“Today I tabled the Freezing Assets of Corrupt Regimes Act in Parliament to give the Government of Canada new and more robust tools in our fight against corruption and the misappropriation of state funds by repressive foreign leaders,” said Minister Cannon.

This legislation will allow Canada to act upon the request of a foreign state to freeze the assets that their former leaders and members of their entourage, including family members, senior officials and associates, may have placed in Canadian financial institutions. It will also give Canada the authority to seize any property such individuals may own in this country.

“Recent developments in the Middle East and North Africa have shown the world how important it is to have legislation in place to allow for a quick response to ensure that foreign dictators cannot hide their ill-gotten wealth in our country,” added Minister Cannon.

Economic sanctions are not always an appropriate response for those seeking to establish democracy and responsible governance.

This new legislation will allow Canada to support democratic reforms and accountability by ensuring that any misappropriated property can be frozen immediately once a written request is received from a foreign state.

“Those aboard this vessel will be processed by Canada Border Services Agency officials under Canadian law. As the process continues, more updates will be available. However, for legal reasons, and for the operational security of our law-enforcement officers, I cannot comment further at this time, ” said Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety.

It is suspected that LTTE is trying to reconstitute its operations in Canada. Canada is guilty of harboring the Sikh militants from India too.

Canada Immigration authorities have also made changes to the list of favoured skills. Financial managers, university professors, mining engineers and occupational therapists have been taken off the occupation list, but architects, dentists, pharmacists and social workers have been added. Applications for Canadian immigration under the scheme will be limited to 1,000 per occupation.

Canada immigration authorities have also tightened up on the language requirements. New applicants are now required to include the results of an English or French language test as part of their application. Previously, people applying for immigration to Canada could prove their language ability with a written submission. Some applicants used another person’s writing sample, making it difficult to make an assessment of the applicant’s true language ability. Jason Kenney feels that these measures will cause an improvement to the application experience for would-be immigrants, since skilled applicants will know from their test result how many points they will be awarded for language ability before they apply.

Time will tell if the Canadian Immigration cap will be a good thing for the Canadian economy in the long term. Liam Clifford of world-leading Immigration Company Global Visas does not think so and says, “The policy of capping skilled migrants is wrong and the fact is if there is no vacancy or job skilled migrants will not come. On an international scale economies and countries must allow talent to move freely and compete for that talent in an open market. Locking your door is not the answer.”

And he says that ‘rhetoric of exceptionality’ has been key in creating long-lived political dynasties in Alberta – even though it doesn’t quite reflect the complex realities of a rapidly changing province.

Geo Takach grew up in Montreal and arrived in Alberta with his family at the age of 15. He says he was immediately struck by how Albertans felt they were different from people in the rest of the country. He says he could understand Quebec’s differences based on language, but began wondering about Alberta’s. He discovered a provincial mythology based on the cowboy and the maverick.

Takach, a doctoral student at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Communications and Culture, recently produced a documentary film called Will the real Alberta please stand up? in which he explores the province’s identity as part of the work he’s doing on his PhD.

He develops his ideas further in a paper presented at the 2010 Congress for the Humanities and Social Sciences taking place at Montreal’s Concordia University.

“I try to assess Alberta’s claim to exceptionality,” he says. “Is Alberta really exceptional?”

Takach says Albertans certainly claim to be: “Albertans are more aggressive that way than anybody except Quebec.”

That identity emphasizes personal freedom and opportunity, and is generally anti-government.

He says provincial politicians have been able to leverage that identity to their advantage by painting the federal government as the bad guy.

“By demonizing the federal government and establishing the image of Alberta as a maverick place, successive governments have reduced the need for an opposition in Alberta. Ottawa is the opposition.”

That rhetoric resonates enough with voters to keep parties in power once they get there. Takach notes that the last time a party was voted out of office was 39 years ago, in 1971; prior to that, Social Credit had enjoyed 36 straight years in office.

“We have kept the mentality and rhetoric even though we have economic clout – it was felt it did not translate into political clout,” he says.

“Nobody wants to be called a sheep,” he adds. “It’s much more flattering to be called a maverick.”

The first incident was a home invasion on the south side of the military married quarters at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Petawawa, and the second one was an assault on a walking path on the base.

In the first incident, an unknown adult male broke into the home and sexually assaulted a lone adult female. In the second incident, an unknown male sexually assaulted a woman that was walking outside. The suspect fled in an unknown direction in both cases.

The first victim was transported to the Pembroke General Hospital, treated and released, while the second one remains at the same hospital with minor injuries.

The CFNIS are collaborating with the CFB Petawawa Military Police and the Ontario Provincial Police in these cases. These two organizations were instrumental in apprehending the suspect.

India has sought from the erstwhile Soviet Republic supplies of opto-electronics for armament systems for tanks and combat vehicles, upgradation of BMP-2, T-72 and T-90 tanks including Fire Control Systems, Commander Panoramic Sights, Digital Ballistic Computer and missile firing capability. The Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) is holding talks with M/s Teatradr for technology, equipment and spares for refurbishing the OSA-AK missiles for the IAF.

The DRDO signed a memorandum with the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus in December last year to set up a Joint R&D Centre at Minsk. While Belarus will provide land for the Centre at the Powder Metallurgy Institute campus, India will bear the construction costs. The detailed project report by DRDO has already been submitted to Belarus and the first joint discussion is due early next year. DRDO has also signed contracts worth $2.6 million with various institutes under the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus for joint R&D of technologies in Laser and Powder Metallurgy. Pallam Raju will visit ‘Agat’, the state scientific research enterprise, on Monday, October 26, which has been collaborating with the DRDO for over 15 years and the two institutions are likely to enter into a long-term agreement soon. Twelve personnel from Belarus have undergone joint training in defence related programmes in India under the ITEC programme since last year.

India and Belarus have consolidated their defence ties with the holding of Joint Commission meetings on Military Technical Cooperation (MTC), on the pattern of a similar arrangement with Russia. The first meeting was held in Minsk in May, 2008, followed by the second in New Delhi in May this year. The two countries have had close defence ties since the signing of an MoU on Defence Cooperation in 1993.

Pallam Raju, leading a four-member delegation, will also call on the Belarus President Mr. Alexander G. Lukashenko on Monday. Pallam Raju is accompanied by Lt. General D. Bharadwaj, Director-General Mechanized Forces, V. Somasundram, Joint Secretary (Ordnance Factories) and Major General (Retired) Ravi Khetrapal, Chairman-and-Managing Director, BDL.

High level contacts have picked up between India and Belarus in the last few years. Only last month SM Krishna became India’s first External Affairs Minister to visit Belarus. The Chief of Army Staff General Deepak Kapoor visited Minsk in March last year. Belarus Defence Minister Colonel-General Maltsev was in New Delhi in February last year for the DefExpo and earlier visited India in March, 2001.

Bilateral trade between the two countries has grown to over $432 million last year, with exports from India amounting to over $315 million and imports standing at about $117 million.