NHL, union to meet again amid whispers of optimism

Finally, some optimism.

A marathon day of collective bargaining meetings between NHL owners and players wrapped up with a sight not previously seen during the 12-week lockout — deputy commissioner Bill Daly and NHL Players' Association special counsel Steve Fehr standing beside one another at a podium talking about the progress made during negotiations.

"In some ways, I'd say it might be the best day we've had, which isn't too overly optimistic of a picture," Fehr said after the sides broke just before midnight on Tuesday.

"There's still a lot of work to do and a lot to be done. We will be back at it tomorrow morning."

'It might be the best day we've had, which isn't too overly optimistic of a picture — there's still a lot of work to do and a lot to be done.'—NHLPA special counsel Steve Fehr

The league and union were expected to return to the bargaining table around 9 a.m. ET on Wednesday, a couple hours before the start of a board of governors meeting.

Daly said the event with NHL owners would go ahead as planned.

With commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr excusing themselves from the bargaining table, players and owners engaged in a stirring round of negotiations. Different variations of the group shuffled between rooms for more than eight hours at a midtown Manhattan hotel while whispers of optimism circulated through the hallways.

Penguins captain Sidney Crosby was among the 18 players who sat across from six team owners, including Pittsburgh's Ron Burkle, and those two were said to be strong voices in the room, according to sources.

"Sid's a team guy," said one source close to Crosby. "He's about the game."

Even though Bettman and Donald Fehr stayed out of the official sessions, they were present at the hotel and held private sessions with their constituents.

It was hoped that an altered dynamic at the bargaining table might break the stalemate in talks and it seemed to work. The atmosphere was collegial as Daly and Steve Fehr shared the podium — both looking exhausted after a long day of meetings — and the deputy commissioner went out of his way to single out the players who participated in the session.

"I appreciate the efforts of the players in particular," said Daly. "We had 18 players in there today and six of our owners. I think everybody is working hard, I think everybody wants to get a deal done so I think that's encouraging.

"We look forward to hopefully making more progress tomorrow."

There appeared to be a heightened sense of urgency around negotiations with the league owners scheduled to gather Wednesday and more cancellations expected by the end of the week. All regular-season games through Dec. 14, plus the Winter Classic and all-star game, have already been wiped off the schedule.

By the time talks finally broke off in the wee hours of Tuesday night, there was a glimmer of hope that a bigger announcement — a tentative deal — could be coming instead.

'We're going to work hard'

After months of failed stops and starts, the first sign of a true breakthrough came with fresh faces sitting at the bargaining table. Bettman tabled the idea of him and Donald Fehr stepping aside last week after the sides spent two unsuccessful days with U.S. federal mediators.

Four of the owners in attendance were taking part in their first bargaining session — Burkle, Winnipeg's Mark Chipman, Toronto's Larry Tanenbaum and Tampa's Jeff Vinik — and were accompanied by Boston's Jeremy Jacobs and Calgary's Murray Edwards, both part of the NHL's negotiating committee.

The players in attendance represented a cross-section of the NHLPA's membership.

Stars like Crosby, Jonathan Toews, Ryan Miller and Brad Richards joined the likes of Ron Hainsey, Mathieu Darche and Kevin Westgarth, who have been heavily involved throughout the summer.

The same group was expected to get back to work on Wednesday.

"We're going to work hard to try and get a deal," said Daly.

Both the league and union are believed to have made moves towards one another on Tuesday — and that will need to continue for a deal to get wrapped up.

Money has been the biggest issue the sides needed to bridge.

Even though both the league and union proposed a 50-50 split of revenues over the last month, they remain separated on payments to be made outside the system to help ease the transition from the previous deal, which saw players receive 57 per cent. The NHL has offered $211 million in deferred compensation while the union has asked for $393 million.

There are also a number of rules governing player contracts that must be worked out before a new CBA is signed.

With files from CBCSports.ca

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Neil Macdonald: Playing political chicken with America's economy

For those who have missed the central point so far (at this juncture, you'd have to have been living in North Korea), yet another world authority on economics repeated it again last week: The number one threat to the global economy is the European crisis.

Canada and the U.S. have already felt the numbing power of what's been happening in Europe these past few years. Common sense, you would think, would dictate that both countries take all plausible measures to protect their banks, industries and citizenry from more incoming damage.

But America, as Americans like to tell themselves, is an exceptional place, and its politicians aren't about to be outdone by the Europeans.

Politicians here have created their very own artificial crisis, passed it into law, and, with an American flourish, given it a more dramatic name: the fiscal cliff.

The European crisis was the result of an optimistic but flawed deal — the euro itself. The common currency turned into an economic garrotte for its poorer members when tough times arrived.

The fiscal cliff is the result of a cynical and breathtakingly stupid deal. It exemplifies all that is wrong with U.S. congressional politics.

A game of chicken

Even though a solution to the euro crisis is not readily apparent, the Europeans persist after two years of trying to find one, and keep issuing public reassurances of unity to calm the markets.

Meanwhile, American politicians basically abandoned negotiations after creating their own crisis, preferring to spend the next two years campaigning for re-election.

Refighting the presidential election? Republican House Speaker John Boehner says fiscal cliff talks are at a stalemate. (Associated Press)

Now, after a month or so of discussions, they've decided it is easier simply to trade blame publicly and frighten both the American public and world markets.

John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, announced "a stalemate" last week.

Then this week his Senate colleague Lindsey Graham helpfully declared on CBS's Face the Nation, "I think we're going over the cliff."

America's fiscal cliff is one of those things that would be just about impossible to explain to aliens if they landed tomorrow and asked about it.

Unable to agree on a sensible plan to reduce government borrowing, both parties in Congress decided in 2010 to invent a scenario so idiotic — and so harrowing — that it would presumably force a compromise in order to avert the nightmare that would ensue if it were allowed to happen.

So, on Jan. 1, just a few weeks from now, a series of steep increases, one of them retroactive, will automatically kick in for every taxpayer. At the same time, more than $100 billion per year will be indiscriminately ripped out of government spending across the board.

The measures will slice more than four per cent from the American economy in the next couple of years, according to the U.S. government's own accountants. That would almost certainly mean another recession. The consequences for America's trading partners are self-evident.

But keep in mind: that is what it was meant to do. Both parties actually agreed to trigger a series of events neither of them wanted — never mind American businesses, workers and trading partners who are caught in the whipsaw.

Obvious solution

Even more absurd, the solution to this manufactured American crisis (unlike the real one in Europe) is obvious — a much milder combination of spending cuts and tax hikes. And American voters, who made their electoral decision on Nov. 6, overwhelmingly tell pollsters that is what they want to see happen.

But the politicians who created the problem in the first place now say they can't prevent it from going forward.

As always, media reports tend to lay equal blame for the political intransigence on both parties.

But the polling suggests the public will hold Republicans more responsible if the nation does indeed head over the cliff, as Senator Graham predicts.

Roulette game? President Obama is taking his fiscal cliff campaign on the road, channelling his inner Ronald Reagan.

That is because the Republicans have been taking a more aggressive, more overtly ideological approach.

The vast majority of Republicans in Congress have in fact signed a pledge created by the far-right anti-tax activist Grover Norquist: No new taxes, period. (And Norquist has the shock troops to punish any backsliders come the next election.)

At the same time, the GOP has taken the position that while overall government spending must decline, defence spending — the third biggest expenditure — should actually rise. Republicans want to give the Pentagon more funding next year than it asked for.

All this has left President Barack Obama and the Democrats in a reasonably comfortable political position, at least for now.

The Democrats agree spending cuts are necessary. Further, Obama has offered, and the Democratic-controlled Senate has already passed a bill, to limit tax hikes to households that earn more than a quarter of a million dollars a year.

The vast majority of Americans, nearly 98 per cent of them, do not earn that much, and therefore most of them enthusiastically support the idea.

Comfortably re-elected, Obama is now channelling Ronald Reagan, taking his case directly to the public. His message is simple: If "Congress" — read Republicans — doesn't do something by the end of the year, everyone's taxes will rise.

It's not only a politically potent statement, it happens to be true.

The fiscal cliff would damage America, never mind the economies that do a lot of business with America, and Republicans foolishly helped create it.

Now, to their horror, they're being cast as responsible for a tax increase on all taxpayers.

Faced with that, a few of them are already publicly repudiating the Grover Norquist pledge.

"I care too much about my country — I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist," Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss, who is actually up for re-election in 2014, told a Georgia radio station recently.

Actually, you would think elected politicians who truly cared about their country wouldn't have allowed this situation to develop in the first place.

If the law remains unchanged, and the U.S. does slip into economic chaos beginning next month, the fiscal cliff will likely go down in history as a form of political lunacy. And any politician who fails to stop it because of a pledge to Grover Norquist will deserve what happens to him, or her, as a result.

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Who will replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state?

As former presidential adviser Stephen Hess so astutely pointed out, to listen to the media, one would think there are only two people in the United States who are qualified to replace Hillary Clinton as the next secretary of state.

With Clinton having made it known that she soon intends to depart the high-profile post, the speculation over possible replacements has squarely focused on UN Ambassador Susan Rice and Democratic Senator John Kerry.

The guessing game has begun in earnest for the cabinet position described by foreign policy expert Aaron David Miller as "the second-best job in Washington and carries a status no other cabinet position holds, period."

It would be difficult to fault the punditry for focusing on Rice in particular, who is believed to be Barack Obama's favourite to take over and who has a strong and personal relationship with the president.

UN Ambassador Susan Rice is considered the top contender to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. (Evan Vucci/Associated Press)

Rice, while known to rankle some for her blunt style, has a credentialed background in foreign policy, dating back to when she worked in former president Bill Clinton's administration at the National Security Council.

But she has drawn criticism over her role in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Republicans have accused her of not being truthful when she appeared in news interviews days after, claiming the attack was the result of an anti-Islam video, while playing down any link to al-Qaeda.

Some Republicans have suggested that Rice, who has said she was just presenting the intelligence she was given at the time, could be in for a battle during the nomination process.

"Assuming the president wanted Susan Rice, the question now is how much political capital is he willing to spend on getting her confirmed by the U.S. Senate," Hess, who works as a governance studies analyst at the Brookings Institute, told CBC News.

"I think he would probably get her through. He's got a pretty full plate of very important issues right now. He should know that his best chance of doing anything in a second term is immediate. So is he going to spend some of that time … on the confirmation of a cabinet minister?"

Kerry would find easier passage

The other popular contender is Kerry, a senior statesman, chairman of the foreign relations committee, who played Republican candidate Mitt Romney during Obama's preparation debates.

Republican Arizona Senator John McCain, who has been vocal in his criticism against Rice, has already suggested that Kerry would sail though the nomination process. While senators may be more apt to confirm one of their own, Republicans would favour Kerry for political reasons as well.

Massachusetts Senator John Kerry would likely sail though the nomination process. (J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)

The Democrats, who hold a slim lead in the Senate, could lose a seat in Massachusetts if Kerry departed to become secretary of state. Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown, who recently lost his Senate seat to Democrat Elizabeth Warren, is still quite popular in the state despite his defeat. He would still have a good chance of capturing that Senate seat if a special election were held to replace Kerry.

However, Obama could get both Rice and Kerry by placing Rice as secretary of state and giving Kerry the secretary of defence post.

But Hess said that despite all the attention being focused on Rice and Kerry, he wouldn't be surprised if the job went to neither of them.

"Why should it? There are other people as well."

Some have speculated that National Security Adviser Tom Donilon could shift over to become secretary of state or that William Burns, the deputy secretary of state, could get promoted to the position.

There have been some suggestions that Obama could choose a Republican, like former senator Richard Lugar, who lost the Senate primary to Tea Party candidate Richard Mourdock, or Jon Huntsman, former Utah governor and presidential candidate who worked in the Obama administration as an ambassador to China.

But Lugar at 80 may be considered too old for the spot and Huntsman may have rankled some within the White House for diving into the race for the presidency.

Joe Biden?

"I read an odd column. Somebody was proposing Joe Biden," Hess said. "Constitutionally, it's possible. It is not a good idea because you should never appoint somebody to a job like that if you can't fire them, and he can't fire the vice-president, so that's not a good idea. But I could see what the person was thinking about. He's a qualified person."

And what about Bill Clinton, whose popularity seems to continue to climb?

"That's a sort of game people play because people have only a limited number of names that pop into their head. I could name Ivy League presidents, distinguished lawyers, foundation heads who are the sort of people in the past that do get picked but are not the names that would just pop into someone's head like a Bill Clinton. No, I don't think that's about to happen."

Hess said the choice doesn't necessarily have to be someone with a foreign policy background.

"If you look at the history of the secretary of state, they've come over for all different reasons, whether it's a Colin Powell or an Al Haig. So you never really know until they're there how good they are going to be," he said. "Two of the best in recent years would have been George Schultz and James Baker — neither of which were experienced in foreign policy. They weren't like Henry Kissinger and spent their lives delving into the Austro-Hungarian Empire."

But Aaron David Miller, writing in Foreign Policy, says that in the end it may not really matter much who the president chooses.

"Whether it's John Kerry, Susan Rice, Tom Donilon, or some mystery candidate who will surprise us all, the next secretary will have to deal with Barack Obama, withholder-in-chief — a guy who dominates and doesn't delegate big foreign policy decisions," Miller wrote.

"Perhaps in his second term, a more confident Obama will empower a true loyalist — someone he really trusts, like Susan Rice — and allow him or her to run with some truly big issues. But don't count on it."

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Rob Ford in court in bid to keep mayoral job pending appeal

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's lawyers are in court today aiming to suspend a judicial order that he vacate his seat until an appeal of the ruling is resolved.

The mayor's legal team, led by Alan Lenczner, will argue for a stay of the removal order issued last week by Ontario Superior Court Justice Charles T. Hackland.

The application to stay the ruling is not being opposed by Paul Magder, who lodged the complaint that led to the order, or by Clayton Ruby, his lawyer.

Magder argued Ford broke the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act by taking part in a February council vote that absolved him from paying back $3,150 he had solicited for his football foundation from lobbyists.

Hackland said in his ruling last week that Ford's actions amounted to "wilful blindness."

If Ford's stay application is unsuccessful, he would have to relinquish the mayoral position on Monday. Council would then have to declare his seat vacant, and would have 60 days to either appoint a new mayor or call a byelection.

Ford's appeal of the judgment could be heard as early as Jan. 7, with a decision following soon after.

Hackland ruled Ford would be eligible to run in a byelection if he loses his appeal and council does not appoint an interim mayor.

Lenczner says a stay just makes sense in this case.

"The argument would be: 'Well, what happens if the appeal gets overturned?'" he said.

"What would be the point of having either an election that costs money or having someone else appointed to the position and then the position becomes vacant?"

Ford brothers are optimistic

The mayor and his brother, Coun. Doug Ford, are optimistic.

"We hope the judge will give Rob a stay and then we're off to the Appeal Court Jan. 7," Doug Ford said.

However, some on council believe the entire matter has damaged the city's reputation and that it is time for Ford to step down.

"I think right now anybody could do a better job than the mayor we have," Coun. Glenn De Baeremaeker said.

"I think we've all had buyer's regret," De Baeremaeker said. "I think we all thought we bought something shiny, new and wonderful, and got home and it was a piece of junk.

"I think that has happened with our mayor, and unfortunately what we have now is a spectacle that is embarrassing and humiliating to us around the world."

The mayor has kept a low profile this week and is not expected to be in court Wednesday.

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Egypt protesters stay near palace as Morsi returns

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi returned to work at the presidential palace in Cairo this morning despite a continuing protest outside.

Morsi left the complex through a back gate Tuesday night as tens of thousands of protesters pushed through a barricade and approached the palace. Officials say the president used an exit he routinely uses and left at the end of his working day.

At one point during the protest, police fired tear gas at the crowd. A brief outburst of violence left 18 people wounded, none seriously, according to the official MENA news agency.

There are reports as many as 100,000 protesters had gathered to demand that Morsi rescind decrees that place him above judicial oversight. By morning, a few dozen opposition supporters remained camped out in front of the palace's main gate.

The president's Nov. 22 decrees and the adoption by Morsi's allies of a controversial draft constitution have plunged Egypt into its worst political crisis since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown as president nearly two years ago.

Secular politicians fear the Islamist-dominated panel that is drafting the constitution will produce a draft that infringes on the rights of women and religious minorities.

"Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have been banished to the political sidelines for eight decades now. They aren't going to be quick to rescind any power whatsoever, and so we are looking at more volatility and a stand-off, because this president does not appear willing to yield to these enormous protests that took place last night," CBC's David Common reported from Cairo.

Anti-Morsi protesters chant slogans in Tahrir Square in Cairo while a sit-in continues outside the presidential palace. (Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press)

Five Egyptian satellite stations Wednesday announced plans to strike as part of the protest. ONTV, Dream, Capital Broadcasting Center, Al-Hayat and Al-Nahar stations said they will stop broadcasting from 6 p.m. to midnight local time.

"We are protesting against the lack of freedom for the media and recent efforts to silence journalists," said Mohamed Bassiouni, executive producer at ONTV.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says Egypt's unrest shows the urgent need for dialogue between the government and opposition on reshaping a constitution.

Speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, Clinton said the U.S. wants to see a constitution emerge that protects the rights of all Egyptians -- men and women, and Christian and Muslim.

With files from The Associated Press

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Brian Stewart: Time for Canada to get back to peacekeeping

For years now, the Canadian army has fretted about finding a new role for itself after Afghanistan. Well, that day has arrived and it can no longer dodge the stark post-war questions: What next, and where?

Spare us an eternity of training at home and aiding with floods and ice storms, is a common lament among soldiers who see little that's challenging or career-enhancing ahead.

With little chance of another overseas mission in the foreseeable future, there is little for our 25,500 regular soldiers and 16,000 reservists to do, and it's not hard for them to read the tea leaves. An inactive army is both easily bored and easily cut at budget time.

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently called for a leaner military "as ready to bring disaster relief as to deliver lethal force," grim images of snow shovels and sandbags surely flashed through many a military mind.

From a command perspective, this is a critical worry for an army that saw both its political clout and domestic popularity soar to remarkable heights over the past decade, even after Canadians soured on the Afghan war itself.

Now all that remains is a little-noticed, short-term training role in Afghanistan.

In Ottawa, the political masters have learned that sending ships and a few aircraft, as we did in the overthrow of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, is a far safer security investment than putting infantry boots on foreign ground.

What's more, the country has had its fill of fighting land wars in far off places.

But the irony in all this is that Canada — with our military's eager blessing — has ditched the alternative international role our soldiers were long renowned for: peacekeeping.

A dirty word

For more than a decade, Canada's top military officers along with staunchly pro-military politicians and a dedicated handful of academics and journalists, battered and besmirched UN peacekeeping to the point that it became a dirty word uttered with a sneer within the Canadian Armed Forces.

An Italian peacekeeper helps a UN investigator track the source of rocket fire from southern Lebanon in 2011. Is this a job Canadians should be doing? (Mohammad Zaatari / Associated Press)

"The UN itself couldn't run a one-man race to the outhouse," wrote Canada's super-star general Rick Hillier in his memoirs a few years ago. He's not always that polite on this subject.

I know many officers and military writers who share the view that UN peacekeeping doesn't deserve us.

But to me this looks like a case of that old adage "Be careful what you ask for." Or in this case, what you are too proud to ask for.

My guess is that a few big peacekeeping operations in Africa and perhaps even the Middle East won't look so bad to a generation of young soldiers and junior officers who feel Afghanistan prepared them to face the real challenges of the world.

32 soldiers

The irony, however, is that at a time when the UN is making serious strides to reform and expand peacekeeping, Canada, which largely invented the practice in the 1950s, is noticeably absent, and unless Ottawa has a change of heart, will remain so.

Since the late 1990s the pro-military lobby did such a good job bad-mouthing UN operations that both Liberal and Conservative governments have been only too happy to eviscerate our peacekeeping contributions.

The Harper government in particular treats the UN as an irritating irrelevance at best, to the point that we forget a UN operation like peacekeeping is something we used to be pretty good at, and that helped define us as a country.

In fact, more than 100,000 Canadian military personnel have worn the blue armband abroad over the years, usually with great distinction.

In the 1990s, Canada made up 10 per cent of all peacekeeping troops worldwide with as many as 4,000 soldiers serving at any one time in places like Cyprus, Lebanon, the Golan Heights, the Balkans, Africa and parts of South America and Asia.

Today, as peacekeepers from other countries have quadrupled in just a dozen years (from 20,000 to 95,000) we have shrunk to a near invisible 52nd place, alongside Fiji and Paraguay.

While nations like India, Brazil and the still impoverish Ethiopia are now the main peacekeeping forces in the UN arsenal, Canada's entire 100,000-strong land, sea and air components contribute "less than a school bus-load of Canadian soldiers" in the striking image of the Globe and Mail's Paul Koring.

That's right, only 32 soldiers, according to the latest UN figures. And these are doled out in tiny packets: one in Cyprus, three in the Golan Heights, six in Darfur, and so on.

'Warrior nation'

When it comes to peacekeeping, we can't blame our low effort on the strain of Afghanistan, for some of our allies in that struggle continued to maintain respectable numbers, particularly Britain (278 soldiers), France (916) and Germany (207).

What degraded peacekeeping here was the mindset that used Afghanistan as a way to seek a full revival of a "warrior nation" ethos through support-our-troops campaigns and media messaging that seemed determined to crush all that was allegedly squishy about our past internationalism.

"The damming of peacekeepers became, among the coterie of military historians and fellow travellers in the media, something of a blood sport, and the game in their sights was liberal Canada," writes Noah Richler in his recent polemic What We Talk about When We Talk about War.

Yes, the critics of UN peacekeeping often had real grievances. It can be inefficient, poorly led, and will forever be identified with disasters like Somalia, Rwanda, and Srebrenica.

But only emphasizing the negatives distorts the picture and takes no account of the many successes, from Mozambique to Cyprus and East Timor, that saved countless lives and regional peace.

In fact, countries caught up in civil war have a 50 per cent greater chance of finding lasting peace if peacekeepers are deployed, according to the most detailed study to date, Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerents' Choices after Civil War, by Virginia Page Fortna of Columbia University.

Canadians, to their credit, never entirely bought the anti-peacekeeping vitriol that was making the rounds.

Two years ago, pollsters at Nanos Research found 52 per cent of respondents considered peacekeeping the most important role for our military; only 21 per cent saw combat as the priority.

Yes, we do need an army that can handle combat in crisis zones when necessary, but we also need one that can also use the sophisticated, patient and humane skills required for robust peacekeeping in a world that badly requires such help.

The UN very much wants Canada to return. But one can only imagine the embarrassing back-flips our military boosters will have to perform before our current government says it is time we volunteered again for more UN duty.

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CN's $2.6M mystery U.S. trips never unloaded biodiesel

A CBC News investigation has uncovered a cross-border mystery involving unexplained shipments of biodiesel tanker cars that were sent back and forth numerous times between Canada and the U.S. by CN Rail but were never unloaded.

According to leaked internal CN documents, the rail company stood to make $2.6 million for the effort.

"CN received shipping directions from the customer, which, under law, it has an obligation to meet," CN Rail spokesman Mark Hallman said last week. "CN discharged its obligations with respect to those movements in strict compliance with its obligations as a common carrier, and was compensated accordingly."

When asked whether CN wasn't helping to do something strange, Hallman responded: "CN met its obligations as a common carrier and we have no further comment."

'If we can get in more flips back and forth we will attempt to do so. Each move per car across the border is Revenue generated for Sarnia/Port Huron.'—Email from Teresa Edwards, CN's manager of transportation for Port Huron/Sarnia

CN employees, although guarded, were more candid.

"In 25 years, I'd never done anything like it," one railway worker told CBC News on the condition he not be named for fear he might be fired. "The clerk told me it was some kind of money grab. We just did what we were told."

It all took place between June 15 and 28, 2010.

According to internal CN records, Train 503 shipped the biodiesel to Port Huron, Mich., from Sarnia, Ont.; Train 504 brought them back. The number of cars on the train would remain mostly the same, but cars were added and removed, between 68 and 89 cars at a time. As soon as the paperwork and car shuffling was completed, the trains made the return trip.

"This unit train will move at least once daily to Port Huron starting on Tuesday, June 18," said an email written by Teresa Edwards, CN's manager of transportation for Port Huron/Sarnia.

It will "clear customs and return to Sarnia. If we can get in more flips back and forth we will attempt to do so. Each move per car across the border is Revenue generated for Sarnia/Port Huron.

"It will be the same cars flipping back and forth and the product will stay on the car."

The email ends with a reminder that the move "has the potential to make a lot of money for CN so need everyone's assistance to maximize the number of trips that we make and ensure that it all moves smooth."

Edwards did not return calls to CBC.

Asked about the mysterious CN Rail shipments, a company spokesman said: "CN discharged its obligations with respect to those movements in strict compliance with its obligations as a common carrier, and was compensated accordingly." (Dave Seglins/CBC)

Each shipment generated bills of lading, customs import and export forms that suggest total shipments of 1,984 cars —approximately $23 million to $25 million in biodiesel shipments each way.

The U.S. biodiesel companies listed as customers were HeroBX and Northern Biodiesel. Northern Biodiesel did not answer calls, and it is unclear whether they are still operating as a business. CBC News called HeroBX repeatedly, but it has refused to respond.

Firm that arranged deal probed by CBSA

CN records say the Canadian company that arranged the deal is Bioversal Trading Inc., which is being investigated by the Canada Border Services Agency on allegations it made false statements to avoid duties in shipping biodiesel to Romania and Italy.

Bioversal Trading Inc. is part of the Bioversal family of companies that share offices and officers with Einer Canada. The CBC interviewed Einer Canada's Arie Mazur, who made a lengthy defence of Bioversal Trading's fight with the European Union's Anti-Fraud office, and maintained they have not broken any Canadian laws.

On the matter of the Sarnia-Port Huron mystery train, Mazur offered some theories, but was advised by his lawyer, who was present during the interview, to research it and get back to the CBC.

The lawyer, Nicholas Karnis, sent an email to the CBC suggesting the corporation was being used "to support a witch hunt perpetrated by our business competitors," and declined to comment further about the mystery train.

On Friday, the CBC contacted Iulian Cirlan, whose name appeared on the CN documents as a Bioversal employee. He said he did some contract work for Bioversal, and had been working there a month when he was told to handle the logistics for Train 503 and 504. He said the biodiesel came from several companies, and railcars from Buffalo and Winnipeg were added to the train.

Claims of mislabelling products

"My job is not to ask what and why," said Cirlan, whose job involved supervising the movements, and paying the terminals and the trucking companies. "If you ask me to move product 100 times, I'd be glad to help."

The Bioversal fight against the CBSA's search warrant of its Bloor Street offices in Toronto on May 30, 2012, was heard in court Wednesday in Quebec City. Court documents show European authorities had contacted the CBSA alleging Bioversel and another company mislabelled their merchandise and its origin. Officials are now investigating claims the companies were routing American-made biodiesel through Canada and falsifying its origin to avoid paying tens of millions of dollars in European anti-dumping duties.

The company denied the allegations in Quebec City, and are attempting to quash the warrants. Bioversel's lawyers accused CBSA officials of abusing their powers and executing the search on behalf of the European Anti-Fraud Office, saying they have not broken any Canadian laws. The matter has been adjourned pending further deliberation.

Customs officials on both sides of the border declined to comment on the mystery. Natural Resources Canada, which runs a $1.5-billion biodiesel incentive program, was contacted numerous times by the CBC, and it has said it will look into the matter.

Send tips to dave.seglins@cbc.ca and john.nicol@cbc.ca

With files from Jeremy McDonald and Brigitte Noël

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Trudeau under fire for long-gun registry comments

The federal Conservatives and Opposition New Democrats are calling out Liberal leadership hopeful Justin Trudeau for saying that the long-gun registry was "a failure," after he spent years defending it and voted not to abolish it as recently as a few months ago.

"The long-gun registry, as it was, was a failure and I'm not going to resuscitate that," Trudeau said during a campaign stop in the Conservative riding of Glengarry–Prescott–Russell in Ontario on Friday.

"We will continue to look at ways of keeping our cities safe and making sure that we do address the concerns around domestic violence that happen right across the country, in rural as well as urban areas in which, unfortunately, guns do play a role.

"But there are better ways of keeping us safe than that registry which is, has been removed," Trudeau said in a question-and-answer session while visiting the DART Aerospace plant in Hawkesbury.

In an interview with CBC News on Sunday, Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre said Trudeau is pandering to different groups depending on what part of the country he finds himself in.

"When he's in Quebec he says Albertans have too much power, but when he's in Alberta he says the opposite. When he's with his Liberal friends he votes in favour of the long-gun registry, when he's in a rural community he calls it a failure.

"Justin Trudeau will tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear, whenever he thinks you want to hear it," Poilievre said.

Trudeau recently set off another political firestorm when comments he made about Albertans in a 2010 French interview resurfaced in the media.

The leadership hopeful offered an apology but maintained his comments were being misinterpreted and that they were directed at the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and not Albertans in general.

He later conceded his 2010 comments "may have hindered a little bit" his party's chances in the Calgary Centre byelection last Monday.

NDP would restore long-gun registry

The Conservatives abolished the long-gun registry in April after passing Bill C-19, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, in a final vote of 159-130. Trudeau voted against the Conservative bill.

While the Liberals have since said they would not bring back the registry, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair has pledged to restore it.

NDP justice critic Françoise Boivin, in an interview with CBC News on Sunday, said her jaw dropped when she read Trudeau's comments.

Like Poilievre, Boivin too wondered whether Trudeau would repeat those comments in Montreal or Toronto, cities that have been marked by gun violence over the years.

Boivin noted it wasn't that long ago that Trudeau voted against Bill C-19, "and to say a few months later that it was a failure, that it was not doing at all what it should be doing... maybe the attraction to try to lure some voters on his side and bring back the Liberal Party in that area was stronger than his principles."

"Real leadership is to say to a bunch of people that you know are against your view and try to explain it and convince them. That's what real leadership is suppose to be," Boivin said.

The New Democratic MP from Quebec also took aim at Trudeau's assertion that gun ownership is an "important facet of Canadian identity." Boivin said Canada is not the United States, where the right to bear arms is entrenched in the constitution.

When asked for reaction to Trudeau's comments, journalist Rob Russo, Ottawa Bureau Chief for The Canadian Press, told CBC Radio's The House that Trudeau was "boldly going where no Grit has gone before."

"He is taking on an issue where he is going to get into some trouble in the province of Quebec. If there was one province where the gun registry was an unqualified hit, a success, it is in the province of Quebec," Russo told host Evan Solomon.

Since the long-gun registry was scrapped, the Quebec government has gone to court and won the right to preserve its share of the long-gun data.

The federal government has since destroyed most of the remaining records of registered long guns and is currently appealing the Quebec Superior Court ruling blocking it from destroying the data from Quebec.

The federal long-gun registry was first created by the Liberal Party in 1995, in the wake of the Dec. 6, 1989, massacre at Montreal's École Polytechnique, in which 14 women were singled out for their gender and killed by a gunman.

Ceremonies to mark the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women are held every Dec. 6 in Montreal and in other cities across the country.

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B.C. woman may lose home over huge lawyer bill

A B.C. woman stands to lose her home to her lawyer, who is moving to foreclose on her to pay his six-figure bill.

"My friends and family say this can't be happening. There's got to be a mistake," Dale Fotsch said.

Fotsch got into the predicament after being sued by her ex-husband, even though she won the case and the court ordered him to pay her costs.

"I won, but I lost," Fotsch said. "I defended myself and now I'm losing my place."

Fotsch, 54, lives near Pemberton with her disabled son and earns a modest income. Her only asset is her house and the 12 hectares of land it sits on.

"I've worked two jobs, and I have for the last 25 years," Fotsch said. "When I was hit with this, it was just like a bomb went off in my life."

Case dragged on

A decade ago, her common law ex-husband Leigh Wilson went after Fotsch, trying to get a piece of her property after their breakup. The case took nine years to resolve, which was years longer than her lawyer had predicted, she said.

"There was a three-week trial – three weeks! For my little place in the country. I mean, it just seems a little overboard and ridiculous," Fotsch said. "There were three tables of binders, with papers stacked sky high."

She said she had already paid thousands in legal fees when the case finally went to trial in 2007. As it advanced, her lawyer said he wouldn't continue unless she allowed him to secure a $100,000 mortgage against her property, at 18 per cent interest per year.

Fotsch's bill just keeps climbing because of $88 per day in interest charges. (CBC)

Vancouver divorce lawyer Jonas Dubas charges $300 an hour. His invoices to Fotsch include charges like $148.40 to simply call another lawyer and leave a voicemail message.

"Lots of people get a divorce. For some of them, it costs a little bit, but nothing like this. I mean, this is huge," Fotsch said.

When she finally won, in 2010, the B.C. Court of Appeal ordered Fotsch's former husband to pay her court costs. That would have covered at least part of her bill from Dubas — which, by then, had reached $90,000.

"When they said he was responsible for the costs, I thought that meant that he was going to pay them," Fotsch said.

$180,000 bill

However, her ex-husband has since declared bankruptcy, so he hasn't paid and she can't force him to. Meanwhile, her legal bill has mushroomed — with $88 a day in interest charges — and has now reached $180,000.

"I have a hard time sleeping at night. I'm one that keeps my bills paid. I've always paid my bills," Fotsch said.

She said her bank refused to lend her money to pay her lawyer's fees because she already has another mortgage. Dubas has hired his own lawyer who is taking steps to foreclose on Fotsch's home.

"I've done nothing wrong. What have I done wrong?" Fotsch said, choking up in tears.

"I've gone to court like they told me I had to, to save my place. And now the very person that I got to help me is taking it."

Fotsch said she realizes she is responsible for paying, but she said a legal system that would allow her to win her case then lose her home is perverse.

"I'm not bitter at anybody. I'm kind of bitter at myself for getting involved with this man in the first place," she said, referring to her ex-husband. "It has totally wrecked my life.

"But you know, we all make mistakes. It just seems like a big price to pay."

No comment from lawyer

Dubas told Go Public he could not speak on the record about the case, because Fotsch was his client.

But, he said, he deserves to get paid. Dubas also stressed that the mortgage arrangement was perfectly legal and his client agreed to it. He justified the high interest rate by saying other lawyers arrange financing for clients at rates over 20 per cent.

Jonas Dubas said he couldn't comment on the Fotsch case because she was his client. (CBC)

The Law Society of B.C., the governing body for the province's legal profession, would not comment on the case, but said that in general, what Jonas did is not against the rules.

"The law society's rules and regulations do not prohibit a lawyer from loaning money to a client or advancing money... but there are guidelines that should be followed," spokesperson Ben Hadaway said.

"A lawyer may not loan money to a client if the effect of loaning money is to give the lawyer an interest in the matter or impair the lawyer's professional judgment."

Fotsch hasn't filed a complaint with the law society because she's still hoping for a resolution. After her experience with her divorce, she said she would do anything to avoid ever having to go to court again.

"I would never go back in there again, not if my life depended on it, for anything. Nothing. What would be the point?"

Not alone

Halifax resident Lisa Finney said she, too, will never go to court again, after also winning her case but having nothing to show for it.

Finney sued her employer, LifeMates, for wrongful dismissal in 2006. After her father died, she alleged in her statement of claim, her boss Craig Gleason gave her no time off to grieve and then fired her.

Lisa Finney also never wants to go to court again, after being awarded $10,000 she can't collect. (CBC)

When Gleason didn't show up in court, the judge ruled in Finney's favour and awarded her $10,000. Finney hired a paralegal to help her collect, but said it was futile.

"No matter what I did, they could find a way to avoid payment. There was always a way to avoid it. And I could put good money after bad," Finney said.

Gleason's bank refused to give her any information so she could seize money from his accounts. LifeMates is owned by a U.S. company, so it had no other assets in Canada for her to take.

"It's kind of a joke, really. We spend a lot of money in the court system. Going to court and putting these cases together. Employing a lot of people doing so," Finney said.

"And at the end of the day, if nothing comes of it, there's really no point. It's just a joke."

Billing debate

Advocates pushing for justice reform say cases like these — particularly the legal bills — are driving increasing numbers of people to represent themselves in court or avoid the courts altogether.

"Lawyers are quite simply priced out of most people's reach," said John Paul Boyd, a Vancouver lawyer with Access Pro-Bono, who gives free legal assistance to people in need.

It's a problem Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin has been raising for years, and it's led her to lament that "access to justice is becoming a privilege of the rich."

Fotsch and her disabled son stand to lose their home, north of Pemberton, B.C. (CBC)

Every year, the B.C. Court of Appeal flags the number of cases where people show up for court without a lawyer. In 2011, the number of unrepresented litigants had reached one-quarter of all cases.

Boyd said billing disputes like Fotsch's are indicative of a bigger problem that only lawyers can fix.

"Lawyers have priced ourselves beyond the reach of most people, and there appears to be nothing in the form of market forces that are correcting us in terms of the fees that we are able to charge," Boyd said.

A Canadian Lawyer magazine survey found 52 per cent of lawyers plan to raise their fees next year. Fotsch's lawyer, Dubas, said it's a myth that lawyers are making great money.

"People think lawyers are rich, but in fact there are firms that struggle to pay their bills," he said.

Fotsch said she hopes once her story goes public, Dubas will decide to negotiate a settlement with her — perhaps accepting a parcel of her land that is undeveloped.

"I can't lose my home," she said. "And I've appealed to his hopefully good side. But he's said no to everything and he won't listen to anything that I said."

Submit your story ideas to Kathy Tomlinson at Go Public and follow @CBCGoPublic on Twitter.

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Residential Schools inquiry filing for documents in court

Chief Wilton Littlechild, a commissioner for the Truth and Reconciliation inquiry, stands in front of the new stained a glass window on Parliament Hill officially dedicated last Monday to the legacy of the Indian Residential Schools system. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)

Years of mounting frustration over access to government records has prompted the commission of inquiry into Canada's residential school system to turn to the courts for help, The Canadian Press has learned.

In court filings, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission accuses Ottawa of stymying requests for documents the inquiry says are vital to its core mandate: "delivery on truth, reconciliation and ultimately healing."

Documents filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice show the commission worries that Ottawa's alleged intransigence will make it impossible to complete its work as required by July 1, 2014 and within budget.

"If the parties, through incompetence, delays or deliberate stonewalling (or a combination thereof) sabotage the work of the commission, then Canadians are certain to forget (and never fully learn) what has happened," the commission's factum states.

The application asks the court to clarify the government's obligations under a settlement with victims of the Indian residential school system that set up the commission led by Justice Murray Sinclair.

"The commission is taking this step very reluctantly and with a sense that it has been left with no alternative," Sinclair said in a statement.

Under the agreement, the government of Canada and churches are obliged to provide all "relevant documents in their possession or control" to the commission.

Court filings show years of government squabbling over the word "relevant."

Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan could not immediately be reached for comment Sunday.

However, the government maintains it has done its best to co-operate, providing one million documents already.

'Control over history' at stake: lawyer

The commission says there are still many others and estimates it would cost far more than its entire $60-million budget if it is forced to find and digitally organize materials in federal archives by itself.

"What is at stake here is control over history," lawyer Julian Falconer, who represents the commission, said over the weekend.

The Superior Court has set aside two days later this month for Stephen Goudge, a justice with the Ontario Court of Appeal, to hear the case.

The residential school system, which ran from the 1870s until the 1990s, saw about 150,000 native kids taken from their families and sent to church-run schools under a deliberate policy of "civilizing" First Nations.

Many students were physically, mentally and sexually abused. Some committed suicide. Mortality rates reached 50 per cent at some schools.

In the 1990s, thousands of victims sued the churches that ran the schools and the Canadian government. Following settlement of the suit, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a historic apology in June 2008.

"There is no place in Canada for the attitudes that inspired the Indian residential schools system to ever prevail again," Harper said.

"You have been working on recovering from this experience for a long time, and in a very real sense we are now joining you on this journey."

The $1.9-billion settlement also led to the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to research what had occurred and to make recommendations.

Part of the commission's mandate is to help in a process of reconciliation, while yet another is the "creation of a legacy" that includes collection of records, taking statements from those involved, and classifying and preserving the materials.

A national research centre was also to be set up as a permanent archive.

Affidavits filed in support of the application show the government only started providing the material — an initial 38,000 documents — in April 2010.

However, it took until November 2011 — about six years after Ottawa first signed the settlement in principle — for the government to hand over the bulk of what's been provided so far.

In an interim report issued in February, Sinclair took the government to task for its lack of co-operation — to little effect.

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