Robert Mugabe wins in sham election

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was on Sunday declared winner of a widely condemned election which African observers said was scarred by violence and intimidation. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said Mugabe had won Friday's vote, in which he was the only candidate.

84 year old Mugabe has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980, was due to be sworn in shortly in a ceremony at State House, officials said.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who withdrew from last Friday's election a week ago, saying nearly 90 of his supporters had been killed by government-backed militias, dismissed the inauguration as meaningless. Tsvangirai had previously won an election back in March, but Mugabe's supporters refused to admit defeat and bullied their way into recounts and a second election. Blatant intimidation and murder of Tsvangirai's supporters has since caused Tsvangirai to go into hiding and flee for his life.

With the opposition powerless to stop widespread corruption and violence and Mugabe unwilling to even talk about releasing his ironfisted controll over Zimbabwe the only solution remaining is foreign intervention.
Part of the problem is that Zimbabwe's HIV/AIDS epidemic is out of control and had reached 24.6% of the population by 2001. It could be as high as 30 or 40% by now. With an overall population of 12.3 million people that is a lot of people infected and a military intervention will have to be concerned with how to deal with so many AIDS patients.

In the meantime the economy in Zimbabwe has slipped badly. The unemployment rate was 80% in 2005 and the per capita GDP was $200. Back in 2003 the Zimbabwe dollar 82% of an American dollar but the exchange rate has since plummeted to 30,000 per one American dollar (which is to say Zimbabwean money is now worth less than toilet paper).

Their oil imports are relatively low so it would be comparably easy to set up a trade blockade with the country to prevent oil and gasoline products from going in (which would eventually cripple Zimbabwe's military power). Zimbabwe's military is already crippled by AIDS, poor funding and are basically pro-Mugabe street thugs drunk on power.

Its difficult to tell everything that is going on within Zimbabwe as very few reporters are allowed into the country and the reports coming out suggest that violence and rape is a regular occurrence. In a country that had such a large percentage of AIDS it does raise the question of whether the Zimbabwe army is accidentally or deliberately spreading AIDS amongst the populace.

Or is it the reverse? Could they be trying to exterminate AIDS through violence? Robert Mugabe's intentions are not clear.

It is becoming ridiculously obvious that a military intervention is needed and the only question is what countries will be willing to step up to the plate to prevent a complete catastrophe.

The United States is already mired down in two wars in the Iraq and Afghanistan, and the possibility of a third war with Iran is still possible. We won't be expecting any help from the USA, but other countries like Canada and members of the European Union could certainly help if someone would simply take the initiative.

Abortion Vs Poverty

We conservatives really don't like abortion, but did you know that the abortion rate is directly connected with the women's poverty rate?

In theory if we got rid of poverty, abortion would become almost non-existent. Food for thought.

73% of women who have abortions are living below the poverty level (earning $9,570 or less per year).

Paris Hilton Media Block

I think the media in the United States and Canada should block all mention of Paris Hilton in their articles. Paris Hilton is basically a pornstar/supermodel and doesn't deserve attention.

We should be more concerned with political issues, war and the high price of oil (which recently shot up to $111 US).

Learn more at Hundred Dollar Oil.

Barack Obama Vs Canada

Or more specifically, Barack Obama's assistant vs Prime Minister Harper's chief of staff...

There has been a lot of press on the subject of a memo sent from Barack Obama's assistant and how Prime Minister Harper's chief of staff leaked it to the press. Perhaps even deliberately leaked it to hurt Obama's presidential campaign.

Hopefully I am not the first person to say this: Who the fuck cares? Big whoop-dee-do.

In the States the press are saying it proves that Barack Obama is two-faced when it comes to him talking about backing out of NAFTA (or negotiating a NAFTA II which would allow the USA more control over Canadian laws that interfere with trade).

The memo, essentially, said not to worry about Obama's rhetoric on the subject, he was just trying to drum up extra support. In otherwords he was lying to get more votes.

Whoop-dee-do. Politicians do that all the time. We even regularly catch them in their gaffs, lies and missteps. As long as they are not preaching "Death to some minority group!" we usually don't pay much attention.

Stephen Harper has done way worse things as Prime Minister than simply say a few words and badmouth the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)...

He cut funding to women's shelters, women's groups and child daycare centres.

He selectively censored movies containing any homosexual, sexual or violent themes within Canadian-made movies. If a movie producer wants to make a movie on a controversial theme like spousal abuse they now have to make it in the USA because Canada's tax laws are too strict and unfair. The new changes have basically forced many Canadian movie companies to move south of the border.

He dilly-dallied on same sex marriage and eventually allowed it. He tried to get rid of it, and likely might try again if he ever got a majority government.

He refused to back the Kyoto Accord and now it is too late for Canada to meet any of the accord's expectations. Instead Canada will actually be INCREASING its greenhouse gas output.

He publicly supported Brain Mulroney and tried to keep the Karlheinz Schreiber bribery quiet until it hit the media, at which point he did a 180 degree turn and is now publicly avoiding Brian Mulroney and the bribery scandal.

Harper now has his own bribery scandal to deal with. In 2005 the Conservative party offered Chuck Cadman, now dead, a $1,000,000 life insurance policy to be collected by his wife and daughter after he died in exchange for his vote in the House of Commons on a crucial. Cadman refused the offer and sided with the Liberals. The problem with this scandal however is that Stephen Harper was caught on audio tape admitting his own party was trying to bribe Cadman during the time of the actual event.

So lets see... Stephen Harper hates women, gays and the Canadian film industry. He thinks climate change is a hoax and the oil industry pays for his pension. He also has two bribery scandals and a leaked memo to deal with...

And Stephen Harper is leading a minority government that is teetering on collapse, and yet somehow we're not having an election.

The thing is, something else is bound to happen. Sooner or later some piece of straw will break the camel's back and then there will be a significant drop in the polls.

And then the Liberals will call an election, because they can do so at any time right now.

What the Conservatives need, sorry to say it, is to lose that election, have a leadership convention and elect a new party leader who isn't corrupt.

Lest we forget Stephen Harper was only meant as a temporary leader as a replacement for Stockwell Day. He was never meant to become Prime Minister.

What we need is a younger, more fit and vibrant version of Joe Clark or Brian Mulroney... I wonder if Ben Mulroney is interested in politics?

Oh... and before I forget... what American in their right mind would vote for someone who's name sounds like Osama bin Laden? Barack Obama may be able to say all the right words and be squeeky clean in many ways, but his name, just his name, is problematic.

Most voters in the USA don't even pay attention to who is running until it is almost election day. Some just pick a name out of hat or flip a coin. Having a name that sounds like a known terrorist is not a winning feature.

And even if he does beat Hillary Clinton and manages to fend off Republican John McCain to win the presidency, it has long been foretold that racist groups in the USA would shoot the first black president at the first opportunity.

Which then raises the question of who would be the vice president and running mate? John Edwards? Hillary Clinton? America could end up with a president they didn't quite expect if such a thing happened.

I imagine security will be tight during the election, and if it isn't, then I question the loyality of the security guards and US Secret Service for not protecting the presidential candidates and/or president properly.

I also am curious to see whether any leftwing or rightwing militant will try and shoot George W. Bush after he is out of office. With the amount of hatred he has stirred up there must be at least a hundred would-be assassins just waiting for relaxed security so they can pop one into him.

If you do a poor enough job as leader you will either get tossed out of office or someone will use you for target practice.

Stephen Harper knew about Bribery

Harper Knew of Conservative Bribery, but denies endorsing it.

February 29th 2008.

Canadians were shocked to hear Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s admission that he knew members of the Conservative Party tried to bribe former British Columbia MP Chuck Cadman in exchange for his vote, the Liberal Opposition said today.

“In an interview, Mr. Harper was asked explicitly about the insurance offer,” said Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale during Question Period in the House of Commons. “He did not deny it. In fact, he confirmed an offer was made. He told Conservative officials to ‘make the case’ to Mr. Cadman.

“Did the Prime Minister know that making such an offer would be an indictable offense under the criminal code?”

Mr. Goodale was referring to a taped conversation between journalist Tom Zytaruk and Stephen Harper in 2005, revealing that Mr. Harper was aware that Conservative officials tried to bribe the terminally ill MP in exchange for his vote.

“Donna Cadman has repeatedly confirmed that Conservatives offered her husband life insurance benefits to buy his vote” said Mr. Goodale. “The government has attacked the word of Mrs. Cadman, but her story is consistent. It's confirmed by her daughter and by the Prime Minister's own words.”

Mr. Goodale pointed out that under the existing Parliamentary life insurance plan, MPs who no longer sit in Parliament are able to keep their insurance policies. However, the premiums go up and the benefits go down.

“Did the Conservatives offer to make up that difference in exchange for Mr. Cadman's vote?” asked Mr. Goodale.

The Liberal Opposition believes it is time for Mr. Harper to stop preaching accountability and start being honest with Canadians by explaining everything he knows about the shocking allegations of illegal and unethical bribery.

Stephen Harper knew about $1 million Bribery

In 2005 Stephen Harper knew Conservative party officials were making a financial offer of $1 million to independent MP Chuck Cadman in exchange for his vote to topple the minority Liberal government in May 2005, a new book charges. Harper believed it was a waste of time to try bribing Cadman.

Harper was Opposition leader when two party operatives offered Cadman, who had terminal cancer, a million-dollar life insurance policy, according to the book.

In an audio tape released to the Star by the publisher of Like A Rock: The Chuck Cadman Story, it is clear that Harper knew of the offer when he was interviewed by author Tom Zytaruk in September 2005.

When Zytaruk asked Harper whether he knew of the offer, Harper said: "I don't know the details. I knew that there were discussions, uh, this is not for publication?"

Zytaruk told Harper that the interview was "not for the newspaper. This is for the book."

Harper said: "I can tell you that I had told the individuals – I mean, they wanted to do it – but I told them they were wasting their time.

"I said Chuck had made up his mind he was going to vote with the Liberals. I knew why, and I respected the decision, but they were convinced there was financial issues ... but I said that's not going to change the decision," Harper said.

"I said `Don't press him, I mean, you have this theory that it's, you know, financial insecurity, and ... if that's what you say, make the case,' but I said `Don't press it.'

"We had all kinds of our guys were calling him and trying to persuade him, but I just had concluded that that's where he stood and respected that," Harper said.

Asked about the insurance policy, Harper said, "it was only to replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election, okay? That's my understanding of what they were talking about."

Harper, now prime minister, denied yesterday that there was any financial offer made to Cadman. The RCMP confirmed last night they are examining the Liberals' claim the incident violates the Criminal Code.

The allegations caused an uproar in the House of Commons, with Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion saying "not only was trying to bribe Chuck Cadman an insult to his integrity and his honour, not only was it morally and ethically wrong, but it was against the law. Again, I ask the Prime Minister: What was he thinking?"

In an interview with CTV News yesterday, Dona Cadman stood by her story, outlined in the book, that the Tory officials had met with her husband to woo his vote.

"Two gentlemen had visited him, offered him a million-dollar life insurance policy and a few other things," said Cadman, who is the Conservative candidate in the Surrey North riding once held by her husband.

Asked whether she considered it a bribe, she responded, "Yes, in a way."

In a statement yesterday, senior Conservative officials Tom Flanagan and Doug Finley confirmed that they met with Cadman on May 19, 2005, two days after the meeting described in the book, and just hours before the non-confidence vote in the Commons, to discuss his possible return to the Conservative caucus.

"We offered ways that we – as campaign officials – could help Mr. Cadman in the Conservative nomination process, and if successful, wage a competitive campaign in a general election," the two officials said in a joint statement yesterday.

"As the record shows, Mr. Cadman declined our offer to rejoin the Conservative caucus and voted to prevent a general election," the statement said.

It is clear from Harper's comments – and in a book written last year by Flanagan – that Conservative officials and the Tory leader had several meetings with Cadman, not just one on May 19, 2005.

The Liberals asked the RCMP to launch a criminal probe. "Any allegations of financial inducements being offered to an elected public official in an attempt to influence that individual must be treated with the utmost seriousness," Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour) wrote to RCMP Commissioner William Elliott.

As well, New Democrat MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre) is asking the Commons' ethics committee to launch an investigation into the allegations outlined in the book.

"Trying to bribe somebody to change their vote is one of the most serious offences in the Criminal Code of Canada. It's a subversion of the Constitution, it undermines democracy," Martin said.

Harper rebutted the allegations yesterday, saying nothing was offered to Cadman before the vote on May 19, 2005.

"This is completely false, completely irresponsible," the Prime Minister said in question period.

Deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff asked: "Is the widow lying?"

The response from several members of the government, including Harper, was to repeat that Cadman said on CTV on May 19, 2005, that he had "received no other offers."

But a transcript of that interview suggests Cadman was talking about offers from other parties to join them.

Cadman, a former Reform and then Canadian Alliance MP, was dying of skin cancer when a crucial budget vote came up on May 19, 2005. Then-Liberal prime minister Paul Martin needed Cadman's vote to stay in power, while Harper's Conservatives needed the independent MP's support to force an election.

Two days before the vote, Zytaruk writes, Cadman was visited by two Conservative representatives and presented with a list of enticements to rejoin the party before the vote.

"They wanted him to vote against the government," Zytaruk quotes Cadman's wife Dona.

A million-dollar life insurance policy was on the list, Zytaruk writes.

"That was on him, so that if he died I'd get the million dollars," Dona Cadman said.

"There was a few other things thrown in there too, but it was the million-dollar policy that just pissed him right off."

The book says that the MP responded to the proposed deal by "bouncing them out of his office."

"He came home and was mad. He just said that he was insulted and that he was ashamed to have been a part of the Conservative party," Cadman's wife recalled in the book.

Cadman sided with the minority Liberals in the crucial vote, ensuring Canadians would not head to the polls for a summer election. He died just a few months later.

Dona Cadman said she had no regrets about telling the story, though she conceded it was a "little" awkward for her now that she was running for the Conservatives.

The statement issued by Flanagan and Finley makes no mention of any earlier meeting with Cadman.

But in his own book, Harper's Team, Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power, Flanagan hints that the May 19 meeting wasn't the first time they had tried to persuade Cadman to come back to the Conservative benches.

The Liberal de facto government

Who is calling the shots in Ottawa? The minority Conservative government, or the Liberals?

I think it is now the Liberals. The Conservative budget, the war in Afghanistan, they are all being tailored to please the Liberals and keep the current minority Conservative government in power.

Why?

Because they are tied in the polls and if we went to an election we would only get another minority government. It is a stalemate between the two.

"A de facto government is a government wherein all the attributes of sovereignty have, by usurpation, been transferred from those who had been legally invested with them to others, who, sustained by a power above the forms of law, claim to act and do really act in their stead."

The only party that is growing in power (cough, cough) is the Greens, mostly due to the youth vote and the environmental movement which is currently all the rage. Which is pathetic at the same time, because they didn't win a single seat in the last election despite being tied with the NDP in the polls. (Methinks Green voters either forgot to actually vote or all voted for the Liberals out of fear of a Conservative majority.)

Another problem is what would the Conservative Party actually promise in a 2008 election? They already made good on their GST reduction of 2%. There is really nothing they have left to offer right now, beyond maintaining the status quo.

The Liberals however are riding high on the environmental issues, with their leader Dion an active environmental crusader. It is too late for the Kyoto Protocol to be implemented (the Conservatives deliberately dragged their feet until it was too late), but that doesn't mean Canada can't do other things to set targets on greenhouse gas reductions.

Therefore the 10% of the population which are Green voters are just enough to push the Liberals towards a majority win. Outside of Quebec, the Liberals and Conservatives are neck and neck with about 37% of the vote. If the Green voters vote Liberal instead they can push it over 45% threshold usually needed to win a majority (thanks to the marvel of vote splitting in a multi-party system).

Quebec however could still be key to winning a majority or a minority. Depending on how few seats the PQ win, if the race is close enough in English Canada, the deciding factor could be 10 to 20 seats within Quebec for either the Liberals or the Conservatives.

And right now, it is anybody's call as to who would actually win and how would they make a government. If the Liberals win a minority they could forge an alliance with either the PQ or the NDP or both. If the Conservatives win a minority they would need to make an alliance with the PQ or the Liberals (the chances of a Conservative/NDP alliance is extremely slim).

The problem however is that the Conservatives already had an alliance with the PQ which has since fallen apart. The current situation with the Liberals isn't even an alliance. First the Conservatives tried to bully the Liberals by threatening an election if they didn't pass key legislation. Now the Conservatives are hanging on by a thread and changing things just to please the Liberals to avoid going to an election.

Stephen Harper seems to keep flip-flopping on whether to call an election or not. First he says he wants one, but then he turns around and tailors legislation in order to avoid one.

I would love to see what the hell is going on inside Conservative caucus meetings. Do they want an election or not? Make up their damn minds.

If we keep going as is it is basically a Liberal de facto government because they are currently the ones calling the shots.

If we go to an election the current environmental political climate and Green swing voters gives the Liberals the edge they need to win.

The Conservatives may be flush with cash and able to afford non-election ad campaigns, but all those anti-Dion ad campaigns have done very little to diminish his support amongst Liberal and Green voters.




(On a side note, the United States is also going through an interesting phase in its run up towards the 2008 election in November. The Republicans have basically already chosen their leader, but he's a bit of a nobody vs. the likes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The real question is who the Democrats will pick? A woman, or a black guy with a name that sounds like Osama bin Laden?)

Stephen Harper defends Mulroney's Bribery

OTTAWA - Stephen Harper is defending Brian Mulroney's stint in international bribery and its not helping his minority government which recently lost 5% in the polls.

Harper is trying to distance himself from Mulroney's past which has just refused to stay in the old Tory closet, but at the same time has been trying to help out the Tory patriarch. Ultimately however Harper can't afford the liability of getting involved in a scandal which could hand the Liberals a majority government.

Harper announced Friday that he would commission an independent probe into allegations of Mulroney's business dealings with controversial businessman Karlheinz Schreiber, and attempt by Harper to sever ties with his former mentor and distance himself from the scandal.

"I think it will be incumbent on me and also upon members of the government not to have dealings with Mr. Mulroney until this issue is resolved,'' Harper told reporters.

That could be easier said than done.

The new Conservative party is an intricate mixture of Reform members, Canadian Alliance members and Progressive Conservatives, perhaps not completely cohesive after only a few years of co-habitation.

Late Friday, some Conservatives were privately wondering what the reaction would be from Tory Senate Leader Marjory LeBreton, who has been a passionate defender of Mulroney's as a former aide and as a friend.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay is another Mulroney booster. Other senior Conservatives, including Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon's Chief of Staff, Paul Therrien, also hailed from the Mulroney era.

Harper's pointman on his transition to power in January 2006 was led by Derek Burney, a former Mulroney chief of staff.

The decision to cut Mulroney loose could not have been an easy one for Harper, said some insiders, who said Harper owes much to the elder Tory.

Mulroney was instrumental in helping smooth the way for a merger between the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance, and in the process became a confidante of Harper's. This was no small feat for a man whose negative image split small c-conservatives in the first place, giving rise to both the Reform Party and the Bloc Quebecois.

Stephen Harper alluded to the rehabilitation of Mulroney in a glowing public speech last April.

"I am delighted to be here with you this evening to pay tribute to a man who is increasingly recognized for all his achievement as prime minister,'' Harper said, later mentioning Mulroney in the same breath as Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan for his efforts to end communism.

Mulroney's role in merger

Faron Ellis, a longtime watcher of small c-conservative politics in Western Canada, said Mulroney served Harper's purposes in helping to merge Canada's right wing and later assuage the fears of Progressive Conservatives in the new party.

His designation by an environmental group as Canada's "greenest prime minister'' also helped lend a modicum of legitimacy to the new Conservatives.

But Ellis said the Reform/Canadian Alliance element in the party never really warmed up to Mulroney.

"There will be no love lost for most Reformers, and most of them would even say it serves to remind our new brothers and sisters in arms what kind of trouble Mulroney was,'' said Ellis, of Alberta's Lethbridge College. "You people were with him, so watch your step.''

Still, insiders from the PC side of the family were downplaying any effects the probe would have on relationships within the party.

"The Conservative Party that Mr. Harper has built with former Progressive Conservatives like Peter MacKay and (Industry Minister) Jim Prentice is very, very strong and very respectful of the strengths that both sides bring to the table. That won't be at all at risk,'' said Geoff Norquay, a former Mulroney staffer and ex-communications director for Harper

Ellis says some Tories would likely see the logic in Harper distancing himself from Mulroney. He was, afterall, the man largely to blame for the party's drubbing in the 1993 election that left them with only two seats, Ellis added.

"The PC members of this coalition are not stupid. They know that Mulroney was problematic for their own causes and reasons, and in a certain sense most of them now would probably say, let's get beyond the guy. He's last century's news.''

Budget freeze endangers wildlife agency, scientists say

Worth Repeating:

CHERYL CORNACCHIA , The Gazette

A year in which Canada geese forgot to fly south and bears failed to hibernate is not the time for the federal government to cut funding and begin dismantling the country's national wildlife service.

That is the message leading Canadian wildlife biologists, many of them working in Quebec, are delivering to Ottawa in emails and letters protesting against drastic budget cuts to the Canadian Wildlife Service.

Since the creation of the Canadian Wildlife Service in 1947, the Quebec scientists note, hundreds of endangered birds, animals and habitats have been identified and saved from extinction.

The wildlife service's budgets have been frozen, travel cancelled and research put on hold until the end of the fiscal year, March 1, 2008.

For their part, Environment Canada officials in Ottawa maintain it is business as usual for the agency and its work.

Gregory Jack, manager of ministerial services for Environment Minister John Baird's office, said the service is simply "re-evaluating" its priorities.

Privately, however, biologists working inside the department and many on the outside, have another take on the funding freeze.

Although staff at the wildlife service have been ordered not to speak to the media, emails obtained by The Gazette reveal the federal government wildlife biologists fear the agency is being gutted.

"Despite the green wave that has hit Canadian politics, I have never seen morale so low in this outfit in the 15 years I have worked here," one senior research scientist wrote.

"There is going to be a profound impact on wildlife," said David Bird, a McGill University professor and incoming president of the Society of Canadian Ornithologists.

In addition to research and monitoring programs, he said, the agency also enforces Canada's Environmental Protection Act and various international commitments, including the Migratory Birds Convention and the Canadian Wildlife Act.

Canada can't afford to stop monitoring bird and wildlife species now, many of the alarmed scientists are saying, especially since they also serve as an early-warning system of climate change and its impact on both the environment and humans.

"We need to understand the population dynamics of these species," said Jean-François Giroux, a wildlife biologist and professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

The waterfowl specialist signed a letter sent last week from the 400-member Society of Canadian Ornithologists urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Baird to reconsider the budget restrictions now undermining the department's historic mandate.

He argues that the recent freeze of the wildlife service's field and research programs could jeopardize dozens of scientific projects, some with human health ramifications.

Among the projects in Quebec:

A study looking at ways to control Canada geese in urban areas and based on the 30,000-strong colony now exploding on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River near Varennes.

Continued satellite tracking of and monitoring for the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza in snow geese, a migratory species. More than a million snow geese travel over Quebec each year from the Canadian Arctic to the eastern United States.

Monitoring for avian cholera of the colony of 30,000 common eider on islands near Quebec City.

Lynn Miller, a wildlife biologist at Concordia University, said she is concerned what will happen to public education on several serious wildlife concerns.

For the agency, Miller has prepared online updates on bird flu, West Nile virus and other issues that workers in wildlife rehabilitation centres across Canada must know about if they handle dead and injured birds.

"We can't afford not to keep our eyes open to what is happening with wildlife," she said.

Paul Milot, a communications director in the Quebec City office of the wildlife service, said that in Quebec there are between 40 and 45 people working for the agency.

However, he said, he was unable to say anything more about the cuts and directed queries to Ottawa.

Canada Sending Troops in Afghanistan Faulty Equipment

Before patrolling the dirt roads that snake around their base near Kandahar, Canadian soldiers grab uniforms that feature special dyes and fibres designed to help them blend into the night. They also pack QuikClot, a chemical powder that can be poured into seeping wounds to staunch blood loss.

Troops may soon be able to add yet another high-tech gadget to their growing arsenal: X-ray vision.

Later this month, Canadian Forces officials are scheduled to review a device that promises to allow soldiers to literally see through concrete walls.

"It's a radar for finding people," says Robert Judd, president of Virginia-based Camero Inc.

The device is called Xaver and it sends and receives radio signals through walls up to a foot thick. Those signals are then converted into rough images on a small video monitor.

In another era, Judd might have had trouble coaxing Canadian Forces personnel to even meet with him.

These days, however, the military's doors are wide open to defence contractors. In 2005-06, the most recent fiscal year for which statistics are available, Canada's defence-related spending was $14.7 billion, 44 per cent more than the $10.2 billion spent in 1997-98.

"The war may not be good for innocent Afghans, but it's been a bonanza for companies," says John Pike, an analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, a non-profit research centre in Washington.

It's also meant a bonanza of new gear for Canadian soldiers, but some fret the rapid spending increase may be leading to rushed, ill-advised buys.

Purchases are approved so quickly that there's little long-term consideration, says Scott Taylor, editor of Esprit de Corps, a military magazine.

Canada already has some 66 Leopard tanks, Taylor says, yet has agreed to buy more from the Dutch, some of which require major retrofits, and lease still more from Germany.

"Our troops may be out of Afghanistan by the time we finish retrofitting some of the German tanks," Taylor says. "What do we do then? Send them down the streets of Haiti or pay for them to be sent back to Germany, if they'll take them back?"

The list of the Forces' recent acquisitions is lengthy and, by military standards, impressive.

Late last month, officers in Kandahar were showing off the Husky, an oversized tractor-like vehicle with electronic and metal detectors designed to find and blow up deadly roadside bombs.

Some Canadian troops have assault rifles equipped with so-called "holographic sights" that allow soldiers to shoot on the run with improved accuracy thanks to a video screen the size of a cellphone display atop the rifle.

"They don't have to shut their eyes and squint to see their target," says Major Pierre Caron, a Canadian Forces weapons expert.

Ottawa's Dew Engineering is refurbishing LAV 3 vehicles with improved armour plating and designing a new seat that promises to better absorb the crippling shock wave created by detonating roadside bombs.

"When a bomb goes off, it's not just the shrapnel that kills, the percussion of the blast moves the organ around," says Tim Page, president of the Canadian Association of Defence and Securities Industries, a trade group. "The seat absorbs that percussion."

But some of the recent purchases are not working exactly as hoped.

Canada bought four unmanned aerial vehicles for $33.8 million in August 2003, through Oerlikon Contraves Inc.

The four-metre-long, French-made Sperwer aircraft were equipped with cameras, parachutes, inflatable crash bags and computer circuit boards.

But it had never been flown in extreme heat or in altitudes as high as Afghanistan. There were immediate concerns the new units would fail. Those worries were dismissed by an Oerlikon spokesperson.

Yet, four years on, Canadian soldiers now complain the Sperwer units have limited range and endurance and are struggling to cope with the Afghan heat.

The defence department is now planning to spend as much as $100 million to buy improved unmanned aerial vehicles.

A string of emails in April 2003 shows that some officers at the Canadian Forces Experimentation Centre – it tests new equipment before purchase – were concerned that Canada's first UAV purchase was being done hastily.

In an April 28, 2003 email to two colleagues obtained under the Access to Information Act, Lt.-Col. Stephen Newton wrote that he was worried about the fast tracking of the UAV purchase.

"It does not appear that anyone is quarterbacking this event and what is worse is that whoever is doing it is basing all their efforts on outdated procedures and criteria," Newton wrote. "At this stage of the game I am beginning to believe that the request for a tactical UAV is coming from the two staff instead of the operators. That is the only way I can explain such a lack of thought..."

Despite such misgivings, Dan Ross, the assistant deputy minister for materiel and the person in charge of major military purchases, said in an interview he wants to make the approval process faster still.

"Before I was hired in May 2005 it was not uncommon for (documents outlining) new project requirements to be 60,000 pages long," Ross said.

In 2004, an internal report suggested it took 107 months to procure equipment. Ross said he wants to pare that to 48 months.

But at what cost? Not testing the equipment properly could result in more deaths than the equipment could save.