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

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.

For those who haven’t heard yet UFC bought out Pride today for an estimated 70 million US, monopolizing its hold on the MMA fight scene.  If the news is to be somewhat reminiscent of when WWF (screw the E) bought WCW back in the glory days of Wrestling, then I guess that would make the IFL the TNA, in UFC’s back side.

Although this now makes UFC vs Pride dream fights possible, it also brings about changes to Pride’s rules, i.e banning the use of stomping and knee’s while on the ground. Either way it’s still good news for the sport, and I can’t wait to see the Superbowl of UFC / Pride fighting. The news is best when you think about fighters like Anderson Silva, GSP and even possibly Liddell who seemingly are above and beyond most other fighters in their respected weight classes finally getting some better competition. Hopefully this change will help keep all these fighters on their toes, and bring about some historic match ups in the near future.

Anyways for more info on the merger check out ESPN, Sherdog or the official UFC site, and hopefully Bhagauti will have something more insightful to say about the merger.

Technology tempts us to dawdle, study finds

SETH BORENSTEIN
thestar.com

WASHINGTON – Procrastination in society is getting worse and scientists are finally getting around to figuring out how and why. Too many tempting diversions are to blame, but more on that later.

After 10 years of research on a project that was only supposed to take five years, a Canadian industrial psychologist found in a giant study that not only is procrastination on the rise, it makes people poorer, fatter and unhappier.

Something has to be done about it, sooner rather than later, University of Calgary professor Piers Steel concludes. His 30-page study is in this month’s peer-reviewed Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association.

In 1978, only about 5 percent of the American public thought of themselves as chronic procrastinators. Now it’s 26 percent, Steel said.

And why not? There are so many fun ways to kill time – TVs in every room, online video, Web-surfing, cellphones, video games, iPods and Blackberries.

At work, email, the Internet and games are just a click away, making procrastination effortless, Steel said.

“That stupid game Minesweeper – that probably has cost billions of dollars for the whole society,” he said.

The U.S. gross national product would probably rise by $50 billion if the icon and sound that notifies people of new email suddenly disappear, he added.

And there’s good reason to worry right now about the problem of procrastination.

“People who procrastinate tend to be less healthy, less wealthy and less happy,” Steel said Wednesday. “You can reduce it, but I don’t think you can eliminate it.”

Psychologist William Knaus, who has written several self-help books on fighting procrastination since 1977’s Overcoming Procrastination, said Steel is “absolutely right.”

He said he found it harder to wean chronic procrastinators from the habit of delaying than to wean alcoholics from booze. Knaus mentioned one businessman who spent 40 hours of delay time to avoid five minutes of work.

“It’s a huge problem,” Knaus said. “I think the majority of mental disabilities people have – anxiety, panic – they can be defined as a special case of procrastination.”

There is personal financial fallout from procrastination, too. Delay in filing taxes on average costs a person $400 a year and last-minute Christmas shopping with credit cards was five times higher in 1999 than in 1991, Steel found in a review of more than 500 economic and psychological studies about putting off unpleasant chores.

Steel’s study found that in the past quarter century, the average self-score for procrastination (using a 1-to-5 scale with 1 being no delaying) has increased by 39 percent.

Overall, more than a quarter of Americans say they procrastinate. Men are worse than women (about 54 out of 100 chronic procrastinators are men) and the young are more like to procrastinate than the old, Steel said. Three out of four college students consider themselves procrastinators.

Early studies looking at U.S. and Canadian cultures didn’t find any differences in the two countries’ procrastination problem, but Steel said when he has more time he’ll get around to more cross-cultural studies.

The causes of procrastination combine temptation, sense of immediacy, the value of doing the job, and whether you believe you can get the work done, Steel found. He even created a complicated mathematical formula, complete with Greek letters, to figure out when a person is likely to procrastinate.

Temptation is the biggest factor. And it’s why procrastination is getting worse, Steel said, citing technology.

“It’s easier to procrastinate now than ever before. We have so many more temptations,” he said. “It’s never been harder to be self-disciplined in all of history than it is now.”

But procrastination goes back thousands of years, before technology. Ancient literature harps on the problem, Steel said. Knaus mentioned a book from 1852: Thoughtless Little Fanny: The Unhappy Results of Procrastination. The author is just called “a friend of children.”

While many self-help books say perfectionists procrastinate because they don’t want to get things wrong, Steel found just the opposite. Perfectionists procrastinate less and do better because they avoid delaying. However they do worry more about putting stuff off, he said.

Studying procrastination as a field has a benefit, said the professor. The more he knows about the problem and the causes, the less he procrastinates – even though he sheepishly acknowledges his study was completed five years late.

The good thing about studying procrastination, he said: “If you take a day off from it, you can always say it’s field research.”

Out of respect for those that passed in the UK swimming accident.

or in Kimveer’s case, you kill somebody. If you read the news, then you know by now that there was a school shooting in Montreal’s Dawson College 2 days ago. Labeled Canada’s Columbine, the press have already jumped on the fact that Kimveer Gill was a desi and are sparing no affiliation they can make to him or any link they can make to other groups to blame for not only his actions but also his death. First it was the Goth scene and the Goth website that he frequented, and as  Panthic Otpreka wrote, they wasted no time in maligning him with the Sikh Faith. Ironically enough having gone through Kimveer’s user profile on Vampire Freaks he associated himself closer with Satanism, so my question is why has he been labeled a Sikh over a Satanist? The Goth link I can understand, after all its a culture of darkness, with a prominent look on death, but how do you call this guy a Sikh based on his name? Why not link us with Vijay Singh, or Kendal Gill for that case also.

Another interesting twist the media put on his character is that when the Toronto Star produced images from his blog on the front page, they included some of the captions such as the ones that read ‘Anger And Hatred Simmers Within Me’  and upon first reading you’d figure this guy was psychotic right from the start, so why didn’t the website, or his friends report him to the authorities? After seeing the entire gallery its clear that he was just messing around,  with his digital camera, and whatever titles he did have, where done so for jokes or just go with the pic’s. At the same time that’s not to say he wasn’t in some way off of his game, but to make a story from things that aren’t there, you’d expect a tad bit more tact.

I know it’s the media’s responsibility to report the story, but it seems like the story is being written on the basis of theories and speculation created by his website then nothing else. For example, ‘He Loved Guns therefore he was a deranged lunatic.’. So liking guns makes one evil? How many Singh’s do you know that haven’t at one point had an AK-47 as there display pic. Fair enough society needs something to blame this on, a video game, movie or music, but why not blame the one thing that really caused this whole thing….anger. Clearly he was angry. At who? well let the police sort that out, but reading the comments on his blog and from TV interviews, it could have very well been society.

“But not everyone who’s angry goes out and shoots up a school”. Fair enough but you push someone to that point and I’m sure they will.

Anyway’s after reading all that there was about this guy, he was a loner, clearly had some social problems, none the less the fact that his profile and image were front page on the Toronto Star, the fact that he got 200+ comments in his user profile that normally wouldn’t have gotten more then 1 or 2 hits goes to show that you truly are nobody till somebody kills you, or in his case you kill somebody in a rampant rage.