Gunman Fatally Shoots Soldier at Ottawa War Memorial, Opens Fire in Canadian Parliament

A gunman opened fire on a Canadian soldier who was on sentry duty at a War memorial in Canada's capital on Wednesday before advancing to the Parliament building where the assailant was shot and killed by the sergeant-at-arms in an exchange of gunfire.

According to the CBC, witnesses reported a gunman who approached the War Memorial from the west at 9:50 AM local time and fired twice at 24 year old Cpl Nathan Cirillo, striking him in the abdomen and firing a round at another soldier stationed at the memorial, but missing. Although Cirillo and the other soldier had rifles at the time, they were reportedly inert and used for ceremonial purposes. Cirillo would later die of his injuries, leaving behind a five year old son.

As witnesses and paramedics attempted to revive Cirillo, the gunman left the area in a beige car with the license plates removed, abandoning it several blocks from the parliament building and making his way there on foot. After getting through a checkpoint and commandeering a government vehicle, the gunman makes his way into Parliament's Centre Block.

Upon making his way inside the parliament building, members of parliament barricaded themselves in their offices as the gunman shot at sergeant-at-arms Kevin Vickers, a veteran former Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer from New Brunswick. Vickers returned fire with his sidearm, killing the gunman and stopping his rampage before he could get any further inside the parliament building.



Video released by a Toronto Globe and Mail reporter on the scene as events unfolded show officers advancing down a marble corridor with their weapons drawn. The camera jostles as a single shot rings out- believed to be from the assailant's lever-action .30-30 rifle- followed by a dozen or so shots fired in rapid succession [which could easily be from Vickers 9mm- NANESB!] echo through the corridors amid shouting and additional officers rushing towards the sound of gunfire.

The gunman has been identified by the RCMP as a 32 year old convert to Islam named Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. The weapon used was a lever-action Winchester hunting rifle common in both Canada and the USA, but since Zehaf-Bibeau reportedly had a criminal record, investigators are looking into how he obtained the gun.

Sadly, Cpl Cirillo wasn't the first Canadian soldier killed by a radicalized islamist in eastern Canada this week. The Ottawa shooting comes just days after two Canadian soldiers were struck by a hit and run driver outside of Montreal. The driver, a 25 year old Québécois convert to radical islam named Martin Coutere-Rouleau reportedly waited for more than two hours in the parking lot of a building that housed a number of government and civilian agencies in St Jean sur Richelieu before striking at least two soldiers with his 2000 Nissan Altima. Coutere-Rouleau was later shot and killed by police during a high speed chase.

Both Coutere-Rouleau and Zehaf-Bibeau were reportedly under scrutiny from Canada's CSIS intelligence service as the two of them adorned their social media pages with imagery supporting the ISIS Islamic group and expressing a desire to travel to Syria to fight alongside the Islamic state. Couture-Rouleau's passport was seized in June, but since he hadn't broken any Canadian laws the RCMP and Sûreté du Québec couldn't press charges. One of the soldiers, identified as 53 year old Patrice Vincent, later died of his injuries after being struck by Coutere-Rouleau's Nissan.

Prime minister Stephen Harper, who had recently pledged to support Kurdish and Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State, described both the Ottawa and St Jean sur Richelieu attacks as terrorism when addressing the nation on TV on Wednesday.

Borderline Psychosis, Psychose de Frontière Edition- Canadian, US Officials Raid Cross Border Tobacco Smuggling Ring

Officers from the Sûreté du Québec, RCMP and US Customs and Border Patrol arrested 28 people and seized more than $450,000 in cash and 40,000 Kilograms of tobacco in a raid on a tobacco smuggling ring in southwestern Quebec- said to be the largest of its kind. Investigators say that mobsters from Montreal's Rizutto crime family teamed up with Mohawk smugglers on the Akwesasne Reservation which straddles the US/Canada border south of Montreal to manufacture contraband cigarettes.

Quebec provincial police Sgt. Joyce Kemp said Montreal's Italian Mafia teamed up with aboriginal organized crime to illegally import the bulk tobacco.

The tobacco made its way into Canada in big trucks after being purchased by the Mafia in North Carolina, she told reporters.

"It was hidden with other merchandise (and) often what was used was cedar mulch to hide the (odour) of the tobacco."

Police said the tobacco was imported into Canada through the Lacolle border crossing or through the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve.

Kemp said that after crossing the border, the truckloads were hidden for two or three days in a warehouse to ensure they hadn't been spotted. The tobacco was then transferred to factories where the contraband cigarettes were made.

The cigarettes were then allegedly sold on the Kahnawake reserve south of Montreal.

The strategically located Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation has been a hotbed of smuggling since the Great Depression. Drug trafficking organizations have employed savvy native smugglers to move all manner of contraband across the border- in recent years cocaine and untaxed cigarettes into Canada and ecstasy or hydroponically grown pot into the USA.

On the USA side of the border, the Akwesasne Reservation is in the northernmost reaches of New York State where the cigarette tax is $4.35 per pack- plus an additional $1.50 per pack in local taxes in New York City. However, a New York State Department of Taxation and Finance directive allows cigarettes made on one reservation to be transported to other reservations without the state excise tax. Unsurprisingly, this has led to cigarette smuggling in New York City and other high-tax jurisdictions in the northeast and state and local officials in St Lawrence County have seized truckloads of cigarettes produced on the reservation despite the clause allowing the transport of untaxed cigarettes from reservation to reservation.

Trafficking cigarettes from low or no tax jurisdictions like southern tobacco producing states of Indian reservations to high tax locales like New York or Boston is a very simple and lucrative way for organized crime and even terrorist organizations to make money. A combined federal and provincial sales tax in Quebec and Ontario means cigarettes can cost as much as $13 per pack, making much of eastern Canada a lucrative destination for cigarette smuggling as well.

One possible disincentive for smugglers would be for states and provinces to cut tobacco taxes, but not only have places like New York City shown an unwillingness to do so, but they have proposed restricting and taxing sales of e-cigarettes in the same way as tobacco products.

Borderline Psychosis Update- Fast and Furious Gun Reportedly Used to Kill Police Chief in Jalisco; Narcos Carry Out Cross Border Abduction of Innocent Man in Texas

Aftermath of deadly ambush in Jalisco that killed the police chief for the town of Hostotipaquillo

JALISCO- About the only honest assessment from the Justice Department and Obama Administration during the 2011 Fast and Furious hearing on Capitol Hill was that the weapons that were allowed to 'walk' in the ill-advised ATF operation would continue surfacing at crime scenes on both sides of the border for quite some time.

Another weapon lost in the Obama administration's failed Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation has purportedly been traced to two more killings, including the fatal shooting of a police chief in Mexico.

The officer was killed Jan. 29 in the city of Hostotipaquillo when gunmen intercepted his patrol car and opened fire, according to Justice Department records obtained by The Los Angeles Times. The chief’s bodyguard was also killed and a second bodyguard and the chief’s wife were wounded.

The semi-automatic rifle that killed the police chief in central Mexico has been traced to the Lone Wolf Trading Company, a gun store in Glendale, Ariz.

The gun was purchased in February 2010 by 26-year-old Jacob A. Montelongo, of Phoenix, who purportedly bought more than 100 guns connected to Fast and Furious. He is now serving 41 months in prison on charges including making false statements and smuggling goods from the United States.

The murder weapon was identified as a WASR- a Romanian made semi-automatic variant of the AK-47. The gun was similar to another weapon that could be traced back to Fast and Furious in November 2012 when a Mexican beauty queen was reportedly used as a human shield by her narco boyfriend in a shootout between cartel gunmen and Mexican soldiers.

TEXAS- At a time when President Obama and DHS head Janet Napolitano assured us that the border with Mexico was safer than ever, Mexican cartel gunmen abducted an innocent man in Texas and smuggled him across the border before he was murdered in northern Mexico.

The abduction took place more than two years ago at a rural intersection in Mission, TX when Gulf cartel gunmen dressed as policemen abducted 35 year old Ovidio Olivares Guererro at gunpoint before tying him up and taking him to a nearby cartel stash house, then a ranch in Starr county before being smuggled across the border to Mexico.

Police believe his abductors had mistaken Olivares for his cousin, Gerardo Olivarez. The abduction was reportedly ordered by a Gulf Cartel underboss Miguel Villareal Jr- also known as 'Gringo Mike' who believed that Gerardo had stolen large amounts of cocaine from one of the cartel's nearby stash houses.

Court records show that the whole kidnapping plot began to unravel when Mission police busted a party inside a hotel room at the Hawthorn Suites off Plantation Grove Boulevard back in June 2011.

Mission police arrested 23-year-old Gerardo Villarreal on drug charges but investigators learned he participated in the kidnapping.

Villarreal told investigators that he got paid $1,000 dollars by a man nicknamed “Pecueka” to participate in the crew.

Federal court records show that Villarreal is expected to be sentenced in August but FBI agents identified five more suspects named in a second, but related case.

FBI agents arrested suspects Jose Lorenzo Davila, Roel Garza and Orlando Hernandez last week but the names of the two others suspects in their case remain sealed.

Records in both cases show that the intended target in the kidnapping was Guerrero’s cousin Gerardo Olivarez.

Olivarez could not be reached for comment on Wednesday but records show that the gunmen were hired to kidnap him.

Court records show that the gunmen knew Olivarez by the nickname “Lin” and they believed he stole a large amount of cocaine from a Gulf Cartel stash house in the Rio Grande Valley.

Villarreal told FBI agents that they had Olivarez’s Mile 8 North home under surveillance in the days before the kidnapping.

Court records show that the kidnapping was one of several ordered by Miguel Villarreal, Jr.

Villarreal was killed during a March 2013 gun battle in Mexico but at the time of the kidnapping, he was a Gulf Cartel plaza boss who went by the nicknames “Gringo Mike” or “El Gringo.”

FBI agents reported that Guerrero was taken from Mile 8 North and taken to a ranch owned by Villarreal at 1012 N. Trosper Rd. in Alton.

The gunmen questioned Guerrero and realized that he was not the right man.

Although the ranch was registered to a woman named Dominga De La Torre, court records show Villarreal was the owner.

The ranch was reportedly used as a Gulf Cartel stash house for drugs and other illegal activity.

Those who stayed at the ranch were charged with guard the drugs but a 100 kilograms of cocaine were stolen from there just two weeks prior to the kidnapping.

Villarreal had hired the gunmen to kidnap those who believed had stolen the drugs.

Once at the Trosper Road ranch house, the gunmen beat Guerrero but realized that he was the wrong man.

Court records show that Guerrero saw the face of a suspect whose name has not been released.

That unnamed suspect told the gunmen that they could not free Guerrero because they had seen his face.

Court records show that the unnamed suspect told the gunmen that Guerrero would be taken to Mexico.

They drove Guerrero to a home in Rio Grande City and then to the Rio Grande River where he was smuggled across to Mexico.

The gunmen delivered Guerrero to a man nicknamed “Mocho,” who was the plaza boss for the Gulf Cartel across from Rio Grande City in Camargo.

Court records show that “Mocho” delivered Guerrero to “Gringo Mike” in Reynosa.

One of the gunmen arrested in the case told FBI agents that he ran into another unnamed suspect in the case in Reynosa.

That unnamed suspect showed the gunmen a large amount of cash and told him that Guerrero had already been murdered.

FBI agents reported that Guerrero was a lawful permanent resident of the United States and had no involvement in the theft or sale of cocaine.

Guerrero has not been hear from or seen since the kidnapping. His body has never been recovered.

Ovidio's family reported his abduction after showing up at a local police station to find out more about his arrest, only to learn that he wasn't in custody.

CANADA- An internal assessment by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police indicates that at least 10 Canadians killed in Mexico since 2008 are suspected to have ties to organized crime  and were thought to be in Mexico to forge closer links to the Mexican cartels.

Some were known to be active in drug trafficking in Canada and all had extensive criminal backgrounds, says the RCMP analysis.

A copy of the May 2012 assessment, which takes a close look at the influence of corruption, and a related review of the implications for Canada — both heavily censored — were released to The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

The Mounties say global borders have become blurred with the proliferation of transnational organized crime.

As a result, Canadian criminal networks have expanded, conducting business on an international scale with illicit organizations in other countries.

“Canadian criminal groups are now dealing directly with Mexican criminals and crime groups in Mexico, a country struggling with corruption and brutal violence,” says the assessment by the RCMP’s criminal intelligence program.

In April last year, Thomas Gisby, a B.C. man with known gang ties, was gunned down in a Nuevo Vallarta coffee shop.

At the same time, interceptions of Canada-bound drug shipments “point to possible connections between Mexican and Canadian-based crime networks,” the RCMP says.

A recently released Canada Border Services Agency report cites Mexico as the largest transit point for South American cocaine destined for North America.

The RCMP assessment says competition among drug trafficking organizations has made corruption endemic in Mexican society, reflected in weakened governmental institutions, an ineffective criminal justice system, and a deep-rooted fear and distrust of authorities by the Mexican people.

At least five of the Canadians mentioned in the report have extensive criminal backgrounds and are said to be associated with the Hell's Angels or British Columbia-based UN Gang. A number of Canadian criminal enterprises are said to be forging closer links to the Mexican cartels to increase their profit margin by eliminating middlemen and third parties.

Canada Arrests Two in Alleged Al Qaeda Inspired Plot to Blow Up Passenger Train in Toronto Area

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested two men on Monday afternoon who were charged with an Al Qaeda sponsored plot to blow up or derail passenger trains in the Toronto area.

“Had this plot been carried out, it would have resulted in innocent people being killed or seriously injured,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police official James Malizia told reporters in Toronto.

The RCMP said it had arrested Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of Montreal, and Raed Jaser, 35, of Toronto in connection with the plot, which authorities said was not linked to the Boston Marathon bombings, but likely had connections to al-Qaida.

“The RCMP is alleging that Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser were conspiring to carry out an al-Qaida-supported attack against a VIA passenger train,” Malizia said.

U.S. officials said the attack would have targeted a rail line between New York and Toronto, but Canadian police did not confirm that.

The arrests come a week after the terrorist attack that killed three people and injured nearly 200 others at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, leading up to a chaotic chase and running gunfight in the Boston area just hours after the FBI released images showing two of the bombers from surveillance footage on Thursday. Some reports that the two Chechen brothers behind the Boston Marathon attack were part of a larger sleeper cell. However, the RCMP claims that today's arrests are likely unrelated to the Marathon bombings.

The two suspects are not Canadian citizens, although their respective countries of origin weren't disclosed at Monday's news conference.

The plan received “direction and guidance” from an element of al-Qaeda based in Iran, said the force, refusing to elaborate. That connection with the Islamic terrorist organization made the plot particiularly significant, said Asst. Supt. Malidza.

However, officers said there was no evidence the plan was in any way “state-sponsored.”

Earlier this year, two Canadian nationals who were on the radar of Canada's intelligence agency were among the hostage-takers killed at a natural gas plant in southern Algeria when the Algerian military raided the facility. At least 23 hostages and more than 30 terrorists were killed in the January attack.

Sticky Situation Update- Stolen Maple Syrup Reportedly Surfaces in Quebec, New Brunswick

Barrels of maple syrup at the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers warehouse in Laurierville, Quebec. Yves Charlebois- QMI photo

It was the heist that launched a thousand breakfast puns- in late August, thieves siphoned anywhere from C$20 to C$30 million worth of maple syrup from a warehouse in St Louis du Blandford, Quebec. The warehouse- owned by the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers- is part of Canada's Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve [a phrase one usually associates with commodities like oil, gold or uranium- NANESB!]. They syrup at St Louis du Blandford warehouse and other facilities is stored in barrels, but instead of taking the barrels the thieves had siphoned off the liquid gold, leaving behind empty barrels so that the theft wasn't noticed until immediately.

In October, officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Sûreté du Québec executed search warrants at two seperate locations following the heist. RCMP officers reportedly found a significant quantity of syrup believed to be from the heist at a processing and export facility in Kedgwick, New Brunswick.

Quebec Provincial Police officers also raided a warehouse south of Quebec City about 10 days later. Less was known about the warehouse in St Nicholas, QC than the export firm in New Brunswick. The warehouse owner, who asked not to be identified, said he leased the building to syrup distributors who owed them money. A worker at a neighboring business said the current tennants had been there for about a year.

In the latest development, a lawyer for S.K. Export Inc- the New Brunswick firm that had approximately 660 barrels confiscated when police served a search warrant- has convinced a Quebec judge to return at least some of the 660 impounded barrels to the firm.

Étienne St.-Pierre, the owner of S.K. Export is also contemplating seeking compensation from the Quebec Provincial Police and the Quebec Federation of Maple Syrup Producers, contending that the Federation has been trying to put him out of business due to his long-standing practise of circumventing the Federation when he purchases surplus syrup from Quebec producers.

Police declined to comment on how they determined the syrup at S.K. Export was from the St Louis du Blandford heist due to the ongoing investigation.

Boston's Christmas Tree Gets Interactive on Trek Down from Nova Scotia

In keeping with a 41 year tradition with the province of Nova Scotia, the city of Boston's Christmas Tree was lit on Boston Common last week.

I wrote about the origins of this Christmastime tradition between Nova Scotia and Boston for almost as long as I've had this blog.

Basically on December 6th 1917, at the height of World War One, a French munitions ship caught fire after a collision in Halifax Harbor. The ensuing blast killed nearly 2000 people and laid waste to much of the cities of Halifax and Dartmouth. Red Cross officials in Boston got word of the catastrophe via telegraph and immediately began assembling a train loaded with doctors, nurses, medicine, food and tents for Nova Scotia in what would be widely considered a blueprint for disaster relief in the future.

As a token of their thanks, the following year, the province of Nova Scotia arranged to have a tall and sturdy Christmas Tree shipped to the city of Boston for Chritmastime. It appeared the gift was a one-time deal until the early 1970s when the Lunenburg County Christmas Tree Producers Association decided they could promote their product by reviving the tradition.

Since then, the Christmas Tree tradition has continued uninterrputed, although the province now handles the selection and transport of the tree to Boston. While there is no monetary compensation, many Nova Scotians consider it an honor to have one of their trees selected.

The Boston Christmas Tree making its way through Shelburne, NS with police escort. Tree For Boston photo via Facebook

This year's Boston tree is a 70 year old, 45 ft tall white spruce that comes from Paul and Jan Hicks of Jordan Bay, NS. In addition to being accompanied by Nova Scotia Deputy Premier Frank Corbett and two uniformed Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers, this year's Boston Christmas Tree apparently is also social media savvy.

You see, the Hicks' tree is the first to update its users of its status via twitter or facebook- tweeting under the handle @TreeForBoston. Not only were followers updated of the Tree's travels, but also its getting prepped for last Thursday's tree-lighting ceremony.

And as Bostonians take in the sight of this year's Christmas tree, the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources is already searching for candidates to be 2013's Boston Christmas Tree.

Canada's Ruling Conservative Party Moves to Scrap Nation's Costly Long Gun Registry

Loathed by Canadian hunters, farmers and sportsmen while coveted by gun control advocates in both Canada and the USA, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Cabinet introduced legislation that would scrap Canada's costly and controversial long gun registry once and for all.

"Our government believes that the requirement to register long-guns has needlessly and unfairly targeted law-abiding Canadians, specifically law-abiding firearms owners, as criminals for simply owning a long-gun," said MP Hoeppner [Representing the Portage-Lisgar, MB riding; southwest of Winnipeg] who introduced a similar private member's bill in the last Parliament that was narrowly defeated.

"Furthermore, these lawabiding firearms owners have been burdened with red tape that the long-gun registry has caused."

Ms. Hoeppner said the Conservatives have "examined" all the evidence and that she can now say confidently that the nearly $2-billion registry has been "completely ineffective" and "completely wasteful."

The legislation introduced Tuesday will not have an impact on registration requirements for restricted and prohibited firearms.

Gun owners will also still be required to pass a police background check, a firearms safety course and they will have to comply with all safe storage and transportation requirements.

The recently introduced bill would also require that data accumulated in the long-gun registry be deleted so that the registry could not be reconstituted in any way shape or form by a future government. Interestingly, after more than a decade of ignoring cost overruns from building and maintaining the actual registry, many supporters of the long gun registry are claiming that deletion of the registry's files on Canadian gun owners would be an onerous and costly proposition. The RCMP, which is responsible for the database, refused to make public any cost estimates regarding the registry's scrapping and deletion.

The Quebec government has already announced their opposition to both the closure of the registry and the mandated deletion of the files within. While the bill would allow for individual provinces to set up their own gun registry scheme, it was also made clear that the provinces should expect no federal funding for such endeavors.

The registry was introduced in 1995 and was finally operational by 2001 before Canadian gun owners were given a deadline of Jan 1, 2003 to individually register their non-restricted firearms. Failure to register guns or renew a Possession and Acquisition License (PAL) by a gun owner could draw a fine, possible jail time or confiscation.

In 2006, an Orilla, ON web consultant who worked on an earlier version of the registry's website said that the database could be easily hacked and the make, model and serial numbers of registered guns along with the home address and phone number of their owners could be accessed by just about anybody with a computer and about a half hour to spare.

Many gun owners also expressed concerns that additional restrictions or a prohibition of firearms with certain characteristics would be put in place under Chretien's government that would outlaw nearly overnight guns that they had legally obtained and owned for years.

While many top-level police officials in Eastern Canada initially supported the registry as a law-enforcement tool, others remained skeptical of its effectiveness.

Dismantling the registry was something Harper had campaigned on in previous elections, but lacked a Conservative majority in parliment to pull it off, although a measure to kill the registry was narrowly defeated in 2010. But in May of this year, Harper won re-election and his Conservative party trounced the opposition.

Since 1977, civilian firearms in Canada have fallen into three categories- non-restricted, restricted and prohibited. Non restricted guns can are usually long guns that can range from antique single-shot rifles and shotguns to semiautomatic or large caliber rifles and carbines. Firearms in the restricted category include all handguns as well as long-guns with certain features such as a flash suppressor or pistol grip (yet are functionally similar to many long guns in the non-restricted category).

Guns in the Prohibited category include belt-fed or fully automatic weapons or sawn off shotguns or rifles that had been grandfathered in prior to the revised guidelines in 1977.

Even though I'm neither Canadian or a Canadian gun owner, I personally will be glad to see this costly, onerous boondoggle go away. About 10 years ago, gun control advocates in the USA were approvingly citing this program as something that should be implemented here.

They didn't seem to mind the fact that this scheme would put law-abiding gun owners under even more scrutiny from law enforcement while gang members and criminals (on either side of the border) would continue to murder, rob and rape with their decidedly unregistered guns that they either stole or got on the black market. This quote from an Ottawa Citizen article about reaction to this week's development is pretty telling:

Some Canadians are alarmed that registered firearms users such as Styles have legal access to such weapons, which are considered "civilianized" models of modern military-assault rifles. Although these high-powered rifles are seldom used in crimes in Canada, many gun-control advocates want them banned in the name of public safety.

There you have it. Even though these purportedly fearsome weapons rarely show up at crime scenes on either side of the border, we're supposed to believe that these noble-minded busybodies are trying to protect us from a public safety threat that hardly even exists.

Others have been far more shrill and vindictive, not the least bit hesitant to lump hundreds of thousands of law abiding citizens with a misogynist sociopath who went on a killing spree at Montreal's École Polytechnique in December 1989. And then telling anybody who resents the comparison to 'get over themselves'. As the National Post's Chris Selley pointed out, these are hardly the ingredients for a successful charm offensive.

Outbursts like those from the Montreal Gazette's Janet Bagnall seem to do nothing but remind people that issues like gun control or gun registration were never about public safety to begin with, but rather utilizing the mechanisms of government to control a segment of the population those like her find distasteful.

Borderline Psychosis- The Often Overlooked Northern Border Edition: GAO- Only 32 miles of Canadian Border 'Secure'; Smugglers Pipeline in Northern NY

Looking north from the Whitetail, MT border crossing- Mike Stebelton/ Daniels County Leader

A study released in February indicates that just over 32 miles of the nearly 4,000 mile US/Canadian border is considered 'secure' according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) states the threat of terrorism from the northern border is higher than from the southern Mexico border, given the large expanse of area with limited law enforcement coverage. DHS reports networks of illicit criminal activity and smuggling of drugs, currency, people, and weapons across the northern border.

The report focuses on whether federal agencies are working together to secure the vast stretches of the border owned by the federal government.

The study points out critical gaps in security along the U.S.-Canadian border that limit the ability of Customs and Border Protection to fully secure the border—gaps including a lack of interoperable communications systems and limited sharing of intelligence and information between local and federal officials.

U.S. Customs head Alan Bersin told a US Senate Subcommittee earlier this month that even though the Canadian border sees far fewer arrests than the US/Mexican border, the Canadian border is considered a 'more significant threat' by Customs and DHS.

Although certainly not marred by the bloody narco-violence like Mexico, there are concerns that radical Islamists would attempt to enter the USA through Canada to carry out attacks. In December 1999, an Algerian national was arrested at Port Angeles, WA after entering the country from Victoria, BC when a search of his vehicle turned up plastic bags filled with explosives and some homemade timing devices.

MICHIGAN: Drug traffickers flying in private aircraft have taken to making their drops at small, rural and sometimes unstaffed airports along some border states.

The bust by federal agents didn't happen on the southwestern border. It was in Michigan's rural Thumb region next to a soybean field. The remote airport here in Sandusky offers a smooth runway at any hour to anyone who needs it, a perfect landing spot for brazen drug smugglers who can cross the Great Lakes from Canada in minutes.

Beefed-up enforcement along the Mexican border has made smuggling more challenging for criminal cartels using the major southern routes, but drugs continue to flow across the porous northern border through airstrips like this one as officials look for new ways to fight back.

Tracking rogue planes at low altitude with their transponders off is “like trying to pick a needle out of a haystack,” said John Beutlich of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, who oversees air and marine operations from Washington state to Maine.

“Shoot, we're just a big cherry to pick and didn't realize it,” said Joe Allen, manager of the Sandusky airport, 145 kilometres northeast of Detroit.

He installed a fence to keep cars from meeting planes at the runway, but the property is not staffed at night. Border agents could offer just two signs asking people to call an 800 number if they see something unusual.

Canada is a significant source of high-quality marijuana and the amphetamine Ecstasy. More than 2 million doses of Ecstasy were seized on the northern border in 2009 compared to just 312,000 in 2004, the Drug Enforcement Administration said, offering a snapshot of what's popular and what gets confiscated.

Most shipments come by road. But the 2009 flight from Ontario to Michigan, the subject of a recent federal trial, provided insight into drug operations that use small planes. Officials don't know how frequent such flights are but consider the vulnerability alarming.

Matthew Moody and nephew Jesse Rusenstrom, both from Amherstburg, Ontario, were the couriers captured that night in Sandusky. Their job was to enter the country through Detroit, meet the Canadian plane and deliver the drugs to others in the U.S. They also put 27 kilograms of cocaine worth more than $500,000 on the return flight to Guelph, Ontario.

Matthew Moody and nephew Jesse Rusenstrom, both from Amherstburg, Ontario, were the couriers captured that night in Sandusky. Their job was to enter the country through Detroit, meet the Canadian plane and deliver the drugs to others in the U.S. [In addition to the 79kg of pot and 400,000 ecstacy pills they had flown in and were apprehended with] they also put 27 kilograms of cocaine worth more than $500,000 on the return flight to Guelph, Ontario.

It was just one in a series of shipments. Mr. Rusenstrom said he met the drug plane at least 10 times at other tiny airports in the Thumb region — Marlette, Ray, Lapeer — as well as in Greenville in western Michigan and an airport in Pennsylvania. The pilot activated runway lights from the cockpit, a standard practice in aviation.

Mr. Rusenstrom, testifying at the trial of an accomplice, Robert “Romeo” D'Leone, said hundreds of airports were studied on Google Maps.

“We would go around looking for airports, seeing if there was fences or cameras,” the 21-year-old told jurors.

Mr. D'Leone, who lives in the Toronto area, stopped his trial and pleaded guilty on April 14. Mr. Rusenstrom and Mr. Moody co-operated, pleaded guilty and were recently sentenced to time served in custody. The U.S. still wants to extradite four others in Ontario who are accused of major roles, including the pilot.

Some jurors were alarmed by the revelations during the D'Leone trial.

“You always hear Homeland Security has an eye on everything. It's surprising that airfields aren't manned 24 hours,” Robert Simpson, 47, told The Associated Press.

The Sandusky airport has spent $2,000 on cameras and hopes to install more.
“We're outside radar,” Mr. Allen, the manager, said, running his finger over a map of Michigan's Thumb. “You can come and go as you please. You don't even have to file a flight plan.”

The minimal help he received from border authorities — warning signs — had to be fixed before he posted them: They referred to suspicious boats, not planes.

[What is it with Homeland Security and thinking signs are the answer!?- NANESB!]

NEW YORK: Another locale popular with smugglers and organized crime on both sides of the border is the Akwesasne Indian Reservation just outside of , which straddles the borders between New York State, Quebec and Ontario along the St Lawrence River.

The area's unique geography and patchwork of jurisdictions on both sides of the border has had the attention of smugglers and bootleggers since Prohibition. In more recent years, local residents will either run contraband across the border themselves- either in snowmobiles during wintertime or motorboats when the St Lawrence is navigable- or charge landing fees to smugglers for using their property.

Illegal immigrants, hydroponic marijuana and Ecstasy are usually smuggled into the USA from the Canadian side while illegal firearms, cocaine and untaxed tobacco or alcohol make their way north. Some estimates say that 20% of Canadian grown marijuana smuggled into the USA moves through the Akwesasne/St Regis reservation.

While there are some cigarette factories on the US side of the reservation, the sale of tax free cigarettes on reservation stores has caught the attention of groups like the 'Ndrangheta, Hells Angels and Bulgarian Mafia who will often purchase cigarettes in bulk then turn around and sell the untaxed cigarettes in high tax municipalities like New York City, Montreal or Toronto.

Terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and the Real IRA have also raised funds through trafficking untaxed cigarettes in the last decade.

RCMP: Anti-Tank Weapon With Live Ammunition Discovered Abandoned Next to BC Highway

Crews contracted by BC Hydro to clear brush from underneath power lines discovered a loaded anti-tank weapon not 20 feet from the Trans Canada Highway on Friday.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a Canadian Forces ordinance disposal unit were called to secure the area about 25km north of Victoria BC and take custody of the device.

The weapon was identified as an M72 Light Anti-tank Weapon (a predecessor to the US Army's AT-4). RCMP Sgt. Rob Webb said that the weapon appeared to be at that location for a few weeks before being discovered.

I'm not sure why a loaded anti-tank weapon would be abandoned by the side of the road in Canada, but it does seem pretty disturbing in light of today's other events. Police elsewhere in British Columbia have said they seized a similar weapon in a raid on a marijuana growing operation in a rural area outside of Kamloops earlier this year. So there may be nothing more to it than that, but it seems extremely foolish to dismiss this report with a mere "Oh come on now, that could be anybody's loaded rocket launcher abandoned by the side of the road."

Also keep in mind that for the failed 1999 Millennium Bombing plot, one of the perpetrators was discovered attempting to enter the USA through Port Angeles, WA with explosives after taking a car ferry from Victoria, BC.

Happy Canada Day from Not Another New England Sports Blog!

While our independence day is right around the corner, today marks Canada Day (formerly Confederation Day) for our neighbors up north. Sure- we may think of Canada as a safe haven for draft-dodging hippies back during the Vietnam era, but there's more to the Great White North than geriatric hippies and lengthy wait times to see a doctor under their healthcare system.

[Nose Art on WWII-era RCAF Lancaster]

Don't let the decades of Trudeau-esque nanny statism fool you, either- Canada's rugged individualism has been out there for all to see over the last few years [I could even make the case that it was there all along, just not noticed until fairly recently- NANESB!].

You want badass? How about driving 18 wheelers over frozen lakes? You want even more badass? Try being the first one to drive heavy vehicles across the frozen waters in the wilderness: that sounds like ex-soldier, ex-Mountie John Denison ,who began supplying remote mining camps in the Northwest Territories at first with 'Cat trains'- a bulldozer pulling several sleds loaded down with supplies and lashed together- and then with a secondhand Army truck in the 1950s. Today there is a fairly well co-ordinated system overseeing operations of the seasonal ice roads in the Northwest Territories; that's not to say it's no longer dangerous, but imagine heading out into the wilderness in not much more than a secondhand two and a half ton truck. Denison was considered the original architect of the ice roads and was awarded the Order of Canada in 1998. John Denison passed away in Kelowna, BC in 2001 at the age of 84.

Not badass enough? Try one of the longest confirmed sniper kills on record! Then-Master corporal Rob Furlong of Princess Pat's Light Infantry set a world record in 2002 with the longest confirmed kill during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan's Shah-i-Kot valley, when he dropped a machine gun toting Al Qaeda fighter from a distance of more than 2600 yards (or just over a mile and a half). Having said that, Furlong's record was recently surpassed by a British sniper- also in Afghanistan.

Keep in mind that Canada entered WWII two years ahead of the USA. James Doohan- the actor who played Scotty on Star Trek- was with the Canadian Army when they stormed Juno beach on D-Day. He was hit by gunfire and lost his finger that day but would survive. Later on in his acting career, cameramen would ty and avoid filming his hand that was missing the finger.

Let's not forget ice-hockey, hardly a pursuit for the faint of heart. Sure, it's been awhile since a Canadian team brought home the Stanley Cup, but Canada provides a good deal of the manpower for those championship teams.

One possible upside of the 'Fairness Doctrine' being imposed on American broadcaster is that USA viewers could be treated to a 76 year old Don Cherry reducing Keith Olberman to a snivelling, incoherent shell of a human being with just one glance...well....I guess an even more incoherent snivelling shell of a human being during NBC's Football Night in America (a name NBC 'borrowed' from CBC's long-running Hockey Night in Canada). Hell, Cherry would probably make Olberman's awkward, gangly stepson Rachel Maddow hold his technicolor dream coat while he effortlessly sapped the MSNBC 'personality' of his will to live.
And let us not forget the First Canadians (an Anglo Canadian neolingism for 'Native Americans')such as the Baker Twins- Shannon and Shauna- from the Stellat'en First Nations Reservation in Northwestern British Columbia. OK....to be honest, since I don't watch Smallville, I only found out about them like 20 minutes ago. Apparently Shannon's appearance on Smallville was supposed to be a one-time deal that got extended when the producers found out she had a real-life identical twin.

[Image: CMT]

There's also a good number of country musicians that hail from Canada. In the interest of full disclosure, I hardly ever listen to country music but have to acknowledge that a disproportionate number of attractive women seem to gravitate towards that medium as performers. Montreal-born and Medicine Hat, Alberta-raised Terri Clark (shown above) has been in the business for the last 15 years.

Image: Rocky Mountain Rail Society

Let us not forget the iron horses that- just as in our history- played a pivotal role in the development and expansion of Canada. One could make the argument that Canada as a nation would not have survived were it not for the completion of the Canadian Pacific line between Ontario and the then-obscure pacific coast port of Vancouver. In fact, completion of the line was a condition for British Columbia's 1871 entry into the Confederation of Canada. Canadian Pacific's line was completed in November 1885, followed by Canadian Northern's transcontinental line (which would become Canadian National). Like their American counterparts, Canadians have also taken steps to preserve equipment and structures from that era- such as former Canadian National streamlined U-1-f 4-8-2 Mountain class built by the Montreal Locomotive works. #6060 (shown above) is such an example and is maintained by the Rocky Mountain Rail Society and frequently operated over the Alberta Prairie railroad in Stettler, AB (the Alberta Prairie has a smaller ex-US Army Steam engine of its own it will operate on a more regular basis).

This video from TLC also gives viewers an idea of what it's like to operate a train over the Canadian Rockies in more modern times (it starts about 40 seconds in):


So Happy Canada Day, our neighbors to the north! I'm not sure if you traditionally set off fireworks like we do on independence day, but raise a frosty pint of Alexander Keith's or Okanagan Spring to your underrated nation on this first of July!

Let the Good Times Roll: Man with Axe, Crossbow, Chemicals Detained Near G20 Venue in Toronto

Toronto Police and the RCMP took into custody a 53 year old Ontario man after a traffic stop near one of the upcoming G20 summit venues. A search of the man's car turned up an axe, some baseball bats, a crossbow and some arrows as well as some fuel canisters.

A Hazmat team was brought in to further search the car before it was towed away. The driver of the Hyundai was arrested on weapons charges and did not resist.

For those of us who can't make it to Toronto to see the G20 summit and ancillary freakshows firsthand, Paladin Phil's Knight's Watch blog has you covered.