Feds move quickly to block Air Canada disruptions

Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt, came under fire Thursday after she again stepped in to prevent a labour disruption at Air Canada over the busy March break by referring its dispute with the unions representing its pilots and machinists to the Canada Industrial Relations Board.

"Given our fragile economy, we've said before, a work stoppage is unacceptable," she told reporters in Ottawa.

Raitt said she would ask the CIRB to determine whether an airline such as Air Canada could be considered an essential service. She has used similar means in the past to head off a work stoppage at the Port of Montreal, at Marine Atlantic and at Air Canada last October to avoid a strike by flight attendants.

"The Canadian labour code is very clear that while the CIRB is considering the matter of what level of services an air carrier may have to provide in the case of health and safety matters, they cannot affect a work stoppage. So it applies to both a lockout and a strike," Raitt said.

Her decision effectively puts all strike action and lockouts on hold; no work stoppage can go forward while the disputes are being reviewed by the board.

"At this point in time, we're on the side of the Canadian public interest," Raitt said. "We want to make sure that if there's a work stoppage, the health and safety of Canadians has been considered by a third party to ensure that the cessation of services at Air Canada is something that's not going to hurt them individually."

Raitt encouraged both unions and the airline to continue talks between now and Monday — when Air Canada had planned to lock out its pilots — to negotiate a collective agreement.

"The best deal they're going to get is the one they do themselves," she said.

Earlier Thursday, Air Canada served notice that it would lock out its 3,000 pilots Monday, the same day another union — which represents thousands of ground crew and mechanics at the airline — is set to strike.

"We need to bring closure to the ongoing climate of labour uncertainty at Air Canada which is affecting our customers, destabilizing the company and our operations, and damaging the Air Canada brand," Duncan Dee, Air Canada chief operating officer, said in a statement about the decision to lock out its pilots.

A deadline passed Thursday at noon for what the airline had called its "best, last and final offer" to the Air Canada Pilots Association (ACPA) — without a deal being reached.

The airline made its most recent offer Wednesday, which was less than a month after Raitt offered both sides a new mediator and a six-month process to help them settle contract negotiations — a gesture that was welcomed by the airline and union at the time.

Raitt expressed her disappointment that Air Canada and the unions have been unable to come to an agreement, and with the timing of the strike threats.

"Our government is concerned the work stoppages are going to have an effect on the Canadian travelling public. We all know that it's March break," she said.

She would not directly answer questions about the likelihood of back-to-work legislation if a work stoppage remains a possibility following the CIRB review.

Talks broke off late Tuesday between the airline and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents 8,600 Air Canada ground crew and mechanics.

The union had rejected a new labour agreement two weeks ago, but returned to the bargaining table this week. According to the union, talks broke off after the airline balked at a list of demands from the union.

Both the pilots' lockout and the strike action from the ground crew and mechanics were set to begin at 12:01 a.m. ET on Monday.

The ACPA president said Thursday that it was "the minister's prerogative" to send the matters to the CIRB, but expressed concerns in how the process has played out.

"Air Canada needs to behave like the private-sector corporation it is and stop running to the government every time it has a problem, which as you can see, is often," Capt. Paul Strachan said in a conference call Thursday.

He said, however, that any concerns by people expected to travel over the popular March break period should not worry too much about being grounded due the process that lies ahead for the disputes.

"I think this process will take longer than March break," he said. "I don't think we'll see a completion before that, so I would say to the travelling public to travel in confidence.

"We've never wanted a work stoppage . . . and haven't called for any industrial action of any kind. We've always wanted a bargained settlement."

Strachan also said the union would be "looking at all options going forward," when asked about any legal response to Air Canada possibly being considering essential for health and safety.

George Smith, an industrial relations professor at Queen's University said he thought both Air Canada and IAMAW were being opportunistic by threatening a work stoppage during the busy March break. Smith, a former chief negotiator for Air Canada, said there is little risk for either side because Raitt has shown in the past that she will prevent a work stoppage, meaning the company will not suffer much economically and the union might be able to get a better deal through arbitration.

In June, she tabled back-to-work to put an end to a three-day strike at Air Canada by its sales and service agents. The parties ultimately decided to put their outstanding pension issues out for arbitration. The dispute last October with its flight attendants was also put out for arbitration after Raitt referred the matter to the CIRB, which eventually saw a previously rejected tentative agreement forced upon the employees.

Smith said Ottawa should not be making up public policy as it goes along, and a debate was needed to determine what level of intervention was acceptable and what form that should take.

"The feds are players as opposed to overseers in this process," he said. "This whole thing is a continued perversion of the normal collective bargaining process."

Opposition parties were swift in their criticism of the move by the Conservative government.

NDP MP Yvon Godin reacted angrily to Raitt's decision to use the labour board to effectively eliminate the ability of unions to strike.

"She is trying to find anything she could have in her hands to just go and beat the workers," Godin said. "It is not the job of the government to get involved in negotiations at that point."

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae said the government has made a "farce" of collective bargaining in Canada with its constant interference in labour negotiations.

"The problem is we haven't had an even hand in terms of encouraging people to get to the bargaining table early and doing everything they can to get to an agreement," Rae said, adding that he suspects Air Canada and the government worked in concert to avert the strikes.

"In my opinion, it's improbable the company would have done this without consulting the government. It's clearly an effort on the part of the company to force the hand of the government, and even of the House of Commons."

Meanwhile, Air Canada's largest domestic competitor, WestJet, quickly moved to address any possible flight disruptions as a result of the Air Canada situations by announcing intentions to schedule additional flights to deal with potential backlogs.

"We recognize the travelling public is subject to uncertainty arising from the potential travel disruptions at Air Canada," Bob Cummings, WestJet's executive vice-president of sales and marketing, said in a statement. "With more than 60,000 seats departing each day, we are letting the public know that (we) are ready to welcome more guests on board."

Kony 2012 campaign defends Ugandan warlord video

Some Canadian experts are defending a controversial viral video campaign that has garnered more than 40 million views targeting a Ugandan warlord.

With a single tweet, San Francisco-based NGO Invisible Children launched its "Kony 2012" campaign, which seeks the capture of Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, to the top of the Twitterverse.

However, the campaign has quickly turned from widespread support on social media sites to growing criticism about the group and its tactics.

According to Invisible Children, its campaign seeks to make Kony "famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice. In this case, notoriety translates to public support."

In 2005, the International Criminal Court, of which Canada is a signatory, issued an arrest warrant for Kony and three other suspected war criminals. The court charged Kony with 12 counts of crimes against humanity including sexual enslavement and rape, and 21 counts of war crimes including murder, attacking civilians and forcing children to fight. The LRA has been forced out of Uganda and now operates in southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.

"If people know about the crimes that Kony has been committing for 26 years, they will unite to stop him," Invisible Children said on its website.

The campaign, which features a 30-minute documentary, also encourages supporters to contact celebrities and 12 world leaders, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, about the campaign to spark action.

While Kony 2012 has supporters, it also has its detractors who say the campaign oversimplifies the issue and may incite people to take the law into their own hands.

Ugandan blogger Javie Ssozi tweeted Thursday that "the #KONY2012 approach is wrong approach because what does awareness of Kony specifically do? Leads to peace or accelerate war?"

John Thompson of the Mackenzie Institute, a non-profit organization concerned with issues related to terrorism, warfare and political instability, said the video campaign reflects an "ancient" form of counterinsurgency that has been effective in previous wars.

"It's normal. I know, somehow, in some aspects of our society, the imaginary ideal is that all problems can be solved by legal means and somehow (that's) an optimal solution to a local conflict," he said. "Somehow, like chivalry in medieval Europe, that's the ideal, but the reality is very different."

"It's a war . . . . This isn't going after some group in Idaho. This is guerrilla war; targeting one of the leaders who is propagating the whole thing," Thompson said.

"Over the years, especially with some of these wars that drag on forever, there's two approaches to counterinsurgency: work from the bottom up or top down and go after the leaders," he explained.

Thompson said it's believed that in some civil wars in the developing world, "if you can knock off a leader, especially a cult-like leader (like the LRA), it can cause a larger group to fragment and disintegrate."

"If you've tried other resources, so be it. Go for it," he added. "In World War II, would you have passed up a shot with Hitler?"

On whether the campaign may encourage unlawful actions to detain Kony, Thompson said given the atrocities Kony is accused of committing, "vigilanteeism, where you're encouraging local people to go after leaders during a time of war, how's it going to worsen the situation?"

Prof. Joanna Quinn, director of Western University's Africa Institute in London, Ont., says the campaign is correct in singling out Kony.

"This guy is an indicted war criminal by the International Criminal Court, so it's not like he has not been called out in the past. His crimes are documented and they've been investigated."

"If what they're talking about is finally carrying out the arrest warrant and capturing Joseph Kony, then I don't disagree," she said. "Going after Kony is not a bad thing."

Quinn said Invisible Children may "simplify" the war or "misrepresent things to take a certain stand" in the video. But she said the group is highlighting an important fact: the international community has "not bothered to arrest (Kony)" despite committing to do so.

"That this conflict has been allowed to fester since the 1980s speaks volumes to me, to the fact that nobody has paid attention," Quinn said.

Meanwhile, Sidneyeve Matrix, a media professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., said the video is encouraging her students to delve deeper than the single tweet.

"To have that kind of sustained engagement I'm seeing . . . I don't see the dangers, I just see the possibility and potential. The campaign is doing part of the work, but it's people and community that's doing the rest of it," she said.

NRI returning to India? How to calculate your tax

The grass is not really greener on the other side as many Indians abroad are figuring it out the hard way. Faced with a gloomy economy and career prospects, some are packing their bags and heading back to test the job market.

Though finding a job would be easier in India, especially for those with good degrees and employment background, figuring out the tax liability — especially in the initial years — may be a daunting task. If you are returning to India for employment, there are some tax issues one has to consider before taking the final decision.

This is crucial because the taxability of overseas income (such as rental income from property outside India, capital gains, bank interest, dividends, etc.) for returning Indians largely depends on their residential status in India.  Planning the timing of one’s return is very important.

RESIDENTIAL STATUS
Residency rules play an important role in determining the income that is taxable in India. Indian residency is triggered in either of the following situations:

1. The individual is in India in that financial year for 182 or more days; or

2. The individual is in India in that financial year for 60 or more days and 365 days or more in the four financial years prior to that financial year.

If neither of the above conditions is satisfied, the individual would be treated as a Non-Resident (NR). Satisfying any of the above two conditions would qualify the individual as a resident. Indian tax laws provide a relief for a category of individuals who are ‘Not Ordinarily Resident’ (NOR).

One can become a NOR either if his/her stay in India in the 7 financial years immediately preceding that financial year is less than 729 days or if he/she was a Non-Resident for 9 of the 10 financial years immediately preceding that financial year. A Resident other than a NOR is generally referred to as an Ordinary Resident (‘ROR’).

In case an Indian citizen or a PIO visits India in any tax year, the above mentioned 60 days shall be replaced by 182 days. The proposed Direct Tax Code, however, does not give this preferential benefit to the NRIs or PIO visiting India.

SELLING YOUR PROPERTY ABROAD
As a returning Indian, try to sell your overseas property while you are still a NOR or NR. As a NOR or NR, if you sell any overseas assets and receive the sale proceeds outside India, you do not have to pay any taxes in India. If you need to buy a house in India out of the sale proceeds, you can first receive the sale proceeds in a foreign bank account and thereafter remit part or whole of the proceeds back to India without creating any Indian tax liability.

TAXABILITY AT A GLANCE
i. Income received or deemed to be received or accrues or arises in India during the previous year.

- ROR – Fully Taxable
- NOR/NR – Fully Taxable

ii. Income which accrues or arises outside India and received outside India in the previous year from any other source.

- ROR – Fully Taxable
- NOR/NR – Not Taxable

iii. Income which accrues or arises outside India and received outside India during the preceding previous years and remitted to India during the previous year.

- ROR – Not Taxable
- NOR/NR – Not Taxable

NRI man booked for cyber crime against wife

A matrimonial dispute between a Non-Resident Indian (NRI) from Ahmedabad and his wife, from 
Gurgaon in Haryana, hit cyberspace after the husband allegedly created a website by the name of his wife and posted photos and other evidence on it, alleging that he was tortured by her. Taking objection to this, the woman has registered a cyber-offence with Gurgaon police against her husband under the provisions of the Information Technology (IT) Act.

Based on the complaint, Gurgaon police had issued a look-out notice against the husband who was recently detained for a few hours at Ahmedabad International Airport and was let go with a condition not to leave India.

The NRI is Raj Trivedi from Ahmedabad and his wife is Bhavna Sachdev. They married in August 2009 after connecting on a matrimonial website. Trivedi is an NRI settled at Houston in the United States and he has been into the business of commodities.

According to Trivedi, after a short span of married life, they had started to have disputes which resulted in Bhavna lodging a criminal complaint of dowry, domestic violence and harassment against him, his parents and sister. He also added that a litigation related to the complaint is pending before Punjab & Haryana High Court as the court has sent it for mediation.

In the matrimonial dispute, Bhavna has accused Raj, his parents and his sister of dowry, domestic violence and harassment. Whereas, Raj has alleged that his wife is after his property by defrauding him.

After the dowry complaint registered against him, Raj had created a website by the name of his wife and posted all the 'evidence' in his possession against her on the website. Taking strong objection, Bhavna booked him under IT Act, on February 1.

Bhavna, in her complaint, has stated that the act of Raj has invaded her privacy and accused him of libel and defamation. She further stated that Raj has posted documents on those cases which are still running in court. “During this event he has repeatedly tortured and threatened me that he will try to defame me publicly by putting my picture/information on internet and now he has actually done this...,” she added in the complaint.

Following the complaint, the website has been made unavailable on the internet.

Raj, on his part for creating the website, said, “In the dowry complaint, the police was not treating me fairly, was harassing me and I was fearing for my life. And so, I posted that material on website to let my family members and friends know about the evidence in the case in case something happens to me. Also, I wanted to send out a warning message to people about the dangers of entering into a marriage through internet.”

When contacted by The Indian Express in connection with the case, Bhavna refused to comment saying it is not right for her to speak on a matter that is sub-judice.

Keystone bill faces defeat in U.S. Senate: Harry Reid

Protests against Keystone pipeline

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate could vote as early as Thursday on a plan to take quick action on the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline, a bid that will likely be defeated by Democrats but that gives its Republican supporters an opening to criticize President Barack Obama's energy policies.

Obama put the $7 billion project on hold pending further environmental review. Republicans argue the pipeline, which would ship oil from Canada and northern U.S. states to Texas, would create jobs and improve energy security at a time of surging gasoline prices.

The Republicans' Keystone amendment to a highway funding bill would need 60 votes to pass, meaning at least 13 Democrats would have to vote in favor of the measure for it to advance.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters on Thursday he believes the plan will be defeated.

Some Democratic senators have spoken in support of TransCanada's pipeline in the past. Obama has called some Democratic senators to ensure they would vote against the Republican plan, a White House official said.

Republicans have sought to make Keystone an issue in the November presidential and congressional elections, linking Obama's delay to rising gasoline prices.

"At a moment when millions are out of work, gas prices are sky-rocketing and the Middle East is in turmoil, we've got a president who's up making phone calls trying to block a pipeline here at home. It's unbelievable," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Obama has supported construction of the southern leg of the pipeline, and his administration will assess a new route around an environmentally sensitive area of Nebraska once it has been identified, White House spokesman Clark Stevens said.

"Once again, Republicans are trying to play politics with a pipeline project whose route has yet to be proposed," Stevens said.

DEMOCRATS PROPOSE TO BLOCK EXPORTS

The Republican amendment is among 30 measures - many of them energy related - to be voted on in coming days as the Senate pushes to renew funding for highways and other infrastructure projects, slated to run out at the end of March.

The pipeline would carry crude from Canadian oil sands to Texas refineries and would also pick up U.S. crude from North Dakota and Montana along the way.

Senators will also vote on a proposal from Democratic Senator Ron Wyden that would block exports of oil from the pipeline, as well as refined products made from the oil.

Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, who has championed the Republican plan to advance the pipeline, said the Democratic alternative would be too restrictive.

"That amendment will block this project, let there be no confusion," Hoeven said on the Senate floor.

Refiners need to be able to export some fuel products that are not widely used in the United States, otherwise their costs - and gasoline prices - would rise, he said.

Wyden told Reuters his amendment "puts teeth" into claims the pipeline would boost U.S. energy supplies.

"You see all over television, commercials and enormous sums of money spent by the advocates who constantly keep talking about how this is going to strengthen domestic energy security," Wyden said. "This amendment guarantees that."

Wyden's Keystone amendment will give Democratic senators a plan to support to show they are also concerned about rising gasoline prices, said Whitney Stanco, an energy policy analyst with Guggenheim Securities.

"By offering an alternative, Democrats are hoping to prevent either measure from reaching the 60-vote threshold," Stanco said in an email to clients.