rob nicholson

The StarPhoenix

 

According to federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, the Conservative government doesn't govern based on the latest statistics.

 

Defending the Stephen Harper government's "get tough on crime" agenda Monday on the CBC Radio program, The Current, Mr. Nicholson said critics keep insisting: "You have to use the statistics and the measuring sticks we want. I say you can't do that."

 

His statement is much more illuminating than the ongoing controversy over the Tories' decision to make voluntary Canadians' responding to the long-form census. The data obtained from the previously mandatory responses had been used to glean a wide range of statistically valid information about Canadians.

 

By: COREY LAROCQUE, Welland Tribune

 

NIAGARA FALLS — Canada's Justice Minister Rob Nicholson says he hopes the beefed-up security presence following him lately is a "short-term" measure, but the Niagara Falls MP wouldn't say much else about why he has a police escort tailing him.

 

"We're always concerned about issues of security," Nicholson said Monday, when asked about what appeared to be a plainclothes police officer travelling with him to a funding announcement in Niagara Falls.

 

A woman in a black suit and wearing dark sunglasses was with Nicholson when he arrived at the Bridge St. train station Monday to announce Ottawa will contribute $700,000 toward upgraded GO Train platforms.

 

As the National Director of End Prohibition, the NDP's unofficial grassroots organization committed to ending prohibition of marijuana and normalizing Canadian drug policy, I strongly believe in our right, if not obligation, to protest unjust laws through protest, demonstration, and civil disobedience. Throughout history, we can see that violence only begets more violence, and for any civil right to be achieved requires discipline and willingness to suffer without retaliating with force.

 

The Canadian Press

 

VANCOUVER—Canada's so-called “Prince of Pot” is on his way to the United States to serve a five-year prison sentence for shipping marijuana seeds to Americans.

 

Marc Emery, 52, pleaded guilty to one charge of drug distribution last year after dropping his fight for extradition to the U.S.

 

His wife, Jodie Emery, said her husband was being driven from a Metro Vancouver jail to the Washington state border on Thursday morning so he can be handed over to U.S. authorities.

 

“They will ... drive him down to Seattle to Federal Court where he will make his initial appearance so that they can show that they've got him,” she said.

 

By: Robert Matas , Globe and Mail

 

Marijuana-activists have kicked off a campaign in support of the “Prince of Pot” Marc Emery with a series of protests inside the constituency offices of federal Conservative MPs.

 

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced earlier this week that the federal government would not stop Mr. Emery’s extradition to the U.S to face criminal charges of allegedly selling about three million marijuana seeds to U.S. customers. Mr. Emery has said he expects to serve five years in prison after pleading guilty but hopes to be transferred back to Canada to serve his time. The Canadian government has not indicated any support for an application to transfer him back to Canada.

 

By Dan Gardner, The Ottawa Citizen

 

It's certainly not the worst crime committed in the name of the war on drugs.

 

That title probably belongs to the countless innocent people killed in botched raids. Or the police officers who died in pursuit of the impossible. Or the lives lost to easily preventable overdoses, adulterations, and blood-borne diseases. Or the funding handed on a silver platter to thugs, terrorists, and guerrillas, like those killing our soldiers in Afghanistan. Or the civil liberties eroded, the corruption fostered, the chaos spread. Or maybe it belongs to the hundreds of billions of dollars governments have squandered in a mad, futile, and destructive crusade.

 

By JEREMY HAINSWORTH (AP)

 

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The lawyer for Canada's so-called Prince of Pot said Monday that his client has been ordered extradited to the United States.

 

Marc Emery has sold millions of marijuana seeds around the world by mail over the past decade, drawing the attention of U.S. drug officials, who want him extradited to Seattle.

 

Emery's lawyer, Kirk Tousaw, said Canada's Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson signed off on his extradition shortly after the marijuana advocate turned himself in on Monday to authorities.

 

CTV.ca News Staff

 

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has ordered that Marc Emery be extradited to the United States, after a five-year legal battle over the high-profile pot activist's seed-selling operation.

 

Emery turned himself in to authorities in Vancouver on Monday. He could be handed over to U.S. authorities within days, and urged his supporters to penalize Stephen Harper's Conservative government if he winds up in a U.S. penitentiary.

 

"I think the best thing that could happen to our movement is that the minister decides, foolishly, to extradite me," he told reporters. "Canadians will be very, very angry and punish this government."