Bob Dechert, Member of Parliament

KYIV – MAY 14, 2012- Representatives of the Ukrainian Canadian community welcomed the opportunity to participate in the visit to Ukraine by Canada’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.  The delegation consists of 7 Canadian Members of Parliament who will be conducting hearings of the Committee that will be open to the public and media in Kyiv, Kharkiv and L’viv, Ukraine.

“These historic hearings on the human rights situation in Ukraine continue the work which the Standing Committee has begun in October 2011, and continued in March concurrent with the Ukraine at the Crossroads Conference, in Ottawa, in March this year and come at a pivotal time in Ukraine’s democratic development,” stated Taras Zalusky, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. “The ability of the committee to travel to Ukraine will afford them an opportunity to gain a firsthand look at the situation regarding human rights, politically motivated selective justice, and the rule of law on the ground in Ukraine.  This will be very valuable information for the committee when it writes its report on recommended future actions by the government of Canada vis a vis Ukraine.”

The Parliamentary committee’s delegation is composed of the following members:

* The Hon. Ralph Goodale, M.P. (Wascana)

* Alexandrine Latendresse, MP (Louis St. Laurent)

The committee members are being accompanied by a delegation from the Ukrainian Canadian community composed of Taras Zalusky, Executive Director, Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Bohdan Onyschuk, Chairman, Canada Ukraine Foundation, and Borys Potapenko, Executive Director, League of Ukrainian Canadians.

“The work of the standing committee will be critical in assessing the situation in Ukraine.  It is important that the committee is travelling to Kharkiv (in Eastern Ukraine) and L’viv (in Western Ukraine) to complement their work in Kyiv,” stated Bohdan Onyschuk, Chairman of the Canada Ukraine Foundation. “The committee’s findings will be a critical input to the government of Canada in determining next steps in its ongoing relations with Ukraine, including the importance of a large election observer mission to this fall’s election to the Verkhovna Rada.”

 The committee will hold several sessions of hearings on issues such as selective prosecutions; the economy and business climate in Ukraine; the situation with civil society and human rights groups; political developments  in Ukraine; preparations for the elections to the Verkhovna Raoda; and regional economic development.  In addition, the Committee will meet with the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine; and representatives of the Prosecutor General’s office, Ministry of Justice, Central Electoral Commission and the Human Right Ombudsperson of the Verkhovna Rada as well as human rights and civil society groups.

“For the Parliament of Canada to have found the situation in Ukraine so compelling as to include a fact finding trip to Ukraine in conjunction with the historic hearings by the Foreign Affairs Committee on March 5 and 7, 2012, speaks to the commitment of Canada to helping the Ukrainian people to progress on the path of democratic transformations of their country.  It is important for governments to witness the democratic backsliding firsthand,” stated Borys Potapenko, Executive Director of the League of Ukrainian Canadians.

The hearings begin this morning with a session on selective justice that includes Evgenia Tymoshenko, daughter of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko; Iryna Lutsenko wife of former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko and their respective legal teams, to be followed by a session with representatives of the Prosecutor General’s office; the human rights ombudsman of the Verkhovna Rada; the State Penetentiary Service of Ukraine and Ukrainian Ministry of Justice.

Today’s hearings are open to the public and will be held at Kyiv’s Hyatt Regency Hotel.

Please see attached schedule for details on all meetings open to the public.

For more information please contact:

Taras Zalusky UCC Executive Director Mobile phone in Ukraine: +380 97 087 1549 or +380 67

Starting June 25, the current seven return train trips that are offered on the Milton line every weekday will increase to eight: GO will add an additional eastbound morning trip making all stops that will leave Milton GO Station bound for Union Station, and an additional westbound afternoon trip making all stops that will leave Union Station bound for Milton.

Milton GO Train service continues to be very popular with the communities it serves, and this enhancement is the latest step in a series of improvements GO has launched in the past several years to meet growing demand.  In 2008, GO phased in longer Milton lines trains with 12 cars rather than the previous 10, adding 20% more seats to each trip.  In 2009, GO added an additional morning and afternoon trip, moving from six to seven return trips per weekday.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303990604577370182557339816.html

WINDSOR, Ontario—Last month, Bob Dechert, a senior aide to Canada’s foreign minister, was dispatched to Detroit with an important diplomatic mission: To stop a highly annoying noise.

The so-called Windsor hum, described as a low-frequency rumbling sound, has rattled windows and knocked objects off shelves in this border community just across the Detroit River from the Motor City. Locals have said it sounds like a large diesel truck idling, a loud boom box or the bass vocals of Barry White.

Windsor residents have blamed the hum for causing illness, whipping dogs into frenzies, keeping cats housebound and sending goldfish to the surface in backyard ponds. Many have resorted to switching on their furnace fan all season to drown out the noise.

Even weirder, Americans can’t seem to hear it. Canadians find that suspicious—especially since their research suggests the hum is coming from the Yankees’ side—and accuse U.S. officials of staying silent over the noise.

“The government of Canada takes this issue seriously,” Mr. Dechert said after his recent fact-finding trip, which included a visit to a heavily industrialized area on the American side of the river that some Canadian scientists believe is to blame for the hum.

Unexplained noises have tormented city dwellers for centuries. Residents west of Green Bay, Wis., have been trying to identify an occasional loud boom that they say sounds like a cannon blast—geologists have said earthquakes made the noise. Locals in upstate New York and other places have described similar episodes.

But few such cases have become international diplomatic incidents.

After three months of seismic studies conducted by Canada’s natural resources department, scientists said the noise was likely coming from Zug Island, a nearly 600-acre man-made island on the Michigan side of the Detroit River. The coal-blackened industrial zone is dominated by steel mills, including facilities operated by U.S. Steel Corp. and others whose blast furnaces belch out steam and flames.

The area is off-limits to the general public and surrounded by wire fences, with the only access via a guarded gate. A spokeswoman for U.S. Steel didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The sound has been plaguing Windsor residents on and off for two years. Last May, a particularly loud eruption shook Windsor resident David Robins as he watched the National Basketball Association playoffs. The room began to vibrate with a loud throbbing noise.

Mr. Robins hit mute, fearing he had gone overboard on volume. But the noise persisted. Stepping outside, Mr. Robins said he found the “entire neighborhood pulsating.”

“To be honest, I was scared,” he said.

Hundreds of other sleep-deprived locals have demanded action from politicians in Windsor and Ottawa.

Locals blamed earthquakes, local salt mines, an underground river and wind turbines in the past. But Canada’s seismic study last summer narrowed the likely source down to approximately 250 acres in the vicinity of Zug Island.

American officials say they aren’t so sure.

“It may not be actually emanating from Michigan,” said Hansen Clarke, the U.S. Representative for the East Detroit congressional district that includes Zug.

Michael D. Bowdler, the mayor of River Rouge, Michigan, the municipality with authority over Zug, said his cash-strapped government doesn’t have funds to investigate further. Mr. Bowdler suggests the city of Windsor pay for a survey that could isolate the noise to its exact location.

American officials contend there haven’t been complaints on the U.S. side of the border. Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality looked last year at whether the companies at Zug started up any new machinery in the past two years that might be causing the noise and found nothing.

“The only place I am hearing noise from is Canada—from politicians complaining,” Mr. Bowdler said.

Mr. Dechert, Canada’s parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs, concedes the source may not be Zug Island, given there are a “number of operations” in the vicinity that could be responsible. But he wants his U.S. counterparts to investigate further to help quiet down the border ruckus.

“There is definitely something going on that’s affecting people on the Canadian side of the river,” he said.

Canadian diplomats formally raised the issue with the U.S. Department of State last September. They took up the cause again at a meeting on Thursday. A State Department spokesman declined to comment on the meeting.

“We do sympathize with the plight of those affected but, unfortunately, the federal government doesn’t have regulatory authority over noise pollution,” the spokesman said.

Canadian authorities have also hoped the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would investigate. But a spokesman for the EPA said it doesn’t have the authority to assist.

If U.S. officials don’t help find a solution, “there will be a lot of upset people,” said Brian Masse, a Canadian New Democratic Party member of parliament, whose Windsor constituency sits across the river from Zug Island.

Studying the hum, much less its origin, is challenging. It is difficult to capture the mainly nocturnal sound on tape, since it doesn’t hum all the time.

During a recent visit to Windsor by a Wall Street Journal reporter, Windsor resident Gary Grosse played several recordings he said came from the noise, which modulated from metallic grating to a pulsing beat.

On a visit to the area around Zug Island, a fainter version of similar sounds was audible. But Americans nearby said they still can’t hear it.

Fishing under the shadow of some of the large mounds of coal that fringe Zug Island, Samson Jenkins says that in 20 trips here he has never heard a noise like that described in Windsor.

“And they say they can hear it all the way in Canada?” said the 45-year-old maintenance worker. “No way.”

Nearby, an industrial chimney belched out a twist of sulfurous-smelling smoke. Mr. Jenkins joked the only noise pollution he has heard of late is Canadian singer Celine Dion.

In Windsor, nobody’s laughing.

In January 2011, Sonya Skillings’s nocturnal baby-feeding sessions were disturbed by what she said sounded like an underground subway beneath the house. Over a year on, it has become so loud sometimes she worries the windows will blow out.

“I just want to be in my rocking chair with my baby asleep on top of me,” she said. But “all I can hear is ‘vrump, vrump, vrump.’ ”

Write to Alistair MacDonald at alistair.macdonald@wsj.com and Paul Vieira at Paul.Vieira@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared May 1, 2012, on page A1 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Canadians Make a Racket Over Mysterious ‘Windsor Hum’.

April 20, 2012 – Parliamentary Secretary Bob Dechert concluded a visit to Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, today to investigate the “Windsor Hum,” a recurring vibration and noise that has been disturbing people in the Windsor area for more than a year. Parliamentary Secretary Dechert undertook the visit at the request of Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.

“Today, I had a chance to meet with Windsor mayor Eddie Francis and representatives of the Great Lakes Commission, the Council of Great Lakes Industries, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments and the Regional Office of the International Joint Commission,” said Parliamentary Secretary Dechert.

“The Government of Canada takes this issue seriously. I look forward to working with my colleagues, including MPs Jeff Watson (Essex), Brian Masse (Windsor West) and Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh), as well as the Province of Ontario, the City of Windsor, the U.S. federal government, the State of Michigan, the City of River Rouge and others on this important file.”

“It is important that we find a solution that works for the people of Windsor. Our government is prepared to collaborate with stakeholders and other governments to isolate the source of the Windsor Hum so that a solution can be implemented in due course.”

Since March 2011, many complaints have been received from Canadians disturbed by rumblings in the Windsor area, the so-called Windsor Hum. A federal study suggests that the Hum may originate from the U.S. side of the Detroit River, in the general area of Zug Island.

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