As any blogger knows, there's huge news in Canada involving a major government scandal. In the words of Nick Packwood.

It is beginning to look to me that the Liberal Party of Canada has more to worry about than remaining in power. If comprehensive, wide-ranging criminal charges are not laid soon and all the way to the top of this thing we may be looking at the collapse of the federal party for a generation. (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

InstaPundit also links to the Montreal Gazette, which observes:

Then, during the weekend, the veil over testimony was ripped open by at least one blogger outside Canada, where Internauts are safe from Gomery's powers to punish. This recalled the bad old days of the Paul Bernardo circus, when Buffalo-area media outlets flooded Canada with information that Canadian media were ordered to suppress.

Trying to forbid Internet dissemination of news is like trying to stop the tide. And it is offensive to have a two-tier information system in which the political elite, and many in the media, know more than the very public that the pols and press are theoretically serving.

What's truly as scandalous as the scandal itself (at least from our pro-First Amendment point of view down here in the South....) is that in Canada, the news reports are censored -- apparently to the point that it might constitute a jailable offense for Canadians to read the very post I am writing.

Colby Cosh reflects on the implications:

Any action taken against a webmaster who posted the content of Brault's testimony, or linked to it, or linked to a page that linked to it, would presumably be subject to a later judicial review with an unforeseeable outcome. I believe that this entry complies with the ban--but does it? On Saturday Instapundit linked to "Captain" Ed Morrissey's posting (which is the top hit returned by a Google search for "brault liberal") about the Brault testimony. Is it legal for me to tell you that if I don't link to Morrissey's site itself? What about my three-year-old link to Instapundit.com--am I now obliged by the ban to remove it from my sidebar? If so, for how long? Must I monitor every site on the sidebar for content whose publication by me would constitute contempt of court? I don't believe any legally solid answer is available to these questions; the nature of a hyperlink as a "publication" just hasn't been nailed down.

With due respect to the ban, which I consider myself to have observed herein, it would actively help free the hands of Canadian webloggers and reporters if our foreign cousins were to be aggressive about "publishing" the substance of the Brault testimony outside the reach of Canadian law.

I have been more than patient with my local newspaper (the Philadelphia Inquirer), and I was all set to do this post last night but I thought I'd give the Inquirer the benefit of the doubt, and allow one more day.

Still nothing. Nada. Zip.

Does this means Canada is less important than Zimbabwe? Or does it mean the Inquirer is under the jurisdiction of Canadian courts?

What do I know? I'm just not a journalist, I guess.....

(Hell, I don't even know whether this post was about the Inquirer, or Canada.... Should I be thinking globally? Or locally?)

MORE: Via InstaPundit, here's an incredible collection of links, from

a Canadian blogger who for some odd reason is uncomfortable publishing in his or her own country

UPDATE (04/06/05): No news about the scandal in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. Nothing about Canada. Well, there's this story about Peter Jennings illness. But does that really count as a story about Canada?

UPDATE (04/07/05): Ditto for today. Not a word on AdScam in the Philadelphia Inquirer. The only word about Canada is that you now need a passport to go there. (I'm reminded of the way the Inky studiously ignored AnnanScam.) Canadians have to read Captain Ed to find out what's going on in Canada, and so do Americans!