Taking a break from all the negative press that Sikhs have been getting lately, I thought it was worth a change of tone by copping the Toronto’s Star’s most recent article on MP Nav Bains. Although I’ve shit on him here or there in the past, respect is still due to the man who’s already earning praise as being a possible contender for the liberal leadership seat, putting him in line to take aim at being the next PM of Canada.

Although, I don’t see him taking aim or cozy-ing it up in the big seat anytime soon, I will say that with the way the Star’s been praising him since the convention, I’m sure he’s made many believers of him yet.

MP Bains: A `charter child’ TheStar.com - News - MP Bains: A `charter child’

Outspoken critic of government’s role in Afghanistan is representative of the new Canada, says political consultant

April 26, 2007

Linda Diebel

At 29, Navdeep Bains is a rising star in the federal Liberal caucus. He’s outspoken, highly regarded and seen by senior Liberals as having the potential, as one put it, “to be the first Canadian prime minister in a turban.”

The Brampton-born MBA is also what’s known as a “charter child.” It’s the term for the growing number of young Canadian politicians who matured under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and consider it a reflex responsibility to speak out on important issues of human rights.

So it should come as no surprise that Bains (Mississauga-Brampton South) lived up to his reputation for outspokenness last week during a trip to Pakistan, making an issue of the sacrifice of Canadian soldiers in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Bains wasn’t in Lahore to talk about Afghanistan. The Liberal trade critic was part of a delegation, headed by International Trade Minister David Emerson, in the Pakistani city (not far from his maternal grandfather’s birthplace) for World Trade Organization talks on agriculture.

But on the eve of the trip, another eight soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, and Bains asked Canadian diplomats to arrange a briefing for him with leading Pakistani journalists. He wanted to talk about the lack of border security between Pakistan and Afghanistan (making it porous to Taliban fighters), as well as the Afghan military coalition, which operates under NATO control.

What he heard disturbed him.

“I was very disappointed at their lack of knowledge of the Canadian role in Afghanistan,” Bains told the Toronto Star, after his return to Canada on the weekend. The journalists thought the only foreign nations fighting in Afghanistan were the United States and Britain.

Bains explained to them that Ottawa is “very serious” about its Afghan mission and talked about the heavy loss of Canadian lives, which stands at 54 soldiers and one diplomat.

He faults the Conservative government for failing to publicize the significant cost to Canada. “We need to… make sure there is a strong awareness – particularly in the region – of the sacrifices Canada has made,” said Bains. “And the government has to be more aggressive in insisting upon being part of the decisionmaking process in NATO.”

Bains is also angry that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has refused to release the written report of a recent fact-finding mission by Wajid Khan, the PM’s special adviser on the Middle East and Afghanistan. Khan, the MP for Mississauga-Streetsville, joined the Conservatives earlier this year after Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion warned he couldn’t serve as Harper’s adviser and stay in the Liberal caucus. On Jan. 5, the day Khan was supposed to discuss his situation with Dion, he crossed the floor, skipping his meeting with the Liberal leader.

“What is Khan doing? We don’t know. It’s a secret,” said Bains. “It’s incumbent on the prime minister to better explain the situation to the Canadian public… It’s not good enough for Khan to say that he can’t comment.”

Bains’ outspokenness after his trip to Pakistan was typical of a man used to being at the centre of public controversy.

Politics is in his blood: his paternal grandfather Jaswanl was a municipal politician in India; his own interest began in high school in Brampton; and he won a hotly contested nomination in a newly created riding in December 2003, getting elected six months later.

In last year’s Liberal leadership race, Bains supported Gerard Kennedy. When Kennedy threw his support to Dion, Bains went too, soon becoming a favourite among Dion Liberals.

Though he is touted as a possible future PM, Bains won’t comment on his leadership ambitions, insisting: “I’m still learning the ropes.”

He’s bilingual, speaking English and Punjabi, but he hasn’t mastered French – yet. He spent the first week of the recent Easter break studying French in Montreal.

“Nav is representative of the next generation of Canadians,” said Toronto political analyst Rob Silver, a veteran Kennedy organizer. “This is the new Canada. He’s from a family of immigrants and he grew up in the suburbs. It will be people like Nav who will lead the country and determine where Canada is going over the next 50 years.”

Last week was the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ 25th anniversary. A framed copy of the charter hangs in Bains’ riding office in Brampton and he has made copies available in several languages to his constituents.

Fighting for Charter rights has been at the heart of his short political career. It’s the reason he supported same-sex marriage legislation, despite opposition in the conservative Sikh community.

Bains received anonymous telephone threats his career was over – “not death threats” – but he didn’t back down. Even his grandmother, Ajit, 72, who lives with his parents in Brampton, picked up the phone to hear her grandson pilloried.

“I am proud of him,” she said on a recent Friday, before her regular visit to the Gurdwara Temple in Brampton. In a white chuni and tunic, she sat with Bains’ niece Rumeet, 5, and talked about her grandson.

“It is a very honourable profession,” she said in Punjabi with Bains translating. She watches Question Period on TVand complains when he’s absent. Bains explained the significance of the Charter of Rights after he heard her talking about “somebody called Charter.”

There have been other difficult times. In January, Harper rose in the Commons to ask for a Liberal response to a report in the Vancouver Sun that Bains’ father-in-law, Darshan Singh Saini, was “on the RCMP’s potential list of witnesses” for the Air India investigation and was a former spokesperson for a terrorist organization advocating Sikh nationhood.

Saini, who now drives cab in Toronto, told the Star he has been questioned by the RCMP and CSIS and long ago severed ties to the Babbar Khalsa Panthak. “I have nothing to hide. If they need to talk to me again, all they have to do is ask and they will be guests in my home.”

Liberals felt the issue was used by the Conservatives to insinuate Saini was somehow a suspect. According to Silver, it was meant to smear Bains. “They can smear him or paint caricatures as much as they want but it’s too easy and it’s cheap… Nav is much better than that.”

Meanwhile, Bains is upbeat about his political future. Dion called him last December to ask what role he would like in the shadow cabinet. His interest in business and foreign affairs brought him the international trade post.

“The life of an MP is awesome,” said Bains, before kissing his grandmother goodbye at his parents’ home and giving his young niece Rumeet a cuddle. It was practice for an upcoming role in October. That’s when his wife, Brahamjot, is expecting their first child.

source - Toronto Star 26/04/2007

If you’ve been following the news then you’ve undoubtedly heard about the Airport Taxi/Limo driver protest that happened in downtown city hall the other day. The matter at hand is city hall wanting to pass a bill banning limo drivers from picking up fares from the city, similar to how outside cab’s can’t grab fares from the airport.

Now all’s good minus the fact that the media’s jumped onto the whole matter, labeling the airport limo industry as being nothing more then an extension of the Punjabi Mafia, run from the heart of Malton. Which of course is surprising considering most airport/limo drivers are from Brampton, but lets not knit pick at the facts too much, after all they are just facts after all.

There’s no denying that the Airport limo drivers are perceived as a strong lobby group in terms of political sway within the community. After all, if they weren’t then politicians wouldn’t go abouts seeking their blessings and making a sales pitch to them when elections came around. All the same, one needs to consider how much power any lobby group really has considering the various groups that exist within the community. After all if any group is to given Soprano like status you would have at least thought the various Gurdwara committee’s (Looking at places like new Rexdale in particular) would have been the first to garnish such an accolade.

Anyway’s I figured I’d share the media coverage on the topic considering that a good number of those involved in the whole fiasco are Singhs that we’ve all seen and or worked with at various times, and also in light to add to the whole media bias that seems to be rising up against the community, calling to arms that it’s time that the community take its PR more seriosly, and take caution when dealing with sensative issues that will undoubtedly receive as much media coverage as they do.

Below are some excerpts from various media regarding the topic, the first is a blog entry by Mike Stafford, a radio personality in GTA who did a segment on his show, followed by a video clip from CTV news on the matter.

I’m just about fed-up with the taxi and limousine industry in this city. If you listen to any advocate, and I don’t, 95% of the drivers are PhD’s whose credentials are waved away by employers because of racism. My guess is 95% of them (at least the downtown taxi drivers) are unemployable misanthropes who couldn’t pass an official driving test if they bribed the instructor.

I watch these clowns every day and I lived in the city ten years without a car so I know the inside as well. The cars are a mess, the drivers spend the entire ride chatting on a cell phone and some of them are clearly “on” something.

But it’s the airport limo mafia that makes me puke. A largely Punjabi phenomenon, these pirates routinely and illegally steal rides from the downtown clowns. Politically influential (I’m looking at YOU Harinder Takar) they run the GTAA limo stand like Tony Soprano. They treat passengers like garbage and today they made a mockery of the political process at City Hall.

Enraged that Toronto would cut them off from downtown hotel pickups, the limo louses started a mini-riot that had Council speaker Sandra Bussin almost at wits end (memo to Sandra: maybe the speaker’s job isn’t for you).

The audio and video sounded and looked like a fight in a foreign parliament. Completely ridiculous. And they got their way…even though there were a couple of arrests and trespassing tickets, the buggers had the issue put off until later.

Enough already. Build a fixed link to Pearson and put these bullies out of business.

Source: Stafford’s blog

Whether you call it a lucky kick or not, I don’t think many peopled expected Cro Cop to fall, especially like this.

The following clip was from 2 nights ago, covering the Surrey Nagar Kirtan that happened just a little while ago. Looks like CBC’s at it again, if there coverage of Air India Bombing wasn’t bad enough now they’re going to try and go after the community as a whole as being misguided and taken advantage of.

I don’t see where they get the ISYF logo being on the akhara jackets, last I remember ISYF had the world with the falcon on it as there emblem, and also since when haven’t Khalistan Jakaray gone off at the Surrey Nagar Kirtan?

Sikh American Veteran Assaulted by Police Officer in Illinois

SALDEF calls for immediate probe into assault and the xenophobic, anti-immigrant statements by police officer against bronze star recipient.

NagRockedWashington D.C., April 11, 2007 — The Sikh American Legal Def ense and Education Fund (SALDEF), the oldest Sikh American civil rights and advocacy organization in the country, today called upon the Joliet Police Department to investigate the actions of one of its officers when patrolling a local neighborhood.

On Friday March 30, 2007 at around 3:00pm, Mr. Kuldip Singh Nag, a Sikh American who was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in the U.S. Navy during the first Gulf War, was at his home in Joliet, IL when a local police officer noticed that a van parked on Mr. Nag’s private property had expired registration tags. Upon being confronted with this, Mr. Nag’s wife, Vera Kaur Nag, informed the officer that the van is parked on their driveway and was inoperable.

Mr. Nag then came outside to answer the officer’s questions regarding the van. The Joliet police officer then demanded that Mr. Nag park the van inside his garage and not on the driveway, to which Mr. Nag responded to the officer that it was not possible and that regardless, the van is parked on his private property and he has a right to park it on his driveway.

At this moment, the officer pulled out his pepper spray and attacked Mr. Nag. As Mr. Nag screamed in agony, the officer removed his baton and violently struck Mr. Nag numerous times until he fell to the ground. While the assault ensued, the officer was reported by both Mr. and Mrs. Nag as saying, “You f****** Arab! You f***** immigrant, go back to you f****** country before I kill you!”.

Mr. Nag’s wife and six year-old child both witnessed the violent assault, which resulted in Mr. Nag immediately being admitted to the hospital where he stayed for five days due to complaints of intense pain and head trauma. Mr. Nag also received numerous bruises and a serious head injury which have caused him to go blind for several minutes at a time.

“This case seems to be a clear incident of police misconduct in Illinois,” said SALDEF Managing Director Kavneet Singh. “We are horrified at the anti-immigrant sentiment the officer allegedly used as he violently accosted Mr. Nag, and further that his six year old son was a witness to this violent assault. We call upon both Joliet and Illinois officials to investigate this incident and for the Illinois community to stand in solidarity with Mr. Nag.

SALDEF has garnered the strong support of the Illinois Sikh American community and is currently working with The Chawla Group Ltd to represent Mr. Nag in a criminal case brought on by the City of Joliet.

When Rodney King, a black man from LA, was pulled over and beaten by the cops his story sparked mass race riots in Los Angeles. A similar story happened back 2001 in Cincinnati when Steven Roach was aquited of murdering an unarmed black youth. So then today I hear the story about Kuldip Nag, a desi , US Gulf War Veteran who gets his ass beaten by a cop over expired plates on a van that was broken and sitting in his driveway and there’s still little thought or even threat of shit hitting the fan.

Naturally this leads me to wonder if we as a community are we waiting for more stupidness to go down before we see the Jessie Jacksons of our community (whoever they maybe) get out in the media and start blasting the police and getting the community all roweled up to take action.

Sadly enough, most uncles we see are more then complacent when it comes to this type of news and would rather try to lead the community in the direction of least resistance and confrontation, with the mentality that hey we’ll make life easier for them now then maybe master will help us out a bit later on, when we need to get that visa or those immigration papers signed.

See I agree screaming and looting and parading down the downtown cores won’t do anything for us other then get us labeled as savages, but some sort of outrage on a communal level should be expected and delivered. See maybe its complete over reaction on my part to expect such things, after all compared to India, the number of us getting beat for random shit by cops is still relatively minimal, but when do we take a beating as more then a beating? Unless we let people know that we’re not down for getting our asses beat and labeled Arabs I just don’t see this type of shit ending any time soon.

See I’m not trying to say that what Saldef, and the Sikh Coalition are doing isn’t enough, I’m more interested in how long it will be before the rest of us and the broader community takes notice of such things and starts letting our voices be heard.

Seems like Pakistan’s Gun trade industry is going good, supplying the worlds mobs, Gurilla units, militias and whoever else needs a gun without papers just what they need.

It seems that only two type of people win the lottery those who don’t need it, and those who are about to die. So goes the case for the latest lottery winner who I happen to have met and gotten to know in my stint at Ottawa, none other Balz’y’s own cousin, Inderpal. I guess Inderpal falls into the, “doesn’t really need it” category but then again a few extra mill never really hurt anyone, except for maybe all the people who have been killed all over the mighty dollar, but thats neither here nor there. Luckily enough Mr. Bal was gracious enough to spread his winnings with all his boys in Ottawa, which is pure reason to be vexed since I decided not to return the last year, seeing as how it would paid itself off. Whatever, time to find Ranjit and hustle him for whatever cut he got, after all vice president of CISA has to earn him something, if it doesn’t then Ranjit Sion its all in vain. But anyways, congratulations to Indy on his winnings and now that he’s looking to put a down payment on that house on the hill don’t forget those of us still living in the valley’s, after all a post about you being loaded should earn me a nice ride if anything else.