HOTTIES:

BC Attorney General Wally Oppal and Solicitor General John Les
Full hottie status for ordering a public inquiry into the taser-implicated death of Robert

Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport.
Extremely toastie status* for ordering a public inquiry into the death of Frank Paul, an aboriginal man who died after being dumped in an alley by police when he was highly intoxicated (*temperature penalty for 10 year delay).

Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration
For introducing legislation to bring home the “Lost Canadians”, a group of people who lost their Canadian citizenship over outdated and discriminatory technicalities.

Kieran King
For being an inspirational free speech champion. King, a Grade 10 Honours student in Saskatchewan, stood up to reefer madness at his high school by refusing to back down on his right to have an open, evidence-based discussion on the relative safety of cannabis compared to alcohol and tobacco. He received a three-day suspension from the school.

Tenth Avenue Church
For resisting the City of Vancouver’s efforts to bring the Church’s meal and shelter programs under a social services permit requiring security patrols and participant data collection. (Is it a sin to refer to a rockin’ church as a “hottie”?)

Paul Kennedy, Chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP
A bite-less watchdog all year long, the Chair of the CPC came through at year’s end with an impressive interim report on Taser use urging better accountability and independent research.

NAUGHTIES:

Montebello’s (Let’s Make A…) Riot Police
For starring in the You-Tube classic Nice Boots!: A short documentary film on how to get caught out as agent provocateurs trying to foment violence among people peacefully protesting the cordoned-off, anti-democratic Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit.

Commissioner Frank Iacobucci
For allowing the inquiry that is examining the role of Canadian officials in the detention and torture of Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nurreddin to become an almost entirely secret affair. The BCCLA took the unprecedented step of withdrawing from the inquiry because of the lack of transparency of the secret process.

Project Civil City
Whose idea of tackling homelessness is to use hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money to have business-directed private security forces “charismatically persuade” the poor to get the hell out of public space.

The federal government
For a very long rap sheet that includes trying to replicate the failed and tragic US war on drugs and the failed and tragic US war on terror. Dear Feds, C-A-N-A-D-A…