Your Singhs today (Niagara edition)

Here's a mug shot of Manpreet Singh, a typical Brampton ON man who is no longer in Brampton. Why? Because he's on the lam, believed by police to have caught the next plane to India (location of "free Khalistan") after having murdered 27-year-old Amanpreet Saini, a North York woman and co-religionist. 

Ms Sami's lifeless body was found with traumatic injuries at Charles Daley Park in Lincoln ON, part of Niagara Region, earlier this week. For reasons known only to themselves (so far), police have issued a Canada-wide warrant charging Mr Singh with second-degree murder. The cops figured Mr Singh had left Canada when he failed to show up for his regular shift at DiversityTransport Ltd.

Sounds like an honour killing, doesn't it? Actually, no. Such crimes are more common amongst followers of the Prophet. Sikh men are more likely to kill their women in some sort of crime of passion -- rejection of a marriage proposal, for example -- hence the charge of second-degree murder. 

With typical Canadian political correctness, police have said nothing about Mr Singh's citizenship -- he's assumed to be an Indian national -- or his status in Canada, which we can safely assume is "irregular". If our assumption turns out to be wrong, we'll post an apology here. Don't hold your breath.

Cheezit! the cops!

For months now, CBC Radio has been airing items about "alleged" corruption in the Niagara (Canada) Regional Police Department. There have been stories of drug abuse and drug smuggling across the bridges connecting Ontario with those terrible border towns on the New York side of the Niagara River. But for some reason most of the lamestream media have downplayed or outright ignored the story. Until today.

Today Niagara's finest acknowledged, at last, that yes, there has been an investigation. And yes, some current and past members of the force are involved. Charges have been laid, not just under the toothless Police Act, but under the Criminal Code.

Was it the problem with "substances" that just couldn't be hushed up any more? Well, errr, you might say that. The serious crime which led to today's charges was... wait for it... cheese smuggling.

That's right! Seems its not just Packers fans who are cheeseheads. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Cheese Squads of the US Department of Homeland Security and the Canada Border Services Ehgency, Police Constable Scott Heron, 39, former Niagara Regional police officer Casey Langelaan, 48, and Fort Erie resident Bernie Pollino, 44, were arrested and "charged in regard to a large-scale smuggling scheme to distribute cheese products and other food items into Canada," according to a statement issued by the regional police.

According to the news release, over $200,000 worth of cheese and other products were purchased and distributed to pizzerias and other low joints for an estimated profit of more than $165,000. Charges laid against include conspiracy to commit the indictable offence of smuggling goods under the Criminal Code and Customs Act, plus offences of breach of trust; making false or deceptive statements; evasion of duties; and acquiring, keeping, and/or disposing of illegally imported goods. Oh yes, and smuggling.

The Niagara Regional Police are also investigating some of their officers with respect to steroid use and possible trafficking in performance-enhancing drugs, but it was the cheese that really took the copcake. (Geddit?)

Agent 3 will keep us posted on whether any Ontario judge will break with the tradition of acquitting any officer charged with any offence because, after all, it wouldn't do to shake the public's confidence in the police and so-called justice system. Stay tuned.

War of 1812 bicentennial celebrations: has anything been learned?

The first shots -- purely rhetorical -- in the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the War of 1812 have been fired. At the historic battlefield of Queenston Heights, Ontario, yesterday, the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada (and winner of the Steve Harper Prize for Excellence in Drafting Terms of Reference) launched "1000 days of commemorations" of the first war started and lost by the USA.

Perhaps because it was not a Great American Victory [like Vietnam? Ed.], the War of 1812 is not well known in the Excited States. War was declared by President Madison on June 18th, on the advice of many political and military notables, including President Jefferson who opined that the annexation of Canada -- that being the point of the exercise -- was "merely a matter of marching".

As in Vietnam, Iraq and, now, Afghanistan, it turned out to be not so easy. The United States was not prepared to prosecute a war. Madison had assumed that the state militias would easily seize Canada and that negotiations would follow. In 1812, the US Army comprised fewer than 12,000 men. Congress authorized its expansion to 35,000, but the service was voluntary and unpopular. It offered poor pay, and there were few trained and experienced officers.

The militia objected to serving outside their home states, were not open to discipline, and performed poorly against British forces when outside their home states. One of the first places this lesson was learned was at Queenston, in October of 1812, when units of the New York militia refused to cross the Niagara River to join in the invasion.

All the same, enough Americans scaled Queenston Heights to overpower a small British force and capture its gun. The British, led by Major General Isaac Brock, counter-attacked. Brock, unwisely dressed in his full-dress uniform replete with gold braid, made an easy target for American sharp-shooters as he ran up the hill, and perished.

However, his 2IC, General Roger Hale Sheaffe, arrived with reinforcements -- British regulars, Canadian militia and a large number of "Indians" (as "First Nations" people were then called), whom the Americans feared greatly for their interest in scalp-collecting.

The men in red (and green and tan and assorted other colours) handed the Americans a crushing defeat, which will be re-enacted this fall. In his address yesterday, the Governor General expressed the hope that, in the spirit of friendship between the two countries, the Americans would refrain from using live ammunition. [Ed. Please check this; I didn't really listen to the speech.] Nevertheless, as they always sing in their national anthem, the Canadians will "stand on guard".

Footnote: Major General Brock became "Sir" Isaac Brock only after his death, being knighted posthumously. A very tall monument on Queenston Heights is surmounted by a statue of Brock, looking watchfully across the river -- standing on guard, no doubt. The only statue dedicated to General Sheaffe -- who actually won the battle -- is a small one...of his horse.

Another footnote: On June 15th, Canada Post issued two stamps, one showing "Sir Isaac Brock" and the other his great Indian ally, Tecumseh. The inscription on the marginal tab (above Tecumseh) says "They protected territories from American expansionism". Indeed.

Recommended reading: Two entertaining pop histories by Pierre Berton: The Invasion of Canada (covering the period 1812-13) and Flames Across the Border (1813-14). In the latter, you can read how the Americans routed the Brits from Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) and burned the village to the ground. Of course you'll also have to read about the British and Canadian burning of Buffalo. Niagara-on-the-Lake was rebuilt and is today a very pretty little town. As for Buffalo... well...

Book review: One great lake, two very different countries

Having lived and worked in both the US of A and Canada, I am sometimes asked to explain the differences between the countries, if any there be. Canada and the Excited States are quite different, but identifying and explaining the dissimilarities requires more time and space than I have ever cared to devote to so doing.

I was therefore gratified to stumble upon a highly recommendable book by two Americans -- Ken Sobol and Julie Macfie Sobol -- who migrated to Canada, and in the early 1990s undertook a series of trips through neighbouring parts of the two countries, perhaps to be sure they'd made the right decision. Their entertaining account of their wanderings, Looking for Lake Erie (Penguin 1996) is highly recommendable.

Ken Sobol and Julie Macfie were raised in the Cleveland and Detroit areas, respectively. They met at Oberlin College, married, moved to New York and in 1974 to Toronto. It would be nice to say that Ken and Julie had a lifelong love affair with Lake Erie, but it's not so. They began their travels around the lake in the course of researching magazine pieces. In the prologue we are told:

We...began to be intrigued by the lives of the people who lived along the lake. We wanted to know more about the millions of people who live along Erie's shores, some of whom worry about daily survival in dilapidated, drug-devastated slums while others drift through the American Dream in tidy suburbs, studiously oblivious to anyone else's problems, and still others rise at dawn to work their farms and pursue a daily routine not all that different from that of the first pioneers to settle in Ontario.

Where had they come from (and why and when), what place in the ongoing social history of the lakeshore did they occupy, what kind of communities had they developed? Had common patterns evolved from ne side of the lake to the other? How alike and how different are the two cultures that share the shoreline?

The Sobols' book is thus more sociology than geography. More social history than travelogue, Looking for Lake Erie paints a picture not just of an empty landscape, but of the nature and attitudes of the different peoples who inhabit the Canadian and American shores.

For Americans, Looking for Lake Erie will make depressing reading. The grim descriptions of Buffalo, Cleveland and Toledo beg the question of why American cities are the way they are. (That's the authors' question, not mine.) Why the dilapidation? Why the racial division? Why the depression? The writers do not attempt to give definitive answers, only suggestions presented in a down-to-earth and entertaining style which owes much to Bill Bryson and Dervla Murphy. (The debt is acknowledged in the authors' note.)

Canadians cannot look across the lake smugly. The Sobols point out the similarities (beyond the names) in Fort Erie ON and Erie PA, the former being described as "hanging on by a thread". That was nearly two decades ago. It would be interesting to revisit places like Leamington ON and Ashtabula OH today, to see if things have changed... for better or worse.

Looking for Lake Erie is chock-full of amusing, acute and sometimes profound observations of Americans, Canadians, and their settlements along the shores of the great lake. Even if you have no intention of going anywhere near that part of the continent the two countries share, the Sobols' book is not to be missed.

Niagara Parks gets a GRIP on Maid of the Mist

Way back in 2009, Walt wrote "Power to the people of Niagara Falls", about the sleaze and corruption surrounding the decision of the Niagara Parks Commission to renew its lease contract with the Maid of the Mist Steamboat Company.

The company, owned by the Glynn family of Niagara Falls NY, had managed, by hook or by crook -- mostly crook -- to secure a sweetheart deal for the continued operation of the famous "Maid of the Mist", while sharing less of the revenue with the NPC, which depends on revenue from that and other attractions to keep its magnificent parks open without government (meaning "taxpayer") funding.

The whistle was blown by an NPC commissioner, Bob Gale, who quit in disgust, and by William Windsor, who thought than an open competition for the right to operate the boat tour would have been a better idea than nailing the puck to the Glynns' stick.

In the aftermath, the provincially-appointed commissioners were sacked, and two very senior managers were either fired or quit in disgrace. A proper -- open and transparent -- competition was then ordered by the Ontario government. Today the result was at long last announced.

And the winner is -- envelope, please! -- not the Glynns! The Niagara Parks Commission announced this afternoon that Hornblower Canada -- their American parent runs boat tourst to Alcatraz and the Statue of Liberty -- gets the new 30-year lease. Visitors to Niagara Falls get a new and improved boat ride, and the NPC gets an estimated $500,000,000 in revenue.

Everybody wins, except those who sought to give and get corrupt benefits to line their own pockets.

Bribery, corruption and sleaze happen to be the subjects of Bill Windsor's website "Lawless America", to which Walt's attention has just been drawn. Check it out for Windsor's crowing comments on today's decision. Hey, he has a right to crow!

And while you're there, read about GRIP, the Government Reform & Integrity Platform. Think it can't work? It worked at Niagara Parks in Canada. Are Americans not at least as committed to honesty in openness in government as their neighbours to the north?!

OWS wannabes to try Christmas carols instead

Talk about coming late to the party! A handful of Ontario LIANE (Lefties Indignant About Nearly Everything) have organized themselves -- sort of -- into a group they call "Occupy Niagara".

A couple of days ago they held a meeting in a phone booth in Saint Catharines, to discuss the possibility of occupying a local park. This coincided with the removal from St. James Park in Toronto of that city's LIANE plus assorted panhandlers, street people and scum.

When it was pointed out that camping out in city parks was kind of passé -- not to mention illegal -- the would-be occupiers decided to look for other ways to protest. That could include marches say they might shun tents in favour of carolling.

The group has a Facebook page -- of course -- which suggests they might try flash mobs. Or a nice sing-along, presumably including "Kumbaya". Or maybe singing
"Occupy-themed Christmas carols".

Walt is not making this up, merely passing on the QMI agency report. [That's because we don't do Facebook. Ed.] But think. If they go carolling -- they already have the waif costumes -- what, exactly, will they be protesting? Political correctness? Then I'm all for it!

Let's all sing! Not "holiday songs" like "Winter Wonderland" but real honest-to-Christ carols like "Adeste Fideles". We really should wait until December 25th for those, but it's not to early for the Christmas is about Christ message.

War of 1812: film at 9!

Listen up, history buffs! PBS is airing a terrific new made-for-TV film on the War of 1812, tonight at 9 p.m. EDT.

Since the teaching of our own history is sadly neglected in American and Canadian schools these days, Walt will give you a quick recap. At the beginning of the second decade of the 19th century, the hated British (and others) were engaging Napoleon in Europe, and getting the worst of it. The Congress of the new(ish) United States of America reckoned that it would be a good time to finish what they started in 1776, and drive the British out of Canada. Doing so would only be "a matter of marching", it was said.

Well sir, American soldiers clashed with British, Canadian and Indian ["First Nations", surely! Ed.] forces to ultimately shape the geography and the identity of eastern North America as it is known today. In other words, the American invasion of Canada failed. Thus the War of 1812 became the first war the USA lost ["failed to win", surely! Ed.] until Vietnam.

Now PBS is attempting to do for the War of 1812 what Ken Burns' great series did for the Civil War. The lead station behind their new film, The War of 1812, which airs tonight is Buffalo's WNED-TV, which is only natural because the main part of the war was fought on the Niagara Frontier and Lakes Erie and Ontario.

Said Donald Boswell, WNED's president, "We have proudly recreated the War of 1812 for both nations. This timely examination of a shared history allows us to celebrate our past together, and renew the bond of our present and future as national neighbours." Rumours of Mr. Boswell's bid for the presidensity of the USA are unconfirmed as of this morning.

Historical figures depicted in the film include Tecumseh, William Henry Harrison and President James Madison, along with a Canadian icons such as General Sir Isaac Brock and, of course, Laura Secord.

The film also recounts dramatic human stories of ordinary citizens, the political alliances of the various Native American ["First Nations", surely! Ed.] nations and the African-American slaves who reached for their freedom by fighting for the British. [It's not Black History Month, but if there's a hotbed of political correctness in the USA, it's PBS! Ed.]

All kidding aside, it's an excellent piece of work. Back in July, Walt was privileged to see a segment of it, dealing with the assault on Fort Erie, and found it very well done, indeed.

The War of 1812 airs on PBS stations on Monday, October 10th -- that's tonight! -- at 9 p.m. EDT. Click here for more information and a video trailer.

Footnote: As far as anyone knows, Laura Secord never made a candy in her life. When an American company bought a small Canadian candy-making concern about a century later, they put Laura's name on the new outfit because it sounded good!

Another footnote: Click here to read "War of 1812 battles a nation's collective amnesia", good column by Konrad Yakabuski from today's Globe and Mail. Here's an excerpt:
Historians consider the war a “draw” because the Treaty of Ghent that ended it entrenched the status quo ante bellum. But the truth is, the Americans sought to engulf us; instead they bankrupted their own country (the United States defaulted on its debt) without gaining an inch of territory. That doesn’t sound like a draw.