Suspected bawdy house raided in Project Cobra 1
By SAM PAZZANO ,Toronto Sun
First posted: Friday, April 29, 2011 10:39:11 EDT PM

TORONTO – The suspected bawdy house at 787 Dundas St. W. where Jack Layton was found was one of 26 raided by Toronto Police in Project Cobra in the mid-1990s.

Asian crime gangs were feeding off the bawdy houses that stretched across Toronto from Chinatown East to Parkdale.

Police assigned to Project Cobra hit 26 bawdy houses and laid more than 300 charges.

“Police were cracking down on underage girls from Thailand,” a former asian crime unit cop says.

“It was unregulated and unpoliced … it was a lucrative business, the girls were pulling in $600 to $700 for a couple hours work,” he says.

The setup at 787 Dundas St. W. impressed the ex-cop.

(…)

“Each room had a window so that the owners could check that the girls weren’t being hurt or more importantly, to them, that the girls weren’t performing oral sex and later saying they were only being masturbated because fellatio cost more and the owners wanted to make sure they got their money.”

Police were most concerned about underage girls brought in from Thailand and Vietnam.


The other women in the bawdy houses ranged in age from the 20s to 50.

sam.pazzano@sunmedia.ca

Leaked cables paint unflattering portrait of Montreal 0
Andrew McIntosh, QMI Agency
First posted: Friday, April 29, 2011 4:02:38 EDT PM

MONTREAL – Massive telemarketing fraud. Brazen video piracy using hidden camcorders in theatres. Trafficking of underage girls for exploitation in strip clubs and prostitution rings.


Montreal has literally become a “Bangkok of the West,” a North American hot spot for questionable sex trade activities and other criminality, American diplomats suggest in newly leaked cables.

Penned by diplomats stationed at the U.S. Consulate in Montreal between 2003 and 2007, the cables were among the latest batch of sensitive documents made public by Wikileaks after unknown people leaked them to the group.

They were among hundreds Wikileaks published about Canada this week.

Written after interviews with RCMP officers and Montreal police detectives, the U.S. diplomats described a major Canadian city grappling with extensive underworld criminality.

A common factor: Hells Angels outlaw biker gang involvement, the diplomats wrote.

The officials also reported that, based on their private chats with Mounties, the national police force lacked sufficient resources to properly investigate such crimes or considered some, like video piracy, a lower priority.

One cable discussed the extensive use of – and trafficking in – underage girls in Montreal strip clubs and prostitution operations. In addition to exploiting runaway local teens, organized crime smuggled and imported foreign women and girls into Montreal to work the sex trade.


Such operations are expanding from Montreal to Ontario cities such as Ottawa, Toronto and Niagara Falls, a U.S. diplomat wrote in a 2003 cable, adding that Chinese girls (using fake Japanese passports), Russians and Indian girls were brought to Quebec for the sex trade.

U.S. diplomats obtained data from the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association that suggested 18% of all pirated movies sold around the globe were traceable to recording in Montreal theatres, costing Canadian members alone more than $118 million in 2005.

(…)

Montreal is a favourite for such scams, the diplomat wrote, because of cheap call centre labour and hydro-power and “lax regulations.”

Annual losses total $700 million, with the Hells Angels biker gang running the larger boiler rooms, a U.S. diplomat wrote in March 2006.

“In the U.S., telemarketing scammers can be charged with mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. In Quebec, regulations are significantly more lax,” the cable stated, noting that strict Quebec privacy laws make it harder for Canadian police to get cell phone account information for probes than their U.S. counterparts.

Though the RCMP has responsibility to pursue telemarketing scammers in Canada, “in many cases (it) lacks the resources to pursue and convict suspect operations,” a U.S. diplomat added.

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Read the Leaked U.S. cables yourself

Human trafficking for sex trade

Biker-controlled Montreal telemarketers target US senior citizens

Illegal camcorder video piracy in Montreal cinemas

Illegal camcorder video piracy in Montreal cinemas

Illegal camcorder video piracy in Montreal cinemas

Memorial site for schoolboy, 15, stabbed to death defending his brother defaced with foul racist abuse

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:46 PM on 12th April 2011

Racists have targeted a memorial site to 15-year old murder victim Negus McClean who died protecting his young brother.

The schoolboy was stabbed to death in Edmonton, north London, as he tried to stop a gang attacking his 13-year old brother Elijiah.

Diversity, our weakness?
Reported by Sarah-Joyce Battersby
Reported on Thursday, April 21, 2011
Updated on Thursday, April 21, 2011

Mary Wright, who belongs to a Toronto anti-poverty group and a green space collective, speaks on the issues surrounding racial poverty.
Contributed by Nick Kozak

Toronto’s official motto—”Diversity Our Strength”—might speak to the strength of this mega-city project, a combination of seven different municipalities in one of the world’s most culturally diverse metropolises, but according to the people who gathered in room 1 and 2 of the Scarborough Civic Centre on April 14, there’s still a lot of work to do.

Activists from the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians and the Colour of Poverty-Colour of Change Coalition united to host a community forum addressing racism’s insidious role in poverty rates in Toronto.

“I think there is a climate in Canada where acknowledging racism somehow makes Canada seem like less of a country. So politicians shy away, in their speeches and in their policy, from recognizing that racism is leading to certain communities facing higher poverty,” said panellist Neethan Shan.

“We’re not saying we are victims forever, but we are saying if there are historic disadvantages they must be acknowledged. That’s the only way to acknowledge where the deficiencies are and improve.”

The United Way attempted to acknowledge where the deficiencies are in a study of poverty rates by postal code. The results are startling: while the number of non-minority families classified as “poor” fell by 28% between 1980 and 2000, the number of minority families classified as the same rose by 361%.

“Poverty is a systemic, structural problem that needs systemic, structural solutions,” said Avvy Go of the Colour of Poverty campaign, and another panel speaker at the forum. Go and her fellow panellists laid out systems and structures that make it exceptionally difficult for racialized communities to not just make ends meet, but establish themselves, engage as citizens, and advance through the ranks of power and influence.

There are big issues that require legislative intervention, like lack of transit services to the outer suburbs (it took me two hours to get to the meeting from my place in the west end, which many downtown residents don’t consider part of downtown) and a lack of provincial-level legislation enforcing employment equity in hiring practices. But some obstacles, like language barriers, require more innovative solutions.

For Milan Nadarajah, not speaking English meant not being able to read and understand his workers’ rights. Even people who have lived in Canada all their lives have trouble sorting out when overtime kicks in and whether they are obligated to work on public holidays. Nadarajah moved to Canada from his native Sri Lanka in 2002, and soon ran into trouble collecting wages from his employer. Nadarajah heard about the Workers’ Action Centre from a friend who had been helped by them, so he got in touch himself.

(…)

Panellist Marie Clarke Walker admitted that she, along with many people in the inner suburbs, bought into candidate Rob Ford’s “cost-cutting propaganda” during the election. But she warned the audience of what she sees as the potentially most damaging development of the new administration’s policies for “people like her”: the silencing of community input into City activities. Clarke Walker points to the gutting of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation board and the potential scaling-back, and in some cases shutting-down, of citizen participation on advisory committees like the Aboriginal Affairs Committee and the Tenant Defence Subcommittee as particularly alarming.

“That is the only recourse…people advocating on behalf of themselves,” said Clarke Walker.

“Someone who spends three or four hours commuting, they don’t have the time, they can’t skip dinner to come out to a community meeting.” Organizers get it. But still, she says, “I know we don’t have the time to do one more thing. But we have to.”

Map data ©2011 Google – Terms of Use

The Donnelly Group responds to racial profiling accusations
The response is posted on the company’s blog
News1130 Staff Apr 14, 2011 14:08:25 PM

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The president of the Donnelly Group says his company is looking into accusations of racial profiling after an employee may have denied a ‘guest list booking’ at the Republic nightclub in April 2008.

Today, the company posted a response on its blog. We’re posting the full statement below.

Donnelly Group Statement UPDATE April 14 at 7 p.m.

Statement: regarding Republic e-mail reservation, April 2008

We have recently received a copy of the e-mail thread in question, and we are investigating the allegations that an ex employee may have denied a guest list booking based on the names of the guest. This employee no longer works for the Donnelly Group, and hasn’t for some time. The e-mails in question date back three years ago, so it is difficult to prove their authenticity and exact meaning. We take these claims very seriously, and we are working hard to get in contact with them to understand exactly what happened.

Jeff Donnelly
President
The Donnelly Group

We are actively investigating the allegation that one of our employees may have denied a guest list booking at Republic based on the names of the guests in April 2008. We take these claims very seriously, and are working hard to understand exactly what happened and confirm all of the facts. This is a very unfortunate incident, and of course we understand the strong feelings associated with these claims.

The Donnelly Group is a Vancouver based company that has operated in our diversely multicultural City since 1999. With 13 venues, we are an equal opportunities company that employs over 450 people and caters to people of all backgrounds and race. We do not condone prejudice of any kind, and our staff and clientele are an obvious testament to that.

At this time, we have requested that copies of the e-mails in question be released to us from News1130 so that this situation can be properly investigated and addressed internally.

We value customer feedback and would like to hear from anyone who has an experience they would like to share – positive or negative – from a Donnelly Group venue. Please feel free to comment or e-mail us at info@donnellygroup.ca.

Jeff Donnelly
President
The Donnelly Group