Canada Exports Mafia War to Sicily

LONDON - When Americans hear there is trouble across the border, they do not immediately think of Canada.

It is the same in Europe, where Canada is often stereotyped as a benevolent and peaceful society, albeit ever so slightly dull.

That image has taken a hit with the revelation that, not only have Canadian mobsters been engaged in a bloody turf war, they may have exported it to Sicily, birthplace of the Mafia.

In the course of an anti-Mafia sweep on the Mediterranean island this week, which netted 21 suspects, Italian authorities discovered the charred and bullet-riddled corpses of two Canadian crime bosses with links to the Montreal mob.

Police were certain they were the bodies of Juan Ramon Fernandez - a.k.a. Joe Bravo or the Dancer - and Fernando Pimentel, his wanted associate. Investigators believe the order to kill them came from Canada, according to Italy's La Repubblica.

The newspaper said the Spanish-born Mr. Fernandez, a former associate of Vito Rizzuto, an alleged Montreal crime boss, had moved to Sicily after he was deported from Canada a year ago, after serving a jail term for conspiracy to kill a fellow mobster.

He was alleged to have been drumming up new business between Sicily and Montreal, particularly in the drugs trade, the newspaper reported.

The gang war had until now been confined to Quebec. It erupted after Mr. Rizzuto returned home to Canada after serving time in a U.S. federal penitentiary in Colorado for his role in the 1981 killings of three members of New York's Bonanno family.

Investigators have linked the violence to a turf war between the Rizzuto family and a rival faction run by Raynald Desjardins, a native Quebecois who is currently in custody on a murder charge.

“It has been a war of precise hits on both sides, where key members have been assassinated and, along the way, possibly a few internal squabbles were settled as well,” according to Rob Lamberti in the Toronto Sun.

But Mr. Lamberti says Canada's crime links to Europe are not limited to Quebec.

The mob war was being fueled from Ontario, he writes, “the source of most of the wealth for organized crime, while the violence for the most part remains in Quebec.”

Ontario is the center for bankrolling crime operations in Europe, which are constrained by tough anti-money laundering and asset seizure laws, Mr. Lamberti wrote, quoting investigators and an organized crime expert.

Canada's National Post said the discovery of the two bodies near Palermo was a persuasive sign that Montreal's mob war had spread to Sicily.

“The murders backstop a large investigation by Italian police revealing the trans-Atlantic reach of the Mafia in Canada,” the newspaper wrote, “with mobsters shuttling from Toronto and Montreal to arrange global drug shipments and even continuing their underworld feud abroad as if borders did not exist.”

The same newspaper had previously reported on the Canadian links of the ‘Ndrangheta, the organized crime clans from Italy's mainland region of Calabria.

It quoted Alberto Cisterna, an Italian Mafia-hunter: “There is a massive number of their people in North America, especially in Canada and Toronto.”

Mr. Cisterna told the Post the mobsters were attracted to Canada's banking system, which he said was very secretive and did not allow investigation. The second reason was to smuggle drugs, given Canada's porous ports and proximity to the United States.

Is Canada\'s Oil Too Dirty for Europe?

As the debate over the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline continues in the United States, a Canadian trade delegation is insisting that Canadian oil extracted from tar sands - the product that would be transported by an expanded pipeline - should not be classified as being dirtier than other types of oil.

Last week Canada's natural resource minster, Joe Oliver, threatened to take the European Union to the World Trade Organization over its plans to classify oil harvested from tar sands as “highly polluting.”

“We are going to take whatever action we need to, and we may well go to the W.T.O.,” Mr. Oliver said at a news conference in Brussels. “We will defend our interests vigorously.”

Mr. Oliver made the comments on a visit to Brussels to negotiate an unrelated bilateral trade agreement.

Although the minister eventually backed away from his threat to take the issue to the top trade arbiter, the Canadian government is worried that the classification under the European Commission's fuel quality directive could affect markets for the Canadian export.

“Canada's oil sands are a major global resource - a resource that will make an increasingly strategic contribution to energy security and economic stability,” Mr. Oliver said in a ministry statement.

Both the Canadian hydrocarbon industry and government have been lobbying against the European fuel quality directive for years, according to a report by Reuters published this week.

The Canadian government argues that the directive unfairly penalizes Canadian oil.

The rules, which aim to help European countries reach greenhouse gas emission targets, classify global fuel sources by the emissions caused by their production and transportation.

Last week, a study commissioned by the provincial government of Alberta reported that oil extracted from the oil sands emit 12 percent more emissions than oil produced in Europe. Others estimate that oil coming from the oil sands is as much as 23 percent more polluting than other sources.

While Mr. Oliver was talking up Canadian oil last week, a Canadian-led group of climate scientists wrote an open letter to him criticizing the government's energy plans. In one section, they write:

In short, we are not convinced that your advocacy in support of new pipelines and expanded fossil fuel production takes climate change into account in a meaningful way.

Avoiding further levels of dangerous climate change will require significantly reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and making a transition to cleaner energy.

The infrastructure we build today will shape future choices about energy. If we invest in expanding fossil fuel production, we risk locking ourselves in to a high carbon pathway that increases greenhouse gas emissions for years and decades to come.

Mr. Oliver's European goodwill tour is directed to audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. With most of Canada's oil exports currently going to the United States, the European bloc's decision on how to classify the oil could affect Canada's image as much as it does its bottom line.

“We don't want the potential stigmatization and we're quite concerned about that issue,” Mr. Oliver told Reuters last year.

This week, Mr. Oliver's boss, Prime Minster Stephen Harper, is in New York to promote Canadian oil.

In an e-mail published by the Canadian press, Andrew MacDougall, the prime minister's communication director, wrote: “As the prime minister has said before, the project will create jobs and economic growth on both sides of the border, and will provide a secure and stable supply of oil to the United States from a reliable partner and friend.”

What do you think? Does the pollution created by the extraction of oil from the Canadian tar sands mean that the European Union and other countries should avoid using it?

IHT Quick Read: May 14

NEWS Europeans have never been wild about the European Union. With the region sapped by the euro crisis, confidence in the institution and the benefits it was supposed to provide is flagging faster and further than ever before, according to an influential opinion survey released Monday. James Kanter reports from Brussels.

The highest-ranking international military commander in Afghanistan has denied American or NATO responsibility for the deaths of at least 17 women and children after nearly seven hours of airstrikes in the latest development in a case that has heightened tensions with the Afghan government. Alissa Rubin reports from Kabul.

Bavaria's dominant political force, the Christian Social Union, is embroiled in a nepotism scandal, accused of confusing family values with rewarding family members. The scandal has engulfed this economically powerful region in recent weeks, damaging the party's image but also threatening Chancellor Angela Merkel's chances of re-election in September. Melissa Eddy and Nicholas Kulish report from Munich.

The mayor of one of Japan's largest cities, who is seen by some as a possible future prime minister, drew an outcry when he said women forced into wartime brothels for the Japanese Army during World War II had served a necessary role in providing relief for war-crazed soldiers. Hiroko Tabuchi reports from Tokyo.

U.S. federal investigators secretly seized two months of phone records for reporters and editors of the Associated Press in what the news organization said Monday was a “serious interference with A.P.'s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.” Charlie Savage reports from Washington and Leslie Kaufman from New York.

After striking a deal in March to make many bank depositors help pay for an international bailout, Cyprus on Monday received "2 billion, the first installment of that money, aimed at buttressing the economy after the near-collapse of its banking sector. Liz Alderman reports from Paris.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Monday that farmers could not use Monsanto's patented genetically altered soybeans to create new seeds without paying the company a fee. Adam Liptak reports from Washington.

Under mounting pressure to improve working conditions in Bangladesh's garment factories, several of the world's largest apparel companies agreed on Monday to a landmark plan to help pay for fire safety and building improvements after the collapse last month of the Rana Plaza factory complex, which killed more than 1,100 people. Steven Greenhouse and Jim Yardley report.

With concerns emerging about practices at its news division, Bloomberg L.P., the sprawling financial services company founded by Michael R. Bloomberg, scrambled to shield its lucrative terminal business and appease nervous customers. Amy Chozick and Ben Protess report.

ARTS For a work scarcely a year old, “Slave Labor (Bunting Boy),” by the British graffiti artist Banksy, has been at the center of more than its share of battles. A new one broke out as the Sincura Group announced that it would auction the mural at the London Film Museum on June 2. Allan Kozinn reports.

SPORTS The family of Derek Boogaard has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the National Hockey League, contending that the N.H.L. is responsible for the physical trauma and brain damage that Boogaard sustained during six seasons as one of the league's top enforcers, and for the addiction to prescription painkillers that marked his final two years. John Branch reports.