Happy Halloween! — no costumes in school, please.

Lots of people complain about their school administrators forbidding children from wearing costumes to school. Some children are permitted to wear costumes with strict limitations on themes or fabrication. For instance, they can only wear costumes that they made at school.

I understand these regulations. Many schools have children who can not afford to buy costumes. This makes the celebration an obvious demonstration of greedy one-up-manship that is not conducive to schooling.

To the parents that do not like these policies, I say: Too bad. Go to a different school or take your kids out of school all together.

Moral Sanity: Speaking Clearly about Russell Williams

Re Russell Williams Final Victim: His Wife

I get annoyed when individual motivations are routinely reduced to some quack popular culture psychology. People are intelligent and do what they do for their own reasons.

The Russell Williams case, however, is a fascinating example of feigned moral sanity; a highly organized and respected Colonel who clearly had a lot of demons lurking in his closet.

How are we to speak of such individuals without laxing into the default rhetoric of some personality disorder or simply swearing them off as “monsters”?

Unfortunately for his victims, let alone the trajectory of his own life, Williams, like so many, allowed his pride to stand in the way of his repentence. And by that I mean we can readily assume he made compromises, compromises throughout his life he shouldn’t have made. He stood on the pretense of his ambition and ability when he should have been facing the darkness and taking out the trash.

It’s one thing to attribute individual behaviour to some psychiatric disorder, its quite another to speak to how individuals are capable of intelligently counteracting the pathology or onset of it.

A significant part of the tragedy here is that someone with so much promise could become such a monster. An important lesson, I suppose, that having a lot of ambition is not always a good thing, especially in the absense of a firm foundation of humility.

Why he did what he did is between Russell Williams and God, but in doing it he managed to hide who he was actually becoming from those who knew him best.

Now, granted, Russell Williams seems the text book definition of a sociopath; not too many can claim to have known him all that well, especially given what we now know. But what about his marriage?

From Macleans we learn that Williams confessed to make his wife’s life a little easier. As Friscolanti writes:

It was way too late, of course. His wife’s life was already shattered—solely because of him—and a belated burst of honesty wasn’t going to soften the shock. Her entire world was suddenly a lie. The man in her bed was someone else.

Later that night, the confessed killer wrote a note to his devastated spouse. “Dearest Mary Elizabeth,” it began. “I love you, Sweet [illegible]. I am so very sorry for having hurt you like this. I know you’ll take good care of sweet Rosie. I love you, Russ.”

Did he truly love her? Does he still? Can someone so absolutely evil—a man who sticks duct tape over a woman’s face, and films her last breath—be capable of love? A man who loves his wife doesn’t spend their wedding anniversary breaking into another woman’s house. A man who loves his wife doesn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day by trying to pry open a neighbour’s basement window.

And a man who loves his wife doesn’t sit at their home computer and watch video footage of Jessica Lloyd’s final few hours—knowing her heartbroken family is praying she walks through the door. “He would have absolutely no idea what the word love really means,” Debra Lloyd, Jessica’s aunt, said during Williams’s sentencing hearing last October. “He certainly couldn’t have loved any of his own family members, because now they have to live with his crimes and shame.”

No one more than Mary Elizabeth Harriman.

This raises an observation worth considering with repect to marriage and Williams relationship with his wife: is there love in the absense of an abiding responsibility for WHO YOU ARE and HOW who you are will effect WHO THE ONE YOU ARE WITH will become themselves?

The text book definition of eros, if there is one, is no. Love demands that we be genuine, that we do not hide who we are for the sake of using another toward some fraudulent end.

By his own admission, Williams felt some responsibility to make his wife’s life “a little easier,” but that amounts to very little by way of love given the enormity of his betrayal and deception.

I’m glad Friscolanti points this out because a large part of speaking clearly about moral sanity has to do with speaking clearly about love.

To borrow a quote from C.S. Lewis:

St Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought. When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in ‘ordinate affections’ or ‘just sentiments’ will easily find the first principles in Ethics; but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science. Plato before him had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting and hateful.

Speaking clearly about Russell Williams requires that we identify how a man with the pretense of great virtue is lacking where it matters most. It’s one thing to typecast him as a sociopath or a monster (monikers he deserves!), but we should not neglect how his great undoing could have been avoided by better choices to override his pride and ambition with some humility, by learning what it means to love.

No more off-shore wind power in Ontario

It seems like the future of energy policy under the Liberal government of Ontario is a game of spin the bottle. One day, they announce a commitment to something and the next day they scrap it. Truthfully, I believe what we are observing is much more calculated and sinister. Cronies are struggling to protect their turf in the energy market.

The Canadian Wind Energy Association is disappointed that the Ontario government is stopping offshore wind farm developments but I am disappointed too. I would like to see people free to build their windmills on their own land (or water, depending on how pedantic the detractors need to be) and sell the electricity to the public. If the CanWEA folks have any real technology to offer, let them build it and sell their product without resorting to government privilege, favoritism nor subsidy.

The problem is not that the Ontario government put a moratorium on a wide range of technology. The problem is that the government controls entry into the market or electricity.

Support big freedom, eat a KFC Double Down

On June 22, 2010, at National Review, the Hoover Institution published the second installment in a five-part Uncommon Knowledge series on Ronald Reagan, with Mark Steyn and Rob Long providing commentary. This second episode was about Reagan’s stand against socialized medicine on the ground of its inherent limitations on personal freedom. After listening to a brief 1961 LP recording of Reagan, Mark Steyn comments thus.

He’s right. Everything that people thinks sounds ridiculous actually happens in countries with government health care systems. He’s quite right. In the province of Quebec, for example, they tell doctors, “No, you can’t practice in Montreal, you have to go and practice up in Lac Saint Jean… because they need a doctor there.” He rightly identified, I think, what is at issue here, which is that once the government is responsible for your health care it licenses the government to regulate every aspect of your life because everything you do – what you eat! – impacts on your health.

Fast-forward four months, almost to the day. The KFC Double Down – with all its saucy, salty, chickeny, greasy, cheesy, bacaony goodness – officially lands in Canada, the Mecca of socialized health care, Trudeaupian cradle-to-grave Nanny Statism and government dependence. Almost immediately, as if on queue, governments are considering “investigating” the chicken sandwich, while some people are calling for government to protect us from corporations and sodium in general.

You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.

Protect us from the evil salty corporations, O Government!!

Consumer specialist Trevor Norris, a U of T professor who’s written a forthcoming book on corporate social responsibility, said he believes it’s time the government stopped leaving it up to the consumer entirely.

“We should be asking our government to protect us from corporations who are creating a major burden,” Norris said. Corporations, he argues, should not be free to pass the burden of future health-care expenses to taxpayers if a grossly unhealthy fast food product is wildly popular.

Investigate this sandwich of concern, O Government!!

The arrival of KFC’s 540-calorie Double Down sandwich has caught the attention of the Ontario government.

Health experts and nutritionists expressed concerns this week when KFC started selling the Double Down — two slabs of seasoned fried chicken sandwiching bacon, cheese and secret sauce — in Canada.

Health Promotion Minister Margarett Best was asked about the Double Down today, and said it was something the province could investigate.

The Double Down flies in the face of Canadian values, O Government!!

An initiative to put the pinch on global dietary salt intake would save Canadian health care systems alone billions in related costs.

That was the message delivered by the University of Calgary’s Dr. Norm Campbell on the eve of a two-day World Health Organization conference taking place in Calgary. [...]

As the Calgary conference kicked off, so too did the Canadian arrival of KFC’s Double Down sandwich – a bacon and cheese sandwiched between two pieces of boneless fried chicken which 1,740 mg of sodium.

Piazza said such a sandwich flies in the face of everything the Heart and Stroke Foundation is working to curb.

Which makes me say, based on pure principle of personal freedom, I’m getting me a KFC Double Down.

Here’s to you, Ronnie!

Update 1: Ontario backtracks.

Update 2: Peanuts. A concerned mother takes “reasonable accommodation” to the next level.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Education said that school boards are responsible for drafting the policies that govern teacher behaviour during school trips [, including what they eat during off hours in the teachers' cabin away from the kids, apparently. -ed]

Update 3: There are worse things than the Double Down.

Update 4: Double Down becomes KFC’s best-selling new item ever. Never forget, socialists: the consumer is king.

Book’em Dano…

Then “book” them. No? Lucky bastards, and the tragedy is, they probably don’t understand why.

So the Toronto Police has managed, with overwhelming public support, to identify, locate and arrest 7 more criminals from the G20 Most Wanted List. They have assured the public that the search continues, and they will eventually track down and arrest everyone they are looking for.

So, the newly added names as of July 19th are:

Six men and a male youth are facing mischief charges in connection with property damage inflicting during G20 Summit protests last month….

…Andrew Loughrin, 23, of Toronto, Michael Corbett, 29, of Toronto, Brian O’Handley, 19, of Toronto and Robert Kainola, 24, of Toronto are each facing mischief charges.

Kurt Roarco, 22, of no fixed address is facing a mischief charge, an arson charge and failing to comply with probation.

Jeffrey Delaney, 23, of Toronto is facing a mischief charge and an attempted theft charge.

Of course, under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, anyone under the age of 18 can’t be named, hence the “youth”. Maybe I’m wrong, but if he/she is old enough to decide to take those kinds of actions on their own, they’re certainly “old enough” to deal with the publicity. They certainly weren’t shy about getting out in front of Toronto and the world and making asses of themselves.

This was in addition to arrests made on July 16th:

Police said Friday they have laid charges of assault, mischief and theft over $5,000 against Cody Caplette, 21, and Phillip Lee, 28. Both men are Toronto residents

And earlier:

Peter Hopperton is one of about 20 people identified as part of a police investigation into activities of people planning violent G20 action.

Police allege Hopperton is a member of the Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance.

William Vandreil also got bail today, with his set at $50,000.

As well as this:

A man caught on tape damaging a police car was arrested July 14 after turning himself into police with his lawyer. He was one of six people identified after images of vandals were released on July 7. Three were identified within 12 hours.

Ashran Ravindhraj, 25, of Toronto, was charged with arson and two counts of mischief over $5,000 in relation to damage done to a police scout car on June 25.

I don’t know if these thugs truly appreciate how lucky they are that we live in a country that respects the rule of law, even if they do not. They are safe in our jails, they are safe from the public, and they are safe from vigilantes.

Now, I’m sure that in the days ahead we will hear all sorts of weepy, tear-jerking stories about how hard of a life these guys had. The “hug-a-thug” crowd will try to make a case that their anger and violent behaviour is actually the fault of society insofar that society as a whole has failed them and didn’t provide them with sufficient opportunity blah blah blah….pardon me while I puke.

Too harsh? I don’t think so. In fact, I think that’s part of the problem.

Too often we (the afore mentioned “society”), do not speak out hard or loud enough to condemn this kind of behaviour and give quarter and sufferance to those who would seek to place the blame anywhere but upon the shoulders of the individuals who made the choice to take the violent route, knowing full well that such behaviour is wrong. They’re not 2 year old infants who haven’t developed the reasoning skills necessary to determine the difference between right and wrong.

I’m all for throwing the book at them. Charge them, and if found guilty, punish them to the full extent of the law. The message needs to be sent loud and clear across the land: This kind of behaviour is unacceptable in this country, and those who engage in such lawless activities will face the full force of our justice system.

Contrary to popular belief (albeit with good reason through demonstration in recent history), our Justice System actually does have teeth. Unfortunately, thanks to the hug-a-thug loons out there, it’s considered uncivilized for it to bear it’s teeth and take a bite out of crime. No no no, we can’t have our justice system feared! How déclassé! To think that there are those who believe that criminals and deviants should fear the consequences of their actions! How barbaric! No no, let us take them into our arms, show them that they are loved and have value…[end sarc]… good lord, I think I’m going to puke again.

There is right, and there is wrong. Sure there’s shades of grey, but really, grey is still dirtier than white. There are also consequences for actions. These, dare I say men, knew that they were acting in the wrong and they need to know those consequences. I can’t dream of any excuse for what they and others did that day other than a desire to be violent.

I’m disgusted by their actions, nearly to the point of physical illness. And I’m not alone.

Maybe it just needs a jump-start…

Isn’t that supposed to be what this “Tour” was all about? Giving the Liberal Party a jump-start? I hate to be the one to say it, but when the patient is dead, no amount of power will get the body going again.

And really? What is it with Liberals and transportation?

Shall we review current and past events?

In what appears to be hilarious irony, The Liberal Express breaks down within the first hour of setting off on what the Liberals have been touting as the largest event a Leader of the Official Opposition has ever undertaken. Given their current polling numbers…..quite apropos.

In other transportation news, an oil tanker has lost some of it’s load, up to 200 tonnes it’s said, in the St Lawrence seaway. How is this related to Liberal Transportation you ask? The ship was part of the Canada Steamship Lines fleet. For those of you who’s ears don’t recognize the name, this is the fleet that is registered in the Bahamas and belongs to the family of Paul Martin. For shame! I fully expect the Liberals to be as vocal about environmental damage as they have been in other situations.

Then, under the “Head in the Sand (Ash?) Dept.”, several Liberal MP’s were “stranded” in Newfoundland back in April when the Airport decided to cancel morning flights as ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjoell volcano was predicted to arrive. They began to cover their tracks by suggesting there was a conspiracy involved. It was found out that in light of the planned cancellations, additional earlier flights were provided. Tsk tsk tsk.

In 2008, then Leader of the Official Opposition Stephane Dion had a little trouble with transportation. It seems the Liberals were unprepared for an election they were so busy preparing for. When the time came, poor Mr. Dion was unable to acquire a plane to bring him around the country. When he was finally able to get one from Air Inuit, it turned out to be a massive gas guzzler that cost the party between $18,000 and $20,000 an hour to fly, and was 35 per cent less efficient than the Conservative and NDP planes. To top it all off, this was the launch of the Green Tax Tour.

Maybe it (LPC) just needs a jump-start?

More likey, it just needs a casket.

Is the wind blowing that way now?

With Quebec struggling through reasonable accomodation issues in order to preserve their heritage, France has just voted 335 to 1 on a total ban on of face-covering veils in public spaces.

Similar laws are pending in Belgium, Spain and some Italian municipalities.

Is this the way the wind is beginning to blow in Western Societies? I’m both encouraged and dismayed if this is true. Not specifically about the veils, but rather by the attitudes behind it.

As far as being encouraged goes, I’m pleased to see countries and societies standing up for their own way of life and culture and protecting it from being trampled over by the stampede of Cultural (Reasonable) Accommodation.  I’ve previously discussed this issue in other aspects here, and here.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The reason why so many people want to come to Canada is because it was such a wonderful, stable, and respectful country. We had clear values and respect for one another’s differences. What brought us to that status was a legacy inherited from Britain and France of a predominately Christian philosophy and a structured but flexible legal system based on basic Christian values.

Just as Quebec and France and other countries have been trying to do, I agree that if faced with protecting my culture (which is what has made Canada for example, a wonderful place to live and why people want to come here) that there should be conditions upon migrating to my country.

Foremost, I want to ensure that migrants understand that when they come to Canada, it is to pursue a better life in a Canadian manner, not to seek to rebuild the country in an image of how they would have rather seen their country of origin under those cultural rules.

Increasingly, other countries are saying ‘We are not some place to be considered a tolerant blank-slate-state that you can come in and change to suit your own beliefs’.

I say that there is nothing wrong with this.

I appreciate the differences that other cultures and individuals bring with them, but I recognize that not all of it can, or should be tolerated in Canada. (see Sharia Law, Honor “Crimes”,  etc). Those things are not Canadian and have no place in Canadian Society or Culture. Time and again, I’ve seen other countries stomp on those who say “In my country…” with an immediate and sometimes hostile “You are not in your country!”.

Why are we in Western Societies so afraid to do the same? Is this some form of White Guilt/Wealth Guilt/Survivor Guilt etc? Are we so ashamed of our own cultures and ways of life that we are unwilling as citizens to stand up and defend it?

And why should I be dismayed by this? Frankly, I’m dismayed that there is only a small handful of countries getting on board with protecting themselves and their own ways of life and culture from outside influences.

Personally, I’m willing to say “This is my country and my way of life and my home. If you choose to come to live in my house, there are different rules you’ll have to live by. If that’s unacceptable to you, then I respectfully suggest you find someplace else more to your liking.”

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

On Meeting Her Majesty and His Royal Higness

Let me first start by saying that the reality of having met Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness Prince Phillip the Duke of Edinburgh has yet to fully be absorbed. I’m still in awe of having been formally presented to the Queen and her husband as a representative of Canada.

Many people have lists of things they would like to achieve or do in their lifetimes, more commonly known recently as a Bucket List. Most people include things that they’re fully aware may only ever have a remote chance of happening. For me, meeting Her Majesty was one of those remote happenings. Now, thanks to my political activism and dedication through the opportunities provided to me, I have achieved exactly that. And I couldn’t be more thrilled about it.

The evening itself however, endured a dubious start. A transformer in the downtown core of Toronto chose that evening to fail, and the entire downtown core fell into darkness. This included the Fairmont Royal York Hotel where Her Majesty’s Reception and Dinner were to take place. Traffic was a nightmare when combined with those converging on the Royal York to hopefully catch a glance of the Royal Tour and no traffic signals to control the flows. Inside the hotel, with 38 degree weather outside, the temperatures began to rise without air-conditioning and the Salon in which the Reception was taking place was dimly lit by emergency lighting. Whether it was due to the excitement of the event, or because of a kind of patience and understanding inherent in Canadians, everyone took it in stride and when the power was finally restored, there was simply a sigh of relief and a smattering of applause as the lights came on and the groan of the air-conditioners began.

It was during the Reception that I had the fortune to meet up with fellow Blogging Torries Roy Eapen of Dr. Roy’s Thoughts, Steve Laikos of Officially Screwed, and Matt MacGuire of A Step To The Right.

I was also pleased to meet Mark Dotzert, Kara Johnson and Simon Chapelle of our National Council, Senator Mike Duffy, Olympic Champion Jennifer Heil, Ministers Jason Kenney, Rob Moore and Rona Ambrose and many others of whom I had either known before or had the privilege of meeting for the first time.

I was delighted when I learned that we would be individually presented to the Queen, His Royal Highness, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen Harper. When my name was announced, I’m sure the pleasure I was experiencing was evident on my face, but I also know that I wasn’t alone. Each of them offered their hand which I took in amazement. This was an honour to which there can hardly be any comparison. As with all moments of staggering importance, it was over far too quickly and seemed a bit of a blur, but it was time to be ushered to my table by a charming and engaging woman with the Royal Tour.

I knew one person at my table, Steve Laikos, who I had met briefly at the National Convention, but everyone at the table was charming and talkative. When the Queen was announced, the room thundered with applause that seemed more than what a room of 350 people could manage. There were a few speeches, a presentation of a new addition to the Hockey Hall of Fame in honour of a previous visit by the Queen and an address by Her Majesty as well. The applause during her entrance was humbled by the sound when Prime Minister Harper announced that Canadians were particularly looking forward to Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 by which time she’ll have served as Queen of Canada for 60 years!

At somewhere around what I believe was 10pm, the Queen gracefully retired for the evening after a wonderful performance by The Canadian Tenors and proceedings were brought to a close. Many people stayed for a time visiting with one another and discussing the privilege of the evening we all shared while taking a few pictures for posterity.

It was a singular event of magic and elegance; everything an evening with the Queen aught to be, and it is a night I will never forget!

Peter Worthington is a Bad Person

In today’s National Post, Peter Worthington has a pretty wretched apologia for the police:

If anything is more misguided and unnecessary than the recent G20 Summit itself, it’s the decision to hold an independent inquiry into police actions that weekend.

A thousand arrests, 263 charged, no one seriously hurt, no police brutality, a serene citizenry, vandalism but no violence.  Forget about it.

Oh, the civil liberties activists have their shorts in a knot, but they always do. Ignore them. As for “violence” and “rioting” on Toronto streets during the G20, that’s hyperbole and wishful thinking.

…

To suggest there was police brutality is again wishful thinking by those who yearn for substance to malign the cops. Yes, some cops over-reacted, or questioned people unnecessarily. Or searched the wrong bag. Or questioned identities…

Or stole an amputee’s prosthetic leg.

Or threatened women with rape.

Or imprisoned people without cause.

Or struck non-violent protesters with batons and shields.

Or beat up a journalist.

But I guess that’s just wishful thinking.  Move along.  Nothing to see here.

Can you guess what I’m wishing now, Mr. Worthington?

Was John Tory Right?

Three years ago this month, Ontario Conservative leader John Tory pledged to extend public funding to all denominational schools across the province of Ontario. At the time, Tory was preparing to lead his party into a fall election campaign against the Ontario Liberal Party, led by then-Premier, and still-Premier, Dalton McGuinty.

For Tory, the larger issue was fairness. Insofar as Catholic denominational schools receive public funding to the exclusion of other denominational schools in Ontario, it made sense to Tory as a matter of equality, as it did to some others, that if one religion enjoyed the privilege of public funding, then so should all other religions.

We know how the story ends. The controversial denominational schools issue felled Tory’s campaign from the very beginning. McGuinty was reelected. And Tory ultimately resigned, ceding the party flag to the current Ontario Conservative leader, Tim Hudak.

The bottom line is this: Ontarians voted against Tory on this issue. And no one can gainsay the freely expressed choice of Ontarians. They, and only they, can choose their representatives in the Ontario legislature.

So according to Ontarians, the answer is clear: John Tory was wrong.

But according to the United Nations, John Tory was right.

In the case of Waldman v. Canada, the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled that Ontario’s policy of extending public funding to one denominational school without funding all others is a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the right to “equal and effective protection against discrimination.” Here is the relevant passage from the full text of the ruling:

[T]he proclaimed aims of the system do not justify the exclusive funding of Roman Catholic religious schools. … In this context, the Committee observes that the Covenant does not oblige [Ontario] to fund schools which are established on a religious basis. However, if [Ontario] chooses to provide public funding to religious schools, it should make this funding available without discrimination. This means that providing funding for the schools of one religious group and not for another must be based on reasonable and objective criteria. In the instant case, the Committee concludes that the material before it does not show that the differential treatment between the Roman Catholic faith and the [Petitioner's] religious denomination is based on such criteria. Consequently, there has been a violation of the [Petitioner's] rights under article 26 of the Covenant to equal and effective protection against discrimination.

Perhaps John Tory can take solace in the knowledge that the United Nations thinks he was right after all.

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