Toronto Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong walks out on Morgentaler tribute

TORONTO - Council had a moment of silence for Dr. Henry Morgentaler Tuesday.

But not all councillors were willing to mark the death of the abortion doctor who died last month at the age of 90. Denzil Minnan-Wong voiced his opposition to the recognition and stormed out of the council chamber before the moment of silence.

He argued Morgentaler is “not someone who should be recognized or celebrated.”

“He’s a person who contributes to the death of thousands of unborn babies,” Minnan-Wong said. “I’ve held that position you know for a long, long time and it was a matter of principle for me.”

Councillor Paula Fletcher called Minnan-Wong’s protest “one of the rudest moments in council’s history.”

“Stomping out and saying I can’t be here for a condolence motion is unheard of and it is just plain, downright rude,” she said.

The condolence motion for Morgentaler was put forward by Fletcher and Pam McConnell.

“Dr. Henry Morgentaler was a pioneer of reproductive freedom in Canada, and his courage and determination helped ensure every Canadian woman has the right to choose,” the motion stated.

“Beginning with his own practice and expanding across the country, Dr. Morgentaler challenged unjust laws that jeopardized women’s health and well-being, often at great personal risk.”

The motion asks the city clerk to convey city council’s “sincere sympathy” to Morgentaler’s family.

Fletcher said she brought the motion forward because Morgentaler is “a historic figure in the history of our country.”

“Like him or not he had a very important moment in Canadian history in legalizing abortion for women and in the cultural movement,” she said. “Councillor Minnan-Wong might not like it but the right to terminate a pregnancy is actually legal in our country.”

Minnan-Wong dismissed Fletcher’s criticism.

“Councillor Fletcher is a great supporter of free speech until someone says something she doesn’t agree with,” he said.

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Toronto Council votes to allow permanent residents to cast ballots, Province still must OK amendment

TORONTO - City council wants to give non-Canadian citizens the right to vote in Toronto municipal elections.

After a heated debate Tuesday, councillors voted 21 to 20 to ask the province to amend legislation to allow permanent residents the right to vote in local races.

While Mayor Rob Ford voted against the idea, Councillor Anthony Perruzza — the newest member of Ford’s executive committee — cast what turned out to be the deciding vote in favour of giving permanent residents a vote at the municipal level.

“I don’t support it,” Ford said following the council vote. “I just think we wasted six hours because I don’t believe the province is going to do anything with this.”

He predicted the Ontario government will put the request into the “circular filing cabinet” — a slang term for the trash bin.

“I think we have a good system,” Ford said. “It doesn’t make sense. How can someone that’s not a Canadian citizen vote?

“It doesn’t make any sense but that’s six hours gone,” he said with a shrug.

Councillors also approved asking the province to let the city consider introducing a ranked ballot voting system in the 2018 election.

Councillor Joe Mihevc said the vote represents an “expansion of how democracy functions in this city.”

“This is saying to Torontonians we are an inclusive city,” Mihevc said.

“I think it is going to shift the politics to make it more immigrant friendly and guess what, 46% of Torontonians were not born in this country never mind in this city and they are going to start to feel a greater sense of ownership of the political agenda here at City Hall.”

He lauded the possible switch to ranked ballot voting rather than the current first past the post system.

“To get elected as a city councillor or mayor you will now need to get more than 50% of the vote either on the first round or the second round of the balloting, providing the province of course agrees to that strategy,” Mihevc said.

He was optimistic the ideas will get approval from Queen’s Park.

“This particular premier has always, always said that she will listen to the voice of the city as it is expressed in council,” he said. “Council has expressed its will.”

Some councillors argued permanent residents should have the right to vote in municipal elections because they pay city taxes and deserve to have a say in the government that collects those taxes.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong unsuccessfully urged council not to extend the right to vote to permanent residents.

“I believe in Canadian citizenship,” he said. “I believe that it is important to be a citizen.

“I think that extending the right to vote to permanent residents discourages them not to apply for citizenship. It acts as a disincentive.

“It devalues, degrades and erodes what Canadian citizenship should mean,” Minnan-Wong said.
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Toronto council asked to oppose eating horse meat

TORONTO - Councillor Michelle Berardinetti wants council to stand up against slaughtering horses for human consumption and in favour of creating a place to drop off “unwanted babies.”

Berardinetti will ask councillors to support the two motions when they meet next week.

The motion regarding babies asks councillors to urge the province to work with Toronto Public Health to create a program within a hospital that would “facilitate the acceptance of unwanted babies with anonymity for the parents and where the child is immediately taken into the care of the appropriate child welfare agency.”

Berardinetti is asking for the program to be based upon a similar program in Edmonton called “Angel Cradles.”

“There is a clear need for a safe haven drop-off facility for unwanted babies within the City of Toronto,” Berardinetti writes in her motion. “In the Cities of Edmonton and Vancouver, hospital facilities have been designated to receive unwanted babies anonymously.

“In establishing such a facility within the City of Toronto, there would be the creation of a safe, anonymous and effective alternative for mothers who have delivered a child but who are unable or unwilling to care for the baby.”

In an interview this week, Berardinetti said she doesn’t understand why Toronto hasn’t done this program already.

“I think it is a great idea. If it is going to save one baby, it’s great,” she said. “You always hear about these young women that throw their baby in the garbage or throw them in a bush or the latest one, the woman who threw her baby in the clothing bin.”

The motion regarding horses asks council to endorse the federal Private Member’s Bill C-322 which would ban the import or export of horses for slaughter or human consumption.

“That’s not the type of meat we should be eating,” Berardinetti said.

In her motion, Berardinetti argues there “is no effective means of determining whether or not a horse sent to slaughter has received dangerous or prohibited substances.”

“To both protect the human food chain and in recognition of the role horses have and do occupy in our society their sale for slaughter and human consumption should be banned,” she writes.

Both motions will need two-thirds of council support for an immediate debate next week.
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David Miller and WWF Canada have a history

TORONTO - I still remember that cold, raw day in November of 2008 when then mayor David Miller summoned the press to an odoriferous transfer station to announce his five-cent plastic bag fee.

Using scavenging seagulls and a mountain of waste as a backdrop (don’t get me started), the enviro-mayor stood cheek by jowl with officials from Loblaws and other major grocery chains, acting as if he had just saved the planet from imminent global warming.

The subject of the photo-op that day was to tell us he had reached a so-called compromise with the big grocery chains. Instead of mandating them to rebate consumers 10 cents for each refillable bag brought into stores, Miller agreed to allow them to impose a five-cent fee on consumers for every plastic bag purchased.

My goodness, Loblaws’ Galen Weston Jr. and his confreres in the grocery industry were only too happy to comply. As it became obvious, this was a real cash cow for the grocery business. While consumers considered it a bag tax, the city would not see any of the proceeds.

The retail industry was expected to hand over a portion of the fees collected to environmental causes. But it also quickly became clear that the city was not in any position to do much more than propose such donations occur.

In a 2010 feature, I revealed that Loblaws opted to give $1 million each year for three years to the World Wildlife Fund Canada starting in ’09.

Note I said World Wildlife Fund Canada, the organization Miller will head starting in September.

I calculated conservatively that Loblaws was raking in at least $10.7 million in profits a year from the bag sales alone.

Fast forward to Tuesday, when WWF chairman Roger Dickhout announced Miller’s hiring, effective Sept. 3, noting his record of environmental accomplishments as mayor and his leadership as chairman of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group.

(Of course, Dickhout did not mention Miller’s disgraceful use of precious city money to prop up his environmental agenda, even though that was probably one of the last things the city’s nearly depleted reserve funds should have subsidized. What about fixing our roads? Or balancing the books? Not sexy enough for Mr. Enviro-Mayor.)

Based on WWF employee earnings reported to the Canada Revenue Agency for last year, Miller could be making in the range of $250,000 to $299,000 — or more.

A review of the WWF website shows that Alexandra Schmidt Weston — Galen Jr.’s wife — sits on the board of directors.

I said when he left office it would only be a matter of time before Miller parlayed his shameless use of the taxpayer purse on environmental causes into an enviro career for himself.

Clearly being a lawyer isn’t really his cup of tea.

The Loblaws-WWF connection aside, I was virtually the only media person who reported in ’09 that Miller was funnelling $140,000 from the cash-strapped budget to fund the C40 office based in London, England — even as he handed citizens a 4% tax hike. No one from the left-wing media bothered to cover this obscene abuse of taxpayer funds. It didn’t fit with their agenda.

But the worst was yet to come.

In early 2011 — after Miller had stepped down — city manager Joe Pennachetti reluctantly conceded that virtually every penny of the $158 million — Yes $158 million! — plunked into the enviro mayor’s less-than-transparent Climate Change Fund had been spent.

Miller couldn’t have cared less that he created said fund in November ’07 — using some of the proceeds of the city’s $900-million-plus Toronto Hydro note — barely a month after council passed the land-transfer and personal vehicle taxes.

Instead of using the money to pay down the debt, Miller and his climate change cabal on council threw the cash at energy retrofit, solar and wind installation loans, tree plantings and a long list of green grants.

I’m betting that to this day the city’s enviro-crats have no clue how many of these grants and loans were put to good use.

As for the plastic bag fee, it and plans to ban the plastic bag completely were abandoned last November in the wake of two lawsuits. The issue comes back to public works committee later this month. Can’t wait.
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Protesters rally to demand Toronto Mayor Rob Ford resign

TORONTO - Several hundred people gathered outside Toronto City Hall Saturday afternoon to call on Mayor Rob Ford to resign.

They used slogans, placards and chalk messages scribbled on the concrete of Nathan Phillips Square to make their point and some just yelled.

But the demonstration, which was announced on a Facebook page that suggested over 4,000 planned to attend, lacked expected numbers.

There were no official speakers and nary an organizer could be found for comment. Two protestors who did speak were left to scream their messages while standing atop a garbage bin because there were no microphones.

John Veillette, 18, bellowed that Ford has “done nothing but dishonour this city with scandal,” and that “we have the right to tell Ford: you’re f---ing fired!”

When it was pointed out to Veillette that an actual video of the mayor doing drugs has yet to surface, he remained adamant Ford must vamoose.

“You’re right, we don’t have proof but a lot of us are hear for other reasons. It’s about the ... crappy leadership he has shown,” said Veillette, citing Ford’s lack of comment on the alleged video as an example of a bad municipal helmsman.

Since reports surfaced mid-May of a video that allegedly shows Ford smoking crack, city hall has been continually embroiled in controversy — it’s been fodder for U.S. late night talk show hosts, American  website Gawker raised $200,000 to buy the alleged video from drug dealers (they’ve disappeared), five of Ford’s senior staffers have resigned; one was fired, and two arrests have been made in connection with the murder of a Anthony Smith, who posed with Ford in a photo published along with the news story of the video.

Despite all that, a Forum Research poll released last week showed the mayor’s approval rating is still around 42% — near the 44% approval rating he had earlier this month and the 43% approval rating the mayor commanded last month.

And Toronto residents appear to be split on whether they believe the mayor when he denied that he uses crack cocaine.

And an Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CTV and CP24 shows that 49% of Toronto residents believe Ford’s denial, while 51% do not.

“Honestly, people want to see him go,” said anti-Ford demonstrator Antonin Monqueau, a familiar Occupy Toronto organizer who goes by the pseudonym Antonin Smith. “The bigger question is, what is (Ford) doing posing with a gentleman involved in a gun crime?”

Maria Majda, a 62-year-old Ford supporter, dared ride her scooter through the crowd. She ended up in a heated exchange with an anti-Ford demonstrator after insisting Ford has “done a very good job for this city,” and that it is hypocritical to criticize him for a possible addiction when the Ontario Liberals have wasted hundreds of millions on cancelled gas plants.

“Then you’re in the wrong place!” the demonstrator responded.
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Gawker responds to Rob Ford denial of their drug report by noting he didn’t actually deny smoking crack cocaine

The U.S. website that first reported to have seen Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine in a video says the mayor’s statement Friday does nothing to address the issue, since he didn’t directly deny having done the drug in the past.
In an article headlined “Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Says He No Longer Smokes Crack Cocaine,” Gawker editor John Cook claims Ford’s statement was not “inconsistent with Rob Ford having been caught on tape smoking crack cocaine within the past six months.”
“The fact that Rob Ford says he does not currently use crack cocaine has no bearing on his past behavior. He did not say, as one who has never smoked crack cocaine might say, ‘I have never smoked crack cocaine,’” Cook wrote on Gawker shortly after Ford’s statement.
“He said he does not smoke crack cocaine, which is the sort of thing that someone who woke up this morning and decided to stop smoking crack cocaine might say, on the grounds that it’s not presently untrue.”

After eight days of silence, Ford finally spoke to the media Friday afternoon, delivering a carefully worded three-minute-and-45-second speech.
“I do not use crack cocaine nor am I an addict of crack cocaine,” Ford said. “As for a video, I can’t comment on a video I have never seen or does not exist.”
He blamed the accusations on longtime rival the Toronto Star, where two reporters said they saw also saw the video of the mayor smoking crack cocaine.
While the mayor did not take any questions, his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, took several questions from reporters, although he abruptly stopped when asked about Gawker’s role in the controversy. Instead he attacked the website’s attempt to crowdsource the purchase of the video.
“I think it is disgusting . . . That an organization like Gawker would go out there and deal with a bunch of extortionists, a bunch of Somali drug dealers,” he said. “I puts a real tarnish on a great community, the Somali community.”
Gawker’s own efforts to purchase the alleged tape to hit a snag Friday after Cook said his confidence in completing a deal to buy the video has “diminished” because the dealer who apparently has it has been incommunicado in recent days.
“The owner of the video is presumably frightened and skittish, and it’s not entirely unreasonable that he would go to ground,” Cook said.
“At this point, we have no idea why he is out of touch or if he even knows about the ’Crackstarter’ campaign.”

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris YoungToronto Mayor Rob Ford leaves city hall after making a statement to the media.

The crowdfunded ‘Crackstarter’ was attempting to raise $200,000 to buy the video. It has raised $166,000 with three days to go as of early Friday evening.
According to sources, the mayor fired his chief of staff Mark Towhey yesterday because he asked the mayor to go to rehab.
The mayor’s statement appears to have done little to quell the controversy at City Hall.
Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38 – Scarborough Centre) said the mayor did not tell the truth in his statement Friday and said Ford has to resign.
“You don’t have legitimacy to run this government anymore,” he said was his message to Ford. “His tenure is over. The mayor should resign and get some help for himself and his family.
“Take care of yourself. Take care of your family. But he is unable to govern the city anymore,” he said. “The statements he has made are so offensive on so many levels that his tenure as mayor is effectively over.”
Other councillors said Ford’s statement wasn’t enough and called for a “comprehensive” response. Ford did not take questions from reporters.

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Mayor Rob Ford video sellers have disappeared: Gawker

TORONTO - So where are the guys who are trying to sell the notorious alleged Mayor Rob Ford "crack smoking" video?

And where is the most sought-after video in Toronto history itself?

The guy trying to buy it for $200,000 would like to know.

As of right now they, as well as it, have disappeared.

"I haven't been in contact with them since last Tuesday," said Jon Cook of Gawker, who has a "Crackstarter" group collection drive going on line. "The guy who put me in touch with them has not heard from them since Sunday."

So where are they? In custody?

Or just lying low?

It seems while one set of strange circumstances is occurring with the mayor and the questionable way he's handling the crisis, at one end there is a whole other drama unfolding with the originators of the story.

"My feeling is they are frightened and concerned for their own security," said Cook. "There has been an intense amount of scrutiny. I think they are scared and in hiding."

He hopes the $200,000 will smoke them out.

Cook says with the clock ticking on more than just the survival of Ford, he needs to locate them if he is going to be able to purchase the video and post on his site for all to see.

Having raised $155,000 online, with the deadline for $200,000 coming Monday, he is preparing to legally make the transaction.

Toronto Police have said they are monitoring the situation. Some feel if laws are broken, they could seize the video.

In order for the deal to take place, Gawker must raise the full $200,000 before any money comes out of donor's accounts. If it is less, it means the fundraising deal is dead.

Gawker has said if they reach the $200,000 target but can't complete the deal with the drug dealers peddling the video, then the money raised would go to a Canadian non-profit that works on substance abuse issues.

Cook is hoping, however, he will find them first.

"I want them to be aware that $200,000 is within their grasp," he said. "I hope they know."

On the Gawker collection page it states the owners of the video "told him that they will not feel safe in the city after the video comes out" since "Ford is a powerful man, with powerful friends, and these are young kids who fear a possible frame-up from Toronto cops or worse. The money they are asking for will, they say, cover their departure from Toronto to get set up in another city where they will feel safer."

But what if they don't make contact in time?

"If we reach the goal I don't want to sit on this money for too long," said Cook.

In other words, this money could end up going to charity and the video would not surface at this time.

However, he acknowledges, having lost contact "could slow the collection down."

"If you are considering contributing, you should be aware that our confidence that we can get a deal done has ... diminished since we came up with this idea," Gawker states on its website.

"So: Proceed with caution. We will update you just as soon as we have any further information on how this might play out. Don't smoke crack."

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‘I do not use crack cocaine’: Rob Ford breaks silence to deny drug report

Breaking an extended silence, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has denied allegations he smokes crack cocaine or has a drug problem.
“I do not use crack cocaine nor am I an addict of crack cocaine,” Ford said in a statement Friday afternoon. “As for a video, I can’t comment on a video I have never seen or does not exist.”
Ford, sporting a new haircut and appearing relaxed, made the statement to reporters inside a packed room at City Hall. The mayor said he stayed quiet for the past week on the advice of his lawyer.
“It is most unfortunate, very unfortunate, that my colleagues and the great people of this city have been exposed to the fact that I’ve been judged by the media without any evidence,” Ford said.
“This past week has not been an easy one. It has taken a great toll on my family and my friends and the great people of Toronto.”
Ford delivered the statement an hour after his executive committee wrote a letter urging the mayor to address the allegations publicly.
Last week, U.S. website Gawker and the Toronto Star published stories saying journalists from both outlets had viewed a video that appeared to show the mayor smoking crack cocaine.
Ford’s presence in the video has not been independently verified.
Despite the mayor’s denials, City Hall watchers and Gawker, which first broke the story, immediately seized on Ford not ruling out having used the drug in the past.

ScreengrabA screenshot of Gawker's report about a video that allegedly shows Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine.

The mayor’s statement also appeared to put him at odds with his former chief of staff who was fired Wednesday night after sources claimed he urged Ford to “go away and get help for his problem.”
The mayor responded by telling Mark Towhey he “might as well just leave,” according to the source, and officially fired him in person the next day.
The source suspects the problem is alcohol-related. The mayor had denied a report in March that suggested he has a problem with alcohol as an “outright lie.”
But in a story headlined “Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Says He No Longer Smokes Crack Cocaine” posted soon after Ford spoke, Gawker editor John Cook claimed Ford’s statement was not “inconsistent with Rob Ford having been caught on tape smoking crack cocaine within the past six months.”
Cook also noted Ford never said he hadn’t ever smoked crack cocaine.
“He did not say, as one who has never smoked crack cocaine might say, ‘I have never smoked crack cocaine,’” Cook writes.
“He said he does not smoke crack cocaine, which is the sort of thing that someone who woke up this morning and decided to stop smoking crack cocaine might say, on the grounds that it’s not presently untrue.”

Tyler Anderson/National PostRob Ford passes his brother councillor Doug Ford as he leaves a media conference Friday.

While the mayor did not take any questions, his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, blamed the entire controversy on “one news source” — the Toronto Star — in a testy statement after his brother’s.
“There is one news organization that accused and has an accusation of a video that does not exist, or we haven’t seen, very simple,” he said, as reporters pointed out that two news organizations have made the allegations.
Doug Ford then took several questions from reporters, although he abruptly stopped taking questions when asked about Gawker. Instead he attacked the website’s attempt to crowdsource the purchase of the video.
“I think it is disgusting . . . That an organization like Gawker would go out there and deal with a bunch of extortionists, a bunch of Somali drug dealers,” he said. “I puts a real tarnish on a great community, the Somali community.”
Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38 – Scarborough Centre) said the mayor lied throughout his statement Friday and said Ford has to resign.
“You don’t have legitimacy to run this government anymore,” he said was his message to Ford. “His tenure is over. The mayor should resign and get some help for himself and his family.
“Take care of yourself. Take care of your family. But he is unable to govern the city anymore,” he said. “The statements he has made are so offensive on so many levels that his tenure as mayor is effectively over.”
Mayor Ford thanked Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday for his support. He also thanked Towhey for his service “and all the work that he has done.”
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Why hasn’t mayor sued the Star?

The most puzzling thing about the video purporting to show Rob Ford smoking crack and the Toronto Star’s coverage thereof is Ford’s apparent reticence in suing the Star for defamation. The Star coverage has Ford cavorting with criminals and smoking crack. It’s hard to imagine a more serious defamation of our law and order mayor.

Suing the Star should be an easy task. If sued, the Star would have the onus of establishing one of two defences: truth or responsible communication. Truth would be a tough defence to pursue without the video and a thorough forensic analysis of it. While the Star might get its hands on the video in the future, it currently doesn’t have the video and can’t establish its authenticity. It’s doubtful anybody would be willing to testify under oath they supplied drugs to Ford or were present when Ford smoked crack.

For now, that leaves the Star with the responsible communication defence. Responsible communication is a relatively new defamation defence, made available in 2009 courtesy of 2 Supreme Court of Canada decisions, one of which coincidentally was a defamation lawsuit against the Star. The responsible communication defence is available when reporting on items of public interest, something about which the public has some substantial concern. Clearly any report on the mayor of Toronto engaged in criminal activity is a matter of very substantial public concern.

However before applying the responsible communication defence the court will review a list of factors to determine if the defendant acted responsibly. Given the seriousness of the allegations made against Ford the required level of diligence necessary to verify the allegations and show responsible communication would be significant. Viewing a video without taking any steps to authenticate the video or its source would likely fail to achieve the required level of diligence.

The court will also examine the urgency of the matter and ask whether a delay in publication could have assisted a search for the truth or whether the public’s need to know required the early publication. Clearly there was no urgency to publish. The fact that a foreign website had broken the story doesn’t justify the Star’s rush to publish.

Next, the court will examine the status and reliability of the sources. Here again the Star would lose out as its sources could hardly be deemed trustworthy, in addition to their anonymous status.

One of the most important factors in the use of the responsible communication defence is whether comment was sought on a timely basis and adequately reported. Again the Star falls short as no effort was made to obtain comment until the evening prior to publication. On the other hand, the Star did report Ford’s response quickly and prominently as soon as the response had been made.

Another significant factor is the language used and whether the Star reported the defamatory statements, not to establish their truth, but rather to report merely on the controversy of the existence of the video. Here again the Star falls short. True, the reports are replete with cleverly worded disclaimers. For example the Star reports that the video “appears” to show Ford smoking crack and the Star “was not able to verify” claims made by its source concerning the supply of drugs to Ford. But notwithstanding the clever use of disclaimers the overall tone of the coverage is clear: Ford was observed smoking crack.

Then there’s the matter of malice. Responsible communication will fail as a defence if the defendant has acted with malice. Certainly there’s enough bad blood on both sides for this to be a lively argument.

The Star has taken a calculated risk in rushing to publish and it seems the Star’s defences would fail and Ford should win. So why hasn’t he sued? The answer likely lies in the fact that as between Ford and the Star, only Ford knows if he has smoked crack and if there might be an authentic video. If he sues and the video surfaces and is authenticated, he’d lose and be stuck with a fortune in legal fees. But if the video is a fake Ford should win a large award.

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‘You can’t profit from criminal activity’: Bid to buy alleged Rob Ford crack video could end in cash seizure

The so-called “Crackstarter” crowd-funding campaign raising money to buy the video allegedly showing Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine is nearing its $200,000 goal, but the U.S. website will almost certainly face scrutiny when making the purchase from men involved in the city’s drug trade.
The campaign on Indiegogo launched by New York-based gossip site Gawker had raised more than $120,000 by Wednesday evening, with five days remaining for contributions.
John Cook, a Gawker editor who broke the story about the video, has said men involved in the city’s drug trade will turn it over for $200,000.
Mr. Ford has called the allegations “ridiculous,” but has refused any further comment.

There are going to be some red flags

However, even if the campaign does raise enough to meet the hefty price tag, an electronic transaction that large between Canada and the United States will likely get flagged to both countries’ financial regulatory bodies, said Christine Duhaime, a B.C. lawyer with a specialized anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing practice.
Electronic cross-border transactions over $10,000 must be declared, she said.
“Anyone is going to be concerned at any regulatory agency and any police force is going to be concerned with a company coming out and saying they’re raising money to buy something from a drug dealer.… There are going to be some red flags. I don’t really know how much this is going to be monitored, other than the fact that somebody is going to monitor the payment from Gawker fairly closely, because people have come out and said it is drug dealers [involved].”
The purchase of the video itself isn’t illegal, but if the recipient — the details of which must be known for wire transfers and other electronic transactions — is a known criminal and shows up on a list of suspects or suspicious individuals, it will be reported to FINTRAC in Canada or FINCEN in the U.S., she said.
“Assuming it’s a legitimate video and it’s legally taken, that’s not a problem,” she said. “Except that it’s going to a known drug dealer. Paying to a known drug dealer for a legitimate sale is problematic in and of itself, because the vendor [is] of questionable character and there are questionable activities.”
Gawker and two reporters from the Toronto Star have said they have seen the video in question, but the National Post has not viewed the footage and cannot verify its authenticity.
But Garry Clement, the chief of anti-money laundering consultancy Clement Advisory Group and the former director of the RCMP’s proceeds of crime program, says if the person who recorded the video also provided the alleged drugs and then sold the footage for profit, then both the payment and the video could be seized.

Related

• Rob Ford remains silent on crack allegations as brother Doug Ford defends him
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• ‘He’s cleaning up the city by smoking all the crack in it’: U.S. late night TV hosts turn Rob Ford into international laughing stock
• Christie Blatchford: If the Rob Ford video is a fake, why hasn’t he said so?
• Why we should stop funding Gawker's attempt to liberate alleged Rob Ford crack video

“You can’t profit from criminal activity. … [U.S. authorities] would be in a good position to go in for forfeiture of the money,” he said.
If the person who filmed the alleged footage just happened to be at the party, these laws likely don’t apply, Mr. Clement added.
However, these particular risks lay with the seller of the video and the recipient of the cash, not Gawker, he said.
Still, a transaction over $10,000 — whether from bank to bank, or wire transfer — will catch the attention of the authorities.
Under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, records must be kept for transactions over that threshold, said FINTRAC spokesman Peter Lamey.

The law over 10 years has tried to remove the anonymity and clandestine transactions and the ability to conduct them

“The law over 10 years has tried to remove the anonymity and clandestine transactions and the ability to conduct them,” he said. “So, if you’re carrying out transfers and transactions, there’s a paper trail at the financial institutions. If you’re moving across the border, that generates a paper trail as well.”
The transaction, if flagged, would still go through but the organization would look at it closely after the fact, he said.
“If someone is involved in criminal activity and has suspicious transactions already associated with them, or ongoing investigations… That would be a good starting point for looking at transactions in terms of looking at transactions of interest to police.”
That is, assuming that the exchange is made electronically.
It is possible that the money could be brought across the border in cash or pre-loaded VISA cards in sums below the $10,000 threshold.
This activity, called “structuring” of a transaction, isn’t illegal but is a signal of other criminal activities.
“Structuring is considered a money-laundering technique, it’s not a criminal activity. But it’s an indicator to a bank or a casino or a credit union that you’re dealing with something that may be linked to money laundering.”
National Post

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