Under the guise of a news article, the Globe and Mail published an article by Peter Kennedy entitled, "Pot activist is scared his fiancée says". The article dealt with the arrest last Friday of the head of the B.C. Marijuana Party, Marc Emery. Emery was arrested in Halifax last week at the request of U.S. authorities, a request that was signed by a justice of the B.C. Supreme Court. The 47-year-old activist has been indicted by an american grand jury on charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and conspiracy to engage in money laundering. These allegations stem from Emery’s operation of an Internet business, Emery Seeds, which sold and distributed marijuana seeds.
The Globe and Mail wasted no time in showing its sympathies towards "The Prince of Pot". The reporter interviewed Emery’s fiancée who said that she was "terrified" and Emery was "scared". In an attempt to obtain sympathy for the alleged drug distributor, the Globe piece used such phrases as "the couple’s [Emery and his fiancée] lives have been turned upside down" and reported the heartbreaking news that "he [Emery] will no longer be able to afford to leave payments on his Ford Thunderbird…"
The only person interviewed for the article besides Cheryl Redick, Emery’s fiancée, was Neil Boyd, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University. according to Boyd this is all the fault of the United States, which is simply out of step with Canada and Europe when it comes to acceptance of marijuana. Boyd classified the U.S. request for extradition as "a breach of our sovereignty".
No interviews were done with U.S. or Canadian drug authorities, nor was the position of the americans as to why they want Emery extradited to face charges put forward.
This was nothing more than an anti-U.S., pro marijuana editorial that purported to be a hard news story.
and…
a short note appeared on the front page of last Saturday’s edition of the National Post indicating that the paper would not be publishing on Monday because it was a "statutory holiday." While the first Monday of august is a holiday in many parts of Canada, it is not a statutory one. Most businesses, including Ontario government-run liquor stores remained open.
It seems that the financially troubled National Post will do anything to get out of publishing an edition.
We’ll really know the newspaper is in trouble if the paper doesn’t publish an edition during Kwanzaa.