Corbella Column Pulled

This morning The Calgary Herald published a story by  Licia Corbella, entitled "Family of jailed Saudi blogger angry over Trudeau".  In it Corbella criticized government's twitter diplomacy efforts in the Raif Badawi case, directly quoting members of the man's family.  As you will note by clicking through the link above, that column is now gone.  Mr. Badawi's wife, in  a series of tweets early this afternoon, called the story "fake news".  Those tweets are also gone, as is all reference to the story in Ms. Corbella's twitter feed.  I contacted The Herald and asked if they had yanked the piece, and they responded as below:

The column has been removed at the request of Ensaf Haidar (wife of imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi) due to the sensitive nature of the family's situation.

— Calgary Herald (@calgaryherald) August 14, 2018

So there appears to have been a severe cock-up on the journalism front by Ms. Corbella, the precise details of which remain obscure.  It wouldn't be the first time.

Ezra / 8 or: Corbella Corrects

Licia Corbella has very quietly walked back her earlier figure for Ezra's court costs when he went up against the AHRC:

His offices were never bombed, but he was forced to spend about $100,000 defending himself before the kangaroo court of the human rights commission after Calgary Imam Syed Soharwardy lodged a complaint against him.

Worth pointing out that that figure is likely bullshit as well.  But it is at least 8 times less bullshit than the estimate Corbella gave previously.

That is all.

Ezra X 8

Licia Corbella has a pretty bad piece up, about how anyone who didn't publish the Charlie Hebdo covers after the shootings in Paris ought to go get fitted for their Burka, and so forth.  She reiterates the same old nonsense about Ezra Levant's being the bravest of men, etc., and then drops this:

The only publisher of the Danish cartoons at the time was Ezra Levant in his now-defunct publication, The Western Standard. His offices were never bombed, but he was forced to spend about $800,000 defending himself before the kangaroo court of the human rights commission after Calgary Imam Syed Soharwardy lodged a complaint against him.

Now, Ezra's claims re his HRC costs were always dubious, but Corbella manages to wildly inflate them even more.  Here the amount quoted, taken from his book Shakedown, is $100,000.  Here, again, Ezra claims $100,000.  And here again, same figure.  Be interested to know if Ezra provided Ms. Corbella with an upwardly revised amount, or if she just pulled it out of the air.

The Calgary Herald Editorial Writers Tell Lies

...when they write:

That said, environmental organizations only have themselves to blame for the crackdown on their activities, as spelled out in last week's federal budget. By organizing interveners from Brazil, who were signed up apparently without their knowledge, as we reported on some time ago, it was inevitable that the Harper Tories would react.

The story mentioned above was written by Licia Corbella back in January, and concerned two environmentally active Brazilian citizens named Elano Ferraz and Ines Gudic.  The story was so poorly researched a lowly blogger, myself, was swiftly able to debunk the claims made re Elano Ferraz.  Two weeks later, the claims made against Ines Gudic were picked to pieces by the Globe ( a little more background here), which made a point of noting that the actual facts "contradicted" the original reporting.

Yet, months later, the false claims reappear. I would just point out to the folks at the Herald that, within the journalistic profession LYING IS SUPPOSED TO BE WRONG.  Not that they'll listen.

Corbella Story Collapses Utterly

 In a story a week or so back,  Licia Corbella intimated that someone in the environmentalist camp was signing fake names to the list of people asking to make oral presentations to the NEB panel holding hearings into the Northern Gateway Pipeline.  Never mind that this doesn't make sense as part of a "mob the mic'" strategy; presumably the panel doesn't waste time on no-shows.  In any case, I was able to contact one of the mystery signers a day or so later, and discovered that Elano Ferraz of Brazil had indeed asked to speak and was still hopeful he might get to Canada for the hearings.   Today I find that the Globe has contacted the other "foreigner" mentioned in the Corbella story:

A further 400 people signed up through websites crafted by Dogwood for organizations like the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition, which succeeded in stoking international interest. It sent out an e-mail that reached some six million people.

One was Ines Gudic, a bank worker in Santos, Brazil. She owns 10 cats, three dogs and spends her free time collecting donations to bring in injured strays for veterinary care. Her love of animals led her to watch a DVD about the spirit bear – or the kermode bear, a white subspecies of the black bear whose habitat lies near where Northern Gateway-fed tankers would sail. Apprised of pipeline plans, and concerned a spill could hurt these unique bears, she signed up.

She was “totally unaware” she was registered to make an oral statement, she said, speaking through an interpreter. But she did fill out the form herself – as did another Brazilian named Elano Ferraz, who wrote in an email: “I did sign up to speak at the environmental hearing for the Northern Gateway pipeline.”

They contradicted reporting by a Calgary newspaper, which called it a “mystery” that the two Brazilians “were signed up without their knowledge.” That allegation sparked fury from pro-pipeline groups and industry leaders. Enbridge chief executive Pat Daniel last week accused non-Canadians of attempting to “delay” and “confuse” the project, pointing to “the number of people who are serving as intervenors that have never heard of the project.”

Yet each of the people with foreign addresses contacted by The Globe and Mail said they had registered themselves. The process was not, however, entirely clear. The Spirit Bear group’s e-mail, for example, asked people to “give the Spirit Bear a voice.” It didn’t mention it was asking people to speak before the National Energy Board.

Just to clarify, the Ferraz email mentioned in this story appeared first on BCLSB (see link above), so thanks to the Globe for giving credit where it is due...NOT!  Secondly, having contacted the Spirit Bear people myself -while their email reached millions, they are just a small organization and don't really have the means to geo-target and translate their message into the home language of all the recipients.  So while Ms. Gudic and Mr. Ferraz have have been slightly confused, there was certainly no attempt to deceive on the part of the coalition.

Alberta To Ontario: Freeze In The Dark!

There is seldom any point to taking issue with a columnist from the Sun Chain, especially one of their girl writers, who seem to be chosen for their ability to foam up cutely rather than reason at any length or use words of more than a single syllable. It's too much like trying to review a bubble-gum card or being a heckler at the Special Olympics. However, the Calgary Sun's Licia Corbella has decided to take a few gratuitous shots at my beloved Toronto in her Friday column, and I could not let that stand.

Licia writes:

Ontario Liberals are burning mad over the gasoline shortage in Toronto and across the province. Dan McTeague, Liberal MP for Pickering-Scarborough East, blamed the gasoline shortage on "Big Oil."

We had 44 refineries in Canada 20 years ago and we now have exactly 13, and two or three of them are either running offline or have very little capacity," McTeague complained to reporters.

Uh, but isn't that precisely what Liberals want? Aren't less refineries, less oil-sands development, higher gasoline prices and more Canadians riding public transit the Liberal plan?

Yes. That's exactly what the Liberals, and therefore, by definition, most Torontonians, say they want. It's also what the Green Party and NDP advocate.

Actually, what Torontonians want is:

1) What the mayor of Fort MacMurray wants, which is the development of the tar sands according to a plan that does not allow unchecked growth to trash the Alberta landscape or allow tons upon tons of of CO2 to be pumped into the atmosphere. Surely the mayor is not alone among Albertans in wanting these things?

2) More and better public transit. Licia gets that one correct. We Torontonians do tend to approve of public transit. But what does Licia have against public transit? Does she think it unmanly to not own a pickup truck?

3) As for higher gas prices, thanks but we already have those.

Ms. Corbella goes on to blame Health, Safety, and Environmental standards that are just too damn high for the fact that Canada has so few gas refineries on-line these days. I wonder, since she is happy to ascribe beliefs to literally millions of people on the basis of statements by a single Ontario MP, whether it is safe to say that Albertans, or maybe Conservatives, are in favor of lower health and safety standards. If so, they should make it a part of their next election platform.

Anyway, Corbella winds up with:

In any event, many Albertans who fear Ontarians will vote Dion into power and thus destroy their economic security again, as they did when the National Energy Program was imposed upon the oil industry in Alberta, are enjoying watching Torontonians line up for gas.

"To quote Ralph Klein, 'Let them freeze in the dark,' " wrote one reader.

As a Torontonian, let me say that I'm glad we're providing Alberta with entertainment. Of course out here in the East it is considered pretty tasteless to get a kick out of the misfortune of others, no matter what their politics might be, but I suppose that must be put down to cultural differences.

And, oh yes, one other important cultural difference between Toronto and, for example, Calgary, is that out here we make it so that our roads go both ways.

When Calgarians have figured out the concept of a two-way street, they can call us and we'll be happy to explain the more complicated stuff, like Opera.