Monday, January 30, 2012

Blatchford: At the heart of Shafia trial, the very notion of what is a girl

Sahar Shafia, left, Zainab, top, and Geeti





KINGSTON, Ont. — It was, as the shy prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis said outside the lovely old Frontenac County courthouse, “a good day for Canadian justice.”
And so it was: Mohammad Shafia, Tooba Mohammad Yahya and Hamed Mohammad Shafia, respectively the Afghan parents and brother of three teenage girls and the woman they loved like a mother, had just been convicted of four counts each of first-degree murder moments earlier.
“This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy, and even visitors to Canada enjoy,” Laarhuis said.
The “visitors” reference was a kind and graceful nod to Rona Amir Mohammad, Shafia’s unacknowledged other wife.
Unlike the rest of the sprawling clan, she was brought to Canada as a domestic servant and was on a visitor’s visa, its renewal held over her head like a axe ready to fall by her co-wife Yahya and Shafia.
The three, still crying foul as they were led away to begin serving automatic life sentences for murder, are guilty of wiping out nearly half their family.
“It is difficult to conceive of a more heinous, more despicable and more honourless crime,” Ontario Superior Court Judge Robert Maranger said Sunday after the jury foreman had read aloud the verdicts.
Looking directly at Shafia, 58, Yahya, 42, and their oldest son Hamed as they stood before him in the prisoners’ box for the last time, the judge concluded with a stinging denunciation.
“The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameless murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your twisted notion of honour, a notion of honour that is founded upon the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honour that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.”
By using the words “honourless” and “shameless”, Maranger was tossing back at Shafia some of the very epithets he used so often when speaking about his dead daughters.
The mass honour slaying of Zainab, Sahar and Geeti — respectively 19, 17 and 13 — and 52-year-old Mohammad, Shafia’s other, and sadly barren, wife, ranks among the worst in the sordid history of honour crimes.
It was an electric finale for a case that got international attention for the horrific “honour” motive which drove the crime and for a great, rollicking trial which featured shocking wiretapped evidence, galling testimony and even a bomb threat.
At its very heart, as prosecutors argued, were not only the three lost teens and Mohammad, but also the very notion of what is a girl.
As Shafia once howled to Yahya, in what they imagined was the privacy of their minivan just days after their household had been almost halved: “Every night I used to think of myself as a cuckold. Every day I used to go and gather (her) from the arms of boys.”
If the question was downright creepy — why on Earth would any father ever feel like a cuckold? — the answer was far worse: Because, of course, that father believed he was the one who had absolute control of his daughters’ sexuality.
As prosecutor Laurie Lacelle told the jurors in her closing address — and here she was talking about the family’s desperate efforts to get Zainab back home after she had run away to a shelter just two months before her death — the family was frantic because “she might be with unapproved males. She might be having sex.”
This was one of the most egregious disconnects of the trial, the difference between the overwhelming evidence that this was a family absolutely obsessed with honour and female chastity and what the Shafias said about it in court.
Both Yahya and Shafia flatly denied ever even hearing about honour killing and said, besides, one could never reclaim it that way anyway, heaven’s no.
As Yahya put it, “This (honour killing) is something I never heard” until “they put this name on our case, which is really shameful for us.”
Yet honour crimes, a phenomenon spreading across the planet and on the rise just about everywhere, have happened and been publicized in every place this family has ever lived, from their native Afghanistan to Australia and Dubai and, of course, Canada.
Where once such crimes were largely confined to the Middle East and South Asia, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women now gets reports of such crimes from more than 20 countries.
Recent research by the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, which just last month published figures from British police forces obtained through freedom of information requests, showed almost 3,000 honour attacks were recorded by police in the United Kingdom in 2010.
And Pakistan, where the Shafias fled in 1992 and lived for four years, is to honour killing what Las Vegas is to gambling or Mecca to Islam — the holiest shrine.
Every year, between 300 and 1,000 girls and women in Pakistan are punished, usually but not exclusively by their fathers and brothers, for real or perceived crimes against family honour. Just last month, Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission reported that in the first nine months of 2011, 675 women and girls were killed in honour slayings.
These crimes always involve real or imagined breaches of female sexual integrity, and the offences range from being seen with unknown males, being too independent, being raped (which brings shame to the tribe), asking for divorce, dressing provocatively — or even rumours of any of the above.
And in the last two years, 2006 and 2007, that the Shafia clan lived in Dubai before coming to Canada, a local paper, the Gulf News, reported at least two cases of honour crimes, one where two brothers beat up and locked away their 35-year-old sister for staying with a man.
In fact, the day after the jurors retired, Montreal’s La Presse ran a front-page interview columnist Michele Ouimet had with one of Yahya’s sisters, Soraya, in Kabul.
Soraya was “scandalized” by the pictures the reporter showed them, shot of Zainab and Sahar in ordinarily skimpy skirts or bathing and with male friends and boyfriends. She and her husband both cheerfully told Ouimet they believe in killing for honour.
Her husband Habibullah said simply, if his daughters (the couple has seven, plus two boys) dishonoured him, “I would put them in a bag and eliminate them so no one would ever find their traces in Afghanistan.”
But Yahya and Shafia never heard of such killings before?
Their testimony on this point was transparently self-serving and nakedly dishonest: They were lying through their teeth.
But then lying is like breathing to this family.
If it’s a fair generalisation that some Afghans have learned to say whatever they think their listener wants to hear, if it’s true that there is what’s called “permissible lying” in Islam (it’s called al-Taqiyya, and means the concealing or disguising of one’s beliefs, feelings or opinions to save oneself from injury), none of it quite explains the Shafias.
Neither typical Afghans nor typical Muslims, and certainly not devout, they simply have their own unusual if not unique pathology.
The jurors heard how theirs was a house divided: Boys were good, trusted, given freedom; youngsters, even girls so long as they weren’t yet menstruating and thus prone to temptation, were good; pubescent girls and older, not so much.
This may explain Yahya’s copious tears when speaking of her youngest, the little girl who was just eight when all this unfolded: Eight is such a good, safe, innocent, age for a girl.
But for this wee girl, who burst into tears at the funeral and wailed Geeti’s name aloud, the others who survived the family holocaust were the boy, who testified for his father at trial, and the middle sister.
The boy was caught on a wiretap the night before his parents were arrested and after he and his two siblings had been apprehended by child welfare officials. It is evident from what he said on the tapes that at the least, he was playing ball with the story spun by his parents and Hamed — and perhaps even that he knew of the murder plan at minimum after it had been carried out.
A permanent publication ban protects their all names.
By the evidence, with their big brother Hamed, the middle siblings kept a close eye on their more daring sisters.
Hamed once miraculously arrived at the house minutes after Zainab, their parents gone to Dubai, had sneaked her boyfriend in: The suggestion was he’d been following her. The son who testified at trial reportedly encountered Sahar with her boyfriend at a restaurant near their school.
At the very sight of him, the couple sprang apart and he even kissed another girl to deflect suspicion.
Sahar and Geeti once told Nathalie Laramee, their school VP, they were “afraid in the house” and that “we know our behaviour at school is reported back at the home”. They appeared to be referring to both middle sibs, who went to the same school.
And consider what Zainab wrote to Ammar Wahid, the young man she briefly married in the incident which sparked the familial conflagration, in an email before they even met for the first time, she laid out the rules: He was not to approach or acknowledge her publicly; she would come to his locker if she could, and if he saw her brother Hamed anywhere, he should “act like complete stranger”.
In this world, there was no such thing as dating. A girl who liked a boy had to marry him (thus Zainab’s desire to get married was as much about escape as anything else) and only if he was suitable — preferably Afghan, Muslim and from a good family.
The parents’ wealth appears to have shielded them, not from official scrutiny, but from sanction.
Three times the girls’ school, where teachers were alarmed either by Sahar’s profound sadness or Geeti’s increasing wildness, called one or another of Quebec’s child-welfare agencies, the last time in June, just weeks before the family set out on their ostensible vacation.
Each time, the sisters either backed off their original allegations, usually in their parents’ presence (their father could silence them with a glare), or the parents and other children so vigorously denied them, that the files were closed — though in at least one instance, the worker deemed the allegations “founded” or true.
This combination of a perceived need for cultural sensitivity, a family which was so well-off and presentable, and kids so frightened out of their skins they recanted, defeated the child-welfare complaint system.
Consider what Montreal Police Detective Laurie-Ann Lefebvre, who with a partner investigated the 911 call some of the children had a stranger make on their behalf the day Zainab ran away, had to say about Sahar.
Det. Lefebvre was a child-abuse investigator. She interviewed the children, and one of Sahar’s chief complaints was a lack of freedom.
Prosecutor Lacelle asked her, “How did Sahar appear?” and Det. Lefebvre replied, “Well, I was surprised. She said she had no freedom, but she was well-dressed, wore jewelry, had nice makeup. She did not seem depressed.”
And the detective told Sahar that: “I said, ‘no freedom?’. I said, ‘You’re well-dressed, have nice makeup.’”
Let that be a lesson for Canadian police, women’s rights activists, social workers and the like: The oppression of girls and women wears different faces, and some of them are beautiful, not battered, and some of them are beautifully made up. Birds in gilded cages are still in cages.
It was the very sort of societal prejudice which ended up leaving the girls even more vulnerable and protecting the Shafia parents and Hamed. If the trio felt entitled and safe to do what they wanted, who could blame them?
Virtually every time Shafia and Yahya encountered Canadian authorities, they bamboozled them.
The family arrived in Canada under Quebec’s “immigrant investor” program — investors put up a chunk of cash interest-free in exchange for permanent residency — and three months later, no questions asked, brought in the other wife, Mohammad, as a domestic servant on a visitor’s visa.
The parents were called in by school officials a number of times, but Yahya would weep, Shafia would rail furiously, and no action would be taken.
When the school called in child welfare, the same thing would happen: Denials, rage and tears from these affluent parents worked in this country. All their experience with institutional Canada gave them no reason to imagine that a small-city police force wouldn’t be similarly stymied.
It explains the collective arrogance they brought to their crime; they simply imagined they would get away with it.
That it was not a brilliant plan — nor well-executed — actually became part of their defence. Who, Shafia’s lawyer thundered in his closing address, would ever pick such a weird place to commit a murder, take such a chance?
But the truth is, criminality and stupidity are hardly mutually exclusive; rather, the opposite.
It is a delicious irony that it was in some part Shafia’s cheapness — he may be rich but he always kept a wary eye on the pennies — which first raised police suspicions and undermined the family’s original story.
All three — mother, father and Hamed — first claimed that the last they saw of any of the four dead women was shortly after they all got to the Kingston East Motel, when Zainab allegedly came looking for the keys to the Nissan, and then purportedly took the others out for the fatal spin.
But when father and son were checking in, and manager Robert Miller asked how many people there would be in each room, their answers got his attention.
“Six,” said Shafia, clearly not wanting to pay extra for the quartet who would never make it to the motel and would soon be dead in the water.
Hamed then said something to him in Dari, they had a bit of a chat, and Hamed then said, “Nine.” Miller, who of course would remember this forever, suggested they settle on a number.
They did: The receipts, signed by Hamed, show there would be three people per room.
Then there was the matter of the Nissan itself: Shafia, unwilling to see fine cars like the Lexus SUV or the Montana minivan wasted on four females, picked up the used Nissan for $5,000 the very day before the family left Montreal for Niagara Falls.
No one will ever know for sure how the three girls and Mohammad drowned — was it in the turning basin at the locks, as police believe (they even checked the drains)? Were they administered a drug which incapacitated them then so quickly disappeared from their bodies toxicological tests couldn’t find it?
What is in no doubt is that all four of them, in the long weeks and months before their deaths, knew they were in danger, that they were afraid, and that their pleas for help were misunderstood or minimized.
At autopsy, Sahar was found to be the only one of the four who didn’t have areas of fresh bruising to the top of her head.
Because of that, right or wrong, I’ve always imagined, in the prosecution theory of how the four were killed, that she was the last to be taken out of the car and drowned. I fear that by the time her killers came for her, she knew very well what was happening: The girl who wanted to be a doctor when she grew up realized she was not going to grow up.
On that June night in a lovely place in one of the freest and luckiest nations in the world, at the hands of those who should have most loved and protected her, she was killed because, well, she was a girl.

Opposition promises to fight billions in expected federal government cuts

OTTAWA — Canada's MPs have returned to Parliament and are poised for a raucous battle over Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan to reform old-age pensions in a forthcoming budget that promises to dramatically slash spending and transform the nation.
The Conservative government also says it will push for reforms to the lucrative pension plan for members of Parliament and will urge opposition parties to accept a haircut to the retirement package for federal politicians.
New Democrats, however, won't commit to cutting MPs' pensions, insisting an independent panel should decide the matter.
The political adversaries began arriving on Parliament Hill on Monday armed with sharp-edged attacks.
Government House Leader Peter Van Loan insisted that while the governing Conservatives are intent on boosting the economy, the official Opposition is focused on "killing jobs" while the Liberals have no plan at all.
But the opposition parties have declared they will mount a firm challenge to Harper's government, particularly on pension cutbacks for seniors — an area that went unmentioned by the Tories in last year's election campaign.
The Conservative government is promising any increase in the age to qualify for Old Age Security won't affect current seniors or those approaching retirement age.
The Tories have been considering raising the age Canadians can receive the OAS benefit to 67 from the current 65 to help ensure the fiscal sustainability of the retirement system in the future.
"All seniors should rest assured those who are collecting OAS today will continue to collect it without any change," Van Loan told reporters Monday in the foyer of the House of Commons. "Our focus is on the medium and the long term and ensuring the sustainability of the system for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now."
Van Loan also said the government will look to make changes to the lucrative pension plan for members of Parliament through the secretive, multi-party Board of Internal Economy, which oversees MP salaries and benefits.
"We on the government side have asked that Board of Internal Economy, which manages the spending of this place, also do its fair share as part of the deficit reduction action plan," he said.
"We don't think it's right that we would be asking all of government and all of Canadians to accept that we make savings across the board if we're aren't prepared to do that ourselves. For that reason, we're looking for real action out of the Board of Internal Economy."
NDP finance critic Peter Julian said the government's musings about changing the OAS qualifying age concerns many Canadians and "is a slap in the face to seniors across this country."
"I don't think senior Canadians can trust this government. Back on May 2, they did not in any way during the election campaign (say) that they were going to move to substantial cuts in our pension system," Julian said.
The NDP will fight against the billions of dollars in expected cuts to program spending, he added, and also highlight their continued concerns with a stubbornly high unemployment rate and deplorable living conditions on First Nations.
However, the NDP won't commit to scaling back what critics call a "gold-plated" pension plan for MPs. Julian said an independent panel — not the Board of Internal Economy — should decide the matter, but the party hasn't received any government response to its recommendation.
"We don't believe it should be members of Parliament deciding on MPs' pensions and MPs' salaries," he said. "It should not be MPs making those decisions. An independent panel is the best route to go."
The political scenario that faced MPs Monday had changed significantly since they began their parliamentary break in mid-December.
Among the changes:
Pensions
Harper announced in Davos, Switzerland last week his majority Conservative will gradually bring forward major changes to the country's pension system so it does not become too expensive in the decades ahead. It has since become clear the Tories plan to cut the costs of the Old Age Security (OAS) system. The government won't reveal its specific plans, but the options include: gradually increasing the age of eligibility to 67 from 65; de-indexing the OAS payments from inflation; and reducing the income threshold which currently claws back payments from people with incomes over about $68,000.
Budget
The fiscal blueprint — the first from a majority government since 2004 — will contain major cuts to federal programs. The government had initially said it sought to slash $4 billion in annual spending. Treasury Board President Tony Clement revealed last week the axe could fall deeper — slashing spending by up to $8 billion annually.
Health care
Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty have signalled they will not enter talks with the provinces to reform the health-care system through a new accord. Instead, they angered the provinces through a surprise, take-it-or-leave-it announcement for future federal medicare funding.
Crime
Provincial criticism of the government's crime agenda is also increasing. They are complaining they will have to foot the bill for the Tories' law-and-order agenda because more inmates will end up in provincial jails.
Energy
The U.S. decision to delay the proposed Keystone XL pipeline has only sharpened political debate in Canada. Harper says his government's "priority" is to find other markets — such as Asia. That leaves the proposed Northern Gateway project — a pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast — that is being reviewed by the National Energy Board. Harper and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver have complained that foreign-backed "radicals" are slowing down the hearings.

Winter cold snap kills 36 in eastern Europe



January 30, 2012 — BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — A severe and snowy cold snap across central and eastern Europe has left at least 36 people dead, cut off power to towns, and snarled traffic. Officials are responding with measures ranging from opening shelters to dispensing hot tea, with particular concern for the homeless and elderly.
This part of Europe is not unused to cold, but the current freeze, which spread to most of the region last week, came after a period of relatively mild weather. Many were shocked when temperatures in some parts plunged Monday to minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit).
"Just as we thought we could get away with a spring-like winter ..." lamented Jelena Savic, 43, from the Serbian capital of Belgrade, her head wrapped in a shawl with only eyes uncovered. "I'm freezing. It's hard to get used to it so suddenly."
Officials have appealed to people to stay indoors and be careful. Police searched for the homeless to make sure they didn't freeze to death. In some places, heaters will be set up at bus stations. Still, 18 people, most of them homeless, died in Ukraine from hypothermia and nearly 500 people sought medical help for frostbite and hypothermia in just three days last week, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.
Temperatures in parts of Ukraine fell to minus 16 C (3 F) during the day and minus 23 C (minus 10 F) in the night. Authorities opened 1,500 shelters to provide food and heat and closed schools and nurseries. More than 17,000 people have sought help in such shelters in the past three days, authorities said.
In Poland, at least 10 people froze to death as the cold reached minus 26 C (minus 15 F) on Monday. Malgorzata Wozniak, a spokeswoman for Poland's Interior Ministry, told The Associated Press that elderly people and the homeless were among the dead. Police were checking unheated empty buildings for homeless people they could take to shelters.
Warsaw city authorities decided to place more than 40 heaters in the busiest city transport stops to help waiting passengers keep warm. City authorities in the Czech capital of Prague set up tents for an estimated 3,000 homeless people. Freezing temperatures also damaged train tracks, slowing railway traffic.
In central Serbia, three people died and two more were missing, while 14 municipalities were operating under emergency decrees. Efforts to clear roads blocked by snow were hampered by strong winds and dozens of towns faced power outages.
Police said one woman froze to death in a snowstorm in a central Serbian village, while two elderly men were found dead, one in the snow outside his home. Further south, emergency crews are searching for two men in their 70s who are feared dead.
"We are getting some 'real' winter this week," Croatian meteorologist Zoran Vakula said. In Bulgaria, a 57-year-old man froze to death in a northwestern village and emergency decrees were declared in 25 of the country's 28 districts. In the capital of Sofia, authorities handed out hot tea and placed homeless people in emergency shelters.
Strong winds also closed down Bulgaria's main Black Sea port of Varna, while part of a major highway leading to Bulgaria and Greece from Turkey was closed after a heavy snowfall. Nearly 200 Turkish Airlines flights to and from Istanbul's Ataturk Airport were canceled, and a city sports hall was turned to a temporary shelter for some 350 homeless people.
The temperature in Turkey's province of Kars, which borders Armenia, dropped to minus 25 C on Sunday night. The situation was similar in Romania, where reports said four people have died because of freezing weather. There, authorities sent prison inmates to shovel snow and unblock paths leading to a shelter with some 300 stray dogs and puppies.
Weather forecasts say the cold snap will continue through the week.




Saturday, January 28, 2012

Stephen Harper says 'major' changes coming to Canada's pension system: speech

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a speech at the World Economic Forum, said that "major transformations" are coming to Canada's pension, immigration, science and energy sectors.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a speech at the World Economic Forum, said that "major transformations" are coming to Canada's pension, immigration, science and energy sectors.


Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has signalled his government will bring forward "major transformations" to the country in the coming months — in areas such as the retirement pension system, immigration, science and technology investment and the energy sector.
Of those reforms, Harper said, getting a grip on slowing the rising costs of the country's pension system is particularly critical.
In the wake of Harper's speech, it now appears that the Conservative government could be poised to gradually change the Old Age Security system so that the age of eligibility is raised to 67 from 65.
Harper made the revelations in a major keynote speech Thursday at the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of the world's political and business elite.
As expected, the prime minister was critical of Europe and the United States for not adequately dealing with the economic problems that have gripped them in recent months and years.
But it was Harper's assessment of the major changes that lie ahead for Canada that stood out in the speech.
"In the months to come, our government will undertake major transformations to position Canada for growth over the next generation," said Harper.
The Conservative government will table a budget in the coming weeks that is expected to set the stage for years of deficit-slashing and government reform.
"Under our government, Canada will make the transformations necessary to sustain economic growth, job creation and prosperity now and for the next generation," said Harper.
He said that means two things: "Making better economic choices now. And preparing ourselves now for the demographic pressures the Canadian economy faces."
Harper said the country's aging population has become a backdrop for his concern about how to keep the country strong over the long term.
"If not addressed promptly, this has the capacity to undermine Canada's economic position and, for that matter, that of all western nations well beyond the current economic crises."
Indeed, Harper said the country's demographics — an aging populating and a dwindling workforce — constitute "a threat to the social programs and services that Canadians cherish."
For that reason, he said his government will "be taking measures in the coming months."
Harper did not specify what those measures will be, but he said they are necessary — not just to bring the government's finances back to a balanced budget in the medium term, "but also to ensure the sustainability of our social programs and fiscal position over the next generation."
"We have already taken steps to limit the growth of our health care spending over that period," said Harper.
"We must do the same for our retirement income system."
Harper said the centrepiece of the public pension system — the Canada Pension Plan — is fully funded, actuarially sound and does not need to be changed.
But he added: "For those elements of the system that are not funded, we will make the changes necessary to ensure sustainability for the next generation while not affecting current recipients."
So far, the government has come forward with a plan to create a private pooled pension system to encourage Canadians to prepare for their retirement.
Still, there are concerns that as baby boomers approach retirement, the cost to government of providing public pensions will skyrocket.
In December, the National Post reported that there was internal debate within the government about increasing the age of eligibility for the other major element of the public pension scheme — Old Age Security — from 65 to 67.
Internal government documents project the cost of the OAS system will climb from $36.5 billion in 2010 to $48 billion in 2015. By 2030 — when the number of seniors is expected to climb to 9.3 million from 4.7 million now — the cost of the program could reach $108 billion.
Among the other priorities where change is coming:
- Energy
The Conservative government will make it a "national priority" to ensure the country has the "capacity to export our energy products beyond the United States, and specifically to Asia."
"In this regard, we will soon take action to ensure that major energy and mining projects are not subject to unnecessary regulatory delays — that is, delay merely for the sake of delay."
Harper did not explain what he has planned, although he and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver have complained that foreign-backed "radical" opponents of the $5.5-billion Northern Gateway project have threatened to slow down hearings by the National Energy Board.
- Immigration
The system faces "significant reform," said Harper.
"We will ensure that, while we respect our humanitarian obligations and family reunification objectives, we make our economic and labour force needs the central goal of our immigration efforts in the future."
- Science
The government will continue to make "key investments in science and technology" that are necessary to sustain a "modern competitive economy."
"But we believe that Canada's less-than-optimal results for those investments is a significant problem for our country."
In future, he said, there will be changes to rectify that problem.
- Trade
Harper expects to complete negotiations on a Canada-European Union free-trade agreement this year.
Furthermore, he said, his government is committed to also completing negotiations for a free-trade deal with India by the end of 2013.
And Canada will begin talks to become a member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership while also pursuing opportunities to trade in the emerging market of Asia.
Harper arrived Wednesday at the World Economic Forum determined to tout Canada as a trading nation with a solid economic record and massive oil resources which are ready to be sold and shipped to customers worldwide.
Other members of cabinet who are attending the conference in the exclusive mountainside resort in the Swiss Alps are Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, International Trade Minister Ed Fast and Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney.
The Canadian delegation used private meetings in the corridors and backrooms at the forum to promote Canada's hopes for a free-trade deal with Europe, and also break into the emerging marketplace in Asia.
The forum, which dates back to 1971, has drawn 2,600 participants, including 40 political leaders and more than 1,600 senior business leaders.
While the economic uncertainty of Europe gripped the discussions, participants — at the urging of the forum's founder, Klaus Schwab — also discussed whether capitalism itself needs to be fundamentally reformed to ensure greater social responsibility.
On Thursday morning, British Prime Minister David Cameron told the conference that Europe's economies had entered a "perilous time" and called for European leaders to avoid "tinkering" with the eurozone debt crisis.
Cameron boasted of his government's actions to get British debt under control and said the countries in the eurozone (Britain is not a member) must also take "bold and decisive " action if they want to solve the debt crisis.
Harper issued a scathing criticism of countries in the developed world, which he suggested had forgotten about the importance of creating economic growth.
"Is it the case that, in the developed world, too many of us have in fact become complacent about our prosperity?" Harper asked.
He suggested that developed countries had taken wealth "as a given . . . assuming it is somehow the natural order of things."
As a result, he said, countries in the western world had become focused primarily "on our services and entitlements."
As a result, he said, it's not surprising that, in addition to banks facing debt, countries themselves were also facing sovereign debt crises.
The problem, he suggested, could be "too much general willingness to have standards and benefits beyond our ability, or even willingness, to pay for them."
Harper warned that the wealth of western economies "is no more inevitable than the poverty of emerging ones."
He said the problems afflicting Europe and the U.S. threaten to become even more serious in future.
"Each nation has a choice to make. Western nations, in particular, face a choice of whether to create the conditions for growth and prosperity, or to risk long-term economic decline."
The solution, he said, is for countries to make the sometimes tough, but correct, decisions now.
"Easy choices now mean fewer choices later."

Tories continue to hedge on plans for seniors' health care

Edmonton: If the province is determined to follow through on the premier's controversial proposal to remove the daily cap on the cost of long-term seniors accommodation, it's not likely to happen before the election - and perhaps not even this year.
Health Minister Fred Horne said this week the governing Conservatives had no plans to remove the maximum amount that seniors can be charged for long-term care, but clarified his comments Friday, telling the Herald the issue is not off the table.
"I'm sure we will have the policy discussion, but we're not there yet," he said in an interview. "I am not ruling anything in or out."
Premier Alison Redford proposed the change during her leadership campaign, saying lifting the cap would spur privatesector investment in creating the 1,000 new continuing care beds promised by her predecessor Ed Stelmach.
The Tory government promised in its February Throne Speech to create at least 5,300 continuing care spaces by 2015. But Horne said there's been no discussion of removing the cap.
"We haven't had it yet," he said. "I am sure that we will. I don't know the timeline."
Seniors Minister George VanderBurg said Friday he hasn't had sufficient time to address the issue. "I would say that I'm going to have that discussion with my ministry staff and my colleagues over the next year.
"It's one of those pieces on the continuing care model that we're moving forward with," he said.
"But I can tell you one thing: to create 1,000 new spaces, I have to partner with foundations, with communities, with the private sector, with anybody that I can create a partnership with to create new models of care."
Horne stressed that if the governing Tories remove the cap, they will provide the necessary financial support to help low-income seniors. "We have to build continuing care spaces that are going to be affordable to people who need them."
Alberta seniors who require continuing health care usually pay a maximum of about $1,700 a month for accommodation, or about $56 dollars a day.
NDP Leader Brian Mason said it is difficult to believe cabinet hasn't already made a decision on the cap, but have likely put off making any announcements because so many Albertans oppose the idea.
Seniors are outraged by the plan to entice the private sector to build long-term care facilities, he said.
"Their scheme to increase seniors accommodation is based on a privatized health-care model that requires seniors to pay more, so that private companies can make a profit," Mason said.
"As long as they are pursuing a private health-care model for seniors' care, price increases are inevitable."
Wildrose health critic Heather Forsyth said raising the cap will have a major impact on the most vulnerable Albertans, putting more seniors in hospital because many won't be able to afford higher fees.
Forsyth urged the Redford government to come clean with Albertans about its plans. Albertans are tired of the flipflopping, she added.
"They are raising the cap. No, they are not raising the cap. They are thinking about raising it. They are not thinking about it. Why don't you tell Albertans what you are going to do before the election. Are you going to raise the cap or not?"
Liberal Leader Raj Sherman said raising the amount seniors pay for long-term care is "despicable."
"My view is we have to stop nickel-and-diming seniors who have built this great province," he said.
"It's inhumane and it is unAlbertan and frankly seniors and all Albertans should be disturbed."

Mexican confesses to beating Calgarian Sheila Nabb at Mazatlan resort


Jose Ramon Quintero is accused of brutally beating Calgarian Sheila Nabb in a Mexico hotel elevator was in the midst of a drinking spree at the time of the assault, according to a local newspaper report. According to the online paper, he was drinking beer and doing drugs with a Canadian friend on the morning of Jan. 20.

Jose Ramon Quintero is accused of brutally beating Calgarian Sheila Nabb in a Mexico hotel elevator was in the midst of a drinking spree at the time of the assault


MAZATLAN, Mexico — Dressed in an orange vest and accompanied by two armed guards clad in black armour, Jose Ramon Acosta Quintero was trotted out Saturday morning in front of a cadre of media to confess to the brutal beating of Calgarian Sheila Nabb.
Quintero said he was drunk and high on cocaine when Nabb entered a hotel elevator naked.
Quintero — also known by the nickname El Ray — was arrested by Mexican authorities in connection with Nabb’s assault last week at the Hotel Riu five-star resort in Mazatlan.
He has not been convicted in court.
He told his story in Spanish to a translator and then repeated the tale in English. “It wasn’t planned or anything like that, it just happened in the moment . . . I didn’t try to abuse her, I didn’t try to rob her or anything. I was just afraid and I wanted to leave,” he said.
“I’m so sorry, I apologize and I’m sorry and I hope she recovers because I’ve seen the papers and her face was bad.”
Nabb is recovering in Foothills Medical Centre. All the bones in her face were broken in the attack and her family has offered no updates as to her condition.
When asked whether she had a history of sleepwalking, her brother Paul Giles said the family does not know what happened in Mexico. However, he said she was not sexually assaulted.
A Mexican police report distributed a week ago said Nabb was found unconscious, bloody and naked.
Quintero told media he drank 19 alcoholic beverages with a Canadian friend who lived nearby.
After bar-hopping across Mazatlan, they went back to the friend’s house to drink beer. When the beer ran dry, they went to the Hotel Riu, which had a 24-hour bar that gave free drinks for guests.
The friend went through the front door, as a foreigner would not be questioned by hotel staff. Meanwhile, Quintero said he entered the ritzy hotel through the beach entrance.
“Very drunk” and high on a line of cocaine, he said he got on the elevator. Although the bar was not on the top floor, Quintero told media he hit the top button as he wanted to see a view of the city. At the sixth floor, the state attorney general said Nabb got on.
Quintero said she was naked.
“I was talking to her and she was talking to me normally. She didn’t seem afraid or anything like that,” he said.
When Nabb moved to step out of the elevator, Quintero said he put his hand on the door, blocking her exit “to keep talking to her because, I don’t know, I thought we were talking normally.”
Nabb became agitated, Quintero said.
“She got afraid when I didn’t let her out and she started yelling ‘He won’t let me out.’”
Quintero said he panicked.
“I got afraid also because she’s an American, or a she’s North American and I’m a Mexican and I wasn’t supposed to be in the hotel,” he said.
“And she was naked, so I covered her mouth and I said ‘Please don’t yell. I’m going to go home.’”
Nabb continued to yell, he said.
“She got more afraid when I covered her mouth.”
Quintero said he hit Nabb several times in the face with his fist and then left through the beach entrance.
The accused, his voice shaking as he recounted the tale, said he did not kick the Calgary woman.
During the press conference in Mexico, a reporter asked to see Quintero’s hands. He held them out for inspection. They appeared to be unscratched and unbruised.
Mexican authorities said they found fingerprints, clothing and a pair of Crocs sandals linked by blood. The attorney general also said police collected testimony from more than 13 people.
Local authorities boasted of being able to make the arrest in about a week, adding through a translator that they were motivated by the urgency of the matter.
According to the state general attorney, Quintero was investigated in 2008 for rape.
The Mexican authorities told local media that the investigation is continuing as they’re still trying to track down Quintero’s Canadian friend and his mother. Both have fled Mazatlan, police say. Quintero is slated to appear before a Mexican judge on charges of attempted murder within the next two days.