies cremated. In response to Kilgour’s rumblings, the
Chinese embassy in Ottawa issued a written statement last night which
argued that any attempt to politicize the games violates the spirit of the
Olympic movement. “To exploit the chance of the Beijing Olympic Games
to engage in anti-China activity is not only shameful but also doomed to
fail,” the statement said, as reported in the Citizen.
Today, Kilgour is inviting the media to Athens, Greece, to cover a Global
Human Rights Torch Relay. The year-long event, which will take a torch
through one hundred cities around the world, including Ottawa, is designed
to draw attention to the cause of members of Falun Gong. The question of
Beijing’s suitability for the Olympics is taken up by The National,
which raises the issues of smog density in Beijing and whether the city is
making an effort to clean up in preparation for the Games. As this CBC
article mentions, Chinese officials have taken some measures to
guarantee cleaner air, such as keeping cars off the roads during the
seventeen-day period of the Games and firing rockets containing sticks of
silver iodide to induce rain and clean the air. And yesterday’s top
story is not forgotten either, as the Western
Pro-Tibet activists who were deported from China returned home. The
Globe spoke to protestor Melanie Raoul of Vancouver, who explained that
her group was interrogated for hours by Chinese security police, were
given little chance to sleep, and were given no opportunity to contact
family or the Canadian embassy throughout the thirty-six hours they were
held. It appears that the desire of the Chinese embassy in Ottawa to
separate politics from the 2008 Olympic Games is, in its own words, a
“doomed” one.
THE NATIONAL: “Excitement
and Expulsion: China shows the world what to expect at the next
Olympics”
Tuesday 07 August 2007
One Year Ahead of Olympics, Gross Rights Violations Persist in China
Multiple human rights protests and forums mark eve of one-year-before the Games
ATHENS—Chinese Communist Party leaders may have dreamed that on the eve of one-year-before the Olympic Games, they would be the darlings of a positive global media spin. But such a dream, considering a suite of recent revelations, now looks much more like a nightmare.
"What I heard today in this seminar really touched my soul and my heart. I am really touched, shocked, and ashamed that in modern societies such violations could take place," Greek politician Argiris Sideris told The Epoch Times at the Olympic Games vs. Crimes Against Humanity In China forum in Athens on August 7.
Making a mockery of the Olympic spirit
Robert Menard
National Post
Published: Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Much remains to be done before tens of thousands of athletes, sports enthusiasts and journalists turn up in Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games a year from now.
That includes not just all the construction work necessary for a great sporting occasion, but work on human rights, which are still being abused throughout the country on a daily basis.
Despite clear promises China made before it was awarded the Games in 2001, it has done almost nothing to improve human rights. A Chinese official had told the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that if it accepted China's candidacy, "you will be helping the expansion of human rights." But six years later, things are still very bleak.
At least 30 journalists and 50 Internet users are in prison in China, and some have been there since the 1980s. Many have been tortured. They are serving heavy jail sentences for "disclosing state secrets," "subversion" or supposed defamation --after just writing an article or sending an e-mail.
The government blocks access to thousands of news Web sites. Broadcasts in Chinese, Tibetan and Uighur by a dozen foreign radio stations are jammed.
After removing allegedly dissident messages from online discussion forums, the authorities are now targeting blogs and video-exchange sites. Censors have fitted all the country's blog tools with devices to filter out "subversive" key words. Rules for foreign journalists working in China have been eased, but foreign media are still banned from hiring Chinese journalists or travelling freely to Tibet and Xinjiang.
Everyone who loves sport will be shocked to see the Olympic Games and its athletes used by a government that refuses to free thousands of prisoners of conscience and stop the practice of torture and forced labour.
The IOC is meanwhile risking its reputation by saying absolutely nothing about all this. Its charter says that sport must be "at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."
Nobody wants to spoil the big occasion or use the events for other ends. But while others stay silent, China and its ruling Communist Party are abusing the Games and the Olympic spirit.
With just a year to go, it is more urgent than ever to demand that China keep to its pledges. The IOC must act and its president, Jacques Rogge, must speak up. If he does not, the slogan of the 2008 Games, "One world, One dream," will be nothing more than a cynically broken promise.
Athletes, journalists, lovers of sport and everyone who supports human rights must publicly express their concern about the countless violations of freedom in China. When the Games open, there should be celebrations all over China, not just in the stadiums.
- Robert Menard is the president of Reporters Without Borders
Global Torch Relay Aims to End Persecution of Falun Gong 'Beijing Olympics and crimes against humanity cannot co-exist'
Human rights groups aim to rally opposition to the Chinese Communist Party's crimes against humanity as a torch is passed from one runner to another on a route spanning five continents.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Global Human Rights Torch Relay was announced at a news conference outside the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C. on August 3. Just as in every Olympics a route is chosen for the torchbearers announcing the Olympic Games, the "Run for Human Dignity" will call attention to the Beijing Olympic Games and the much criticized human rights record of the host country.
The Human Rights Torch Relay (HRTR) begins in Athens Greece, August 9th, a year before the start of the Beijing Olympics. Then in a ceremony, HRTR will light its first flame. This torch acts as a symbol of the protection of human rights and respect of human life. The HRTR will end in Asia; the exact location is still being determined.
The torch will pass through five continents, and more than 20 countries and 100 cities. The message HRTR wants to convey is: "Beijing Olympics and crimes against humanity cannot co-exist." The HRTR is initiated by prominent members of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG).
Organ Harvesting in China: 'Bloody Harvest' Soon in Book Form
On the 31st January of this year, David Kilgour and David Matas published a revised and extended report "Bloody Harvest". In this report, the authors reached the conclusion that in the span of six years more than 40,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been murdered for their organs.
David is also active on issues related to Tibet ....As part of the internship, they attended sessions in the House of Commons and the Senate and listened to a presentation by former MP and long-time Tibet-supporter David Kilgour about human organ-harvesting in China. Several other highlights included a private lunch meeting with Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deepak Obhrai, and media workshop by a journalist from the Ottawa Citizen newspaper. They also met with Canada Tibet Committee founder Thupten Samdup, and attended a Parliamentary Friends of Tibet meeting.
(01/31/2007)
Chinese organ harvesting warning urged
A former member of Parliament and a high-profile immigration lawyer are calling on the Foreign Affairs Department to issue an advisory warning Canadians off of travelling to China for organ transplants.
OTTAWA - The Conservative government is planning to investigate allegations in a new report that the Chinese government and its agencies are torturing religious prisoners and harvesting their organs, Tory MP Deepak Obhrai indicated on Thursday.
"We take these allegations quite seriously, and we'll look into that," said Obhrai, who is parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay. "We'll look to have it confirmed."
The report, prepared by former Alberta MP David Kilgour and international human rights lawyer David Matas, included transcripts of recorded conversations in Mandarin with hospital and detention-centre officials who admitted they had organs available for transplants from Falun Gong prisoners
PRINCIPLED LEADERSHIP: TAKING THE HARD RIGHT
by Gerard H. Seijts and Hon. David Kilgour On August 30, 2004, former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani delivered a riveting speech at the Republican National Convention. “They [the media] ridiculed Winston Churchill. They belittled Ronald Reagan, ” Giuliani said. “But like President Bush, they were optimists, and leaders must be optimists. Their vision was beyond the present and set on a future of real peace and true freedom. Some call it stubbornness. I call it principled leadership.” ... Leadership today is about winning the trust and respect of constituents, including citizens, shareholders, employees, and customers. But should these constituents place their trust (and money) in a leader’s hands? Constituents take the time to evaluate the character, competence and commitment of those that are (or aspire to be) in leadership positions. And anytime there is a gap between what the leader says and does the credibility of that leader will suffer. Therefore, it is no surprise that individuals get disillusioned when their leaders prove themselves to be only mere images of the values that they espouse. It is under such conditions that people believe that their “leaders” do not show principled leadership. As a result, the dynamic currency of leadership depreciates, compromising the leader’s ability to lead. In this article, we describe principled leadership and how it keeps leaders on the right course.
Former MP for Edmonton-Beaumont David Kilgour speaks with Canada AM on Thursday from CTV's bureau in Ottawa.
Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners gather in protest against China's suspected abuse and killing of Falun Gong members on April 23, 2006 in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei, Taiwan. (AP Photo /Chiang Ying-ying)
Chinese embassy denies organ harvesting report
Updated Thu. Jul. 6 2006 11:36 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa is dismissing a report by two prominent Canadian investigators that claims China has harvested the organs of Falun Gong prisoners.
Footage from the ISHR (International Society for Human Rights) press conference at Presseclub Concordia, Vienna, with Canadian MP Mr. David Kilgour about his and Mr. David Matas research on the CCP's organ harvesting of persecuted Falun Gong practitioners in China. Introduction in German by Mrs. Katharina Grieb, ISHR Austria President.
video page for more
30 April 2006
Stopping the Darfur Genocide Now
Time is short so permit me to speak briefly to three issues: (1) what continues to go on across Sudan’s western province, (2) why the genocide has not been stopped to date, and (3) a new proposal for concerned governments to bring the violence to a halt quickly.
The 21st century’s first genocide astonishingly has now entered its third year while the world watches. According to an analysis of UN data by Eric Reeves of Smith College, fully 215,000 Darfuri civilians have been murdered since early 2003, with approximately 200, 000 more dead from disease and malnutrition.
With more than 400,000 Darfurians already dead, will the international community allow this to increase to half a million before acting? To 800,000 as in the case of Rwanda? To one million? more
Also FAIR ( Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform) promotes integrity and accountability within government by empowering employees to speak out without fear of reprisal when they encounter wrongdoing. Our aim is to support legislation and management practices that will provide effective protection for whistleblowers and hence occupational free speech in the workplace.
FAIR was founded in 1998 by Joanna Gualtieri, a prominent Canadian whistleblower, and is a registered Canadian charity.
and David Jones
Please e-mail us your thoughts. 
Please phone (514)934-0023 
One Year Ahead of Olympics, Gross Rights Violations Persist in China
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