Bass said in an exclusive interview that he was disappointed with "the apparent lack of understanding of the importance of this legislation with respect to the Air India Investigation," especially given that investigative hearings were upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Bass said the hearings would have allowed those reluctant to come forward the protection they needed to tell the truth about the biggest mass murder in Canadian history.
"The investigative hearing process offered the potential for individuals inclined to cooperate, but afraid of retribution, a vehicle to explain their cooperation within their community, by being able to explain that they had no choice but to testify truthfully," Bass said.
Gerard Kennedy and Martha Hall Findlay are receiving salaries from the Liberal Party to help prepare for the coming election, but how much they earn is being kept secret.
The lack of transparency is causing concern among some Liberals and leading to speculation that private deals were made because Mr. Kennedy and Ms. Hall Findlay were the two leadership candidates who dropped off the ballot early and threw significant support behind Stéphane Dion. The secrecy is also driving speculation among some Liberals that Ms. Hall Findlay and Mr. Kennedy are earning big salaries.
Todd Russell, a Liberal MP for the riding of Labrador, said that "any time you take a bully on and push him back, that's a victory. (Prime Minister Stephen Harper) is a bully, and he got what's coming to him tonight."
...Opposition parties argued yesterday that these emergency powers are too radical for rights sensitive Canadians, yet in the next breath insisted they merely duplicate measures available elsewhere in the Criminal Code...
And the Conservatives have signalled an unusual willingness to bend on the extension, offering to settle for a six-month extension with a promise to study changes to the law until the fall sitting.
Liberal MP Ralph Goodale, whose righteous indignation knows no blustery bounds, is having none of it. The way he argues it, the political atmosphere in Ottawa has been so poisoned that the Conservatives cannot be trusted to keep their word.
Gosh. If it wasn't so wretchedly costly and doomed to recreate another minority Parliament, an election could almost be justified to euthanize a House of Commons slowly spiralling into bickering paralysis.
"Liberal MP Navdeep Bains should be a tad squeamish as well. Mr. Bains was the MP Prime Minister Stephen Harper inferred had influenced the Liberal's position because his father-in-law might appear at an investigative hearing on the Air India bombing. As such, Mr. Bains is clearly in a conflict of interest and should abstain from voting."
Ontario Liberal Senator David Smith denied that the Liberal caucus is divided or that this issue is affecting the morale of the caucus members.
"I haven't sensed that. These things aren't totally black and white. There's a range of opinions on it but our caucus is very supportive of our leader. I support him 150 per cent and he'll get through this complicated, tricky issue in a way that's reasonable and responsible," Sen. Smith told The Hill Times.
Sen. Smith, who chaired the special Senate Committee on the Anti-terrorism Act last week, recommended that the two controversial measures be extended for three years.
..."It's a mistake, it's divisive and has affected the morale of the caucus. If this was brand new legislation and the Liberals didn't have their fingerprints all over it from before, then it would be different but it's not. The majority of the people who are in the House now on the Liberal side were there when this legislation was passed by the Liberals"...
"The story was not a plant by anybody," Bolan said. "All this talk of plants by the government or the RCMP is ludicrous.
"Nobody has disputed a single element of the story because it's true," said Bolan, who has covered the Air India case since the tragedy in 1985.
Bolan said it's ridiculous that politicians are reacting as if the information is some kind of security breach. She said anyone who has covered the Air India case in any detail has the information.
Most political observers were shaking their heads when Prime Minister Stephen Harper attacked newly minted Liberal Member of Parliament Navdeep Bains.
I wrote the story and there was no leak. It was very apparent from sitting through 19 months of the Air India trial who would be the obvious choices for investigative hearings - all the names came out during the evidence at the trial. After the trial, I wrote my book on Air India, called "Loss of Faith: How the Air India Bombers Got Away With Murder" and reviewed documents related to the one Supreme Court challenge of the investigative hearing provision, launched and lost by Satnam Reyat - the wife of the only man convicted.
I have covered this story since 1985 so there are few mysteries or secrets. I first interviewed Darshan SINgh Saini back in 1988. I have a copy of parts of his police statement that came out during the Air India trial. The reason I wrote the story this week is because I just learned (through Sikh community contacts, not POLICE) that Saini was the father-in-law of Bains. I did not know that until very recently. I called up Saini and Bains and they confirmed it. I thought it was relevant.
So don't always look for a political conspiracy. In this case, there isn't one.
Kim Bolan | 02.23.07 - 2:17 am
No one--including us --is accusing the MP in question, Navdeep Bains, of any illegal behaviour. And voters are entitled to make their own individual judgments on whether the PM was engaging in dirty pool by opening the pages of the Sun in the privileged environment of the House of Commons. But they would be advised to ignore the slanted, indignant language that some other media outlets are trying to disguise as impartial reporting.
The PM is being accused of suggesting that the Liberals changed their policy on ant terror legislation to protect Mr. Bains' father-in-law, Darshan Singh Saini, or, more generally, to cripple an Air India investigation that many in the Sikh community oppose. In fact, it is only by clairvoyance that reporters can claim to know what Mr. Harper would have said in his complete reply. He was shouted down long before he had the chance to make the "suggestion" being freely attributed to him (readers may wonder why the Liberals did not sit quietly and let him continue covering himself with "shame").
But even if Mr. Harper intended to suggest what he is being accused of suggesting, his only "shame" lies in saying what millions of Canadians are thinking. The Sikh voting bloc that Mr. Bains drew to the Dion camp (via Gerard Kennedy) at the Liberal convention in December is a critical reason why it is Mr. Dion, as opposed to Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff, who now sits as Leader of the Opposition. Why would it be out of bounds to suggest that Mr. Dion's sudden and stalwart opposition to key anti-terrorism provisions -- even over the objections of many influential members of his own divided caucus -- might somehow be traced to those same provisions being potentially used to compel testimony from the supporters of a king making MP?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper abused his privilege this week when he cited a story by Vancouver Sun reporter Kim Bolan to suggest that the Liberals are opposing an extension of an Anti-Terrorism Act provision set to expire next week because of a connection to one of their MPs.
Bolan's exclusive report that the father-in-law of Ontario MP Navdeep Bains is on a witness list to testify before an investigative hearing in relation to the Air India bombing made no such connection.
