Another inappropriate appointment by Harper

This one just about slipped under the radar until Bob Broughton picked it up. It raises questions about the appointment of former RCMP Commissioner Norman Inkster as chair of the Advisory Council on National Security.

... the actual cause of the cigarette smuggling problem was the tobacco industry; they knowingly shipped their product to warehouses across the border in the U.S., then had a couple of R.J. Reynolds salesmen and an executive of Brown and Williamson make arrangements to smuggle the cigarettes back into Canada.

Inkster didn't tell the parliamentary committee about this. Perhaps he didn't know about it, but, after all, he was the Commissioner of the RCMP. His police force showed very little interest in investigating tobacco industry involvement in cigarette smuggling, even as the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating R.J. Reynolds for the same activity.

Will Inkster go after terrorist activity in Canada with the same diligence that he displayed against the tobacco industry? All signs are, yes. On Nov. 2, Inkster was a paid speaker at an event organized by the tobacco-industry-funded Canadian Convenience Stores Association. What was Inkster paid to talk to them about? Why, the "crisis of contraband tobacco", and how terrorists are using contraband cigarettes as a moneymaking scheme.

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