It’s Just Getting Too Easy To Call Warren Kinsella On His Errors

I’m not sure what sort of scope Warren took when he made these comments,

Crash! Five years ago today, gay marriage became the law of the province – and, I note, no sky has fallen yet, has it? Nope. The Dominion remains strong. Nice piece by Martha here – but it would have been nicer if she had mentioned our mutual former home that largely financed the litigation: McMillan BInch

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but he obviously didn’t look too hard since the very debate on the issue was enough for a government institution to convict a preacher of thought crimes. Alas, there is that small polygamy matter that Kinsella’s buddy Dalton is letting slide under the rug despite the law as well — and guess what precedent the Muslims are using? (first one to post the answer in the comments wins a prize!*) But ya Warren, if you mean that Church Street hasn’t transformed into Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, then I guess you could say that calling the marriage apple just a plain old fruit (thus, making it less offensive and restrictive) did nothing to our poor old Dominion. Unfortunately for Warren though, life isn’t a political campaign, so he can’t attack ad his opinion into reality.

*-like Warren’s definition of “Catholic”, or “Christian”, terms are subject to change. See store for details.

Montreal rally to protect French language

I question whether the use of French and the Anglicization of Montreal matters to the entire culture of Quebec. Maybe it does and maybe it does not. I do not know. However, it seems that the artists in Quebec have a clutter of demands and defenses of the French language. They point to the increasing use of English in Montreal and say that French is threatened in all of Quebec. I do not know whether that is a reasonable association to make. They demand that French be the only official language in public institutions but complain about coffee shop customers who only speak English — hello? the coffee shop is not a public institution and thank God for that!

Some of the artists have provided a ray of clever insight:

Une solution semblait faire consensus chez la plupart des participants : la souveraineté.

I agree with that and thus, I have a suggestion to all of the Montreal-Quebeckers who are worried about losing their culture and their language: promote sovereignty or forever hold your peace.

I would also recommend that Quebeckers keep their children in school. Their high drop-out rates seem related specifically to French language studies.

When Rights Aren’t Rights Anymore…

On the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean this past week the world was introduced to two different debates over the role that human rights play in our society. Over in Europe, the European Court of Human Rights has agreed to hear the case of a British woman who wants to adopt a 26-year old chimp and would require the homonid to legally be declared a human being in order to do so. In essence, this is the latest volley fired off in Europe by a movement that wants to extend human rights to other species. More locally, the York University Federation of Students (YFS) passed a motion that would ban all non-religious clubs from holding pro-life views on campus. When asked to justify her decision, motion sponsor Gilary Massa responded by saying that every group against abortion was “sexist” and should be suppressed for going against our long-held norm (leave it to a 20-year old to think that a decision made in 1988 is long held…). The two might not seem very related, but they are, and are in fact the latest example of how the secularist, anti-family agenda that Western nations have been engaging in over the past 50 years is starting to chew itself up.

First, to understand the blatant hypocrasy and moral inconsistency (or “intellectual dishonesty”, as our seculatarian friends like to say) of the YFS, you need not read the pages of the National Post, Michael Coren’s column, or the Blogging Tories; just head on over to the Federation’s website, where a big red button titled “Denial of Free Speech at McMaster” which links to this — a letter attacking McMaster for banning “Israel Apartheid Week”. That’s right, the YFS which is making national headlines this month for trying to oppress diverse views on its campus, was the same group that was also making headlines back in March for vigorously defending a campaign that wasn’t just about free speech but was also known for a history of violence and harassment of an prominent ethnic group on campus.

This inconsistency might go a long way to explain why, in the months and years ahead, when Canada starts to examine whether a primitive primate can “argue” for human rights, the YFS will probably be there, strongly backing the cause and at the same time oppressing groups which speak out for unborn humans which can also not speak in a court of law but can, unlike chimps, meet the biological argument for species validation in that all non-genetically defective fetuses have the capability of breeding with humans and producing sustainable, fruitful offspring. Save the primates, scourge the people, as it were. Don’t expect facts to get in the way of York’s student leaders or their cheerleaders on The Left as the entire abortion argument for them has long been one about passion and emotion, but not much beyond the principle that guilt-free sexual incidents should be an absolute right that trumps all others.

Their argument, founded around the reality that men can walk away from affairs without the risk of pregnancy while women cannot, betrays this in that their natural conclusion is that women should have the freedoms that men do in this regard, instead of examining whether men should have the responsibilities that women do for a pregnancy instead. Nor does the rights and realities of the growing child become a discussion point during this whole debate either. Wouldn’t you expect more from scholars, charged with examining all aspects of the issue at hand?

Update:Steyn’s insight into the future of abortion, and a small tip ‘o’ hat to the York affair…

Vive le Quebecois de souche!

I take issue with one of the recommendations of the Bouchard-Taylor report that seeks to stamp out the term “Quebecois de souche” because, according to them, it alienates immigrants. I recommend precisely the opposite. The label should continue and Quebeckers (whether they identify themselves as de souche or not) should be proud of their culture. There is a lot of controversy over who, what, where, why and how Canada began. I do not mean to denigrate the rest of Canadian history but I am of the opinion that Quebec is the origin of Canada.

Quebeckers are not better than anybody but they are individuals. Demanding patriotism is not my style but I enjoy seeing people celebrate their origins and their community. This Bouchard-Taylor recommendation would lead to the demise of an exciting aspect of North American culture.

It seems like Falardeau-Poulin were able to see this coming more than twenty-five years ago:

ELVIS GRATTON : Moi je suis un Canadien québécois, un Français canadien-français… Un Américain du Nord français, un francophone québécois canadien… Un Québécois d’expression canadienne –française française. On est des Canadiens américains francophones d’Amérique du Nord… Des Franco-québécois…

I hope Quebeckers do not get sucked into the trap of political correctness.

Christian Horizons: Coren’s Thoughts

Michael Coren has a piece in the Saturday Sun today. He also touches upon the point that I made earlier this week, that state Atheism is going to beat the charity out of our society as long as the government attempts to squeeze every vestige of Christian presence and no other group in our new, fancy multicult society steps up to the plate to do the jobs that aren’t as profitable or glamorous. He even offers an example of what those who relied on Christian Horizon’s services can expect in the coming years:

In California the Salvation Army was forced to close down several inner city missions because officials refused to sign a document approving of homosexuality. The destitute suffered terribly as a consequence. In Britain the Roman Catholic church similarly was obliged to shut the doors of its adoption agency.

Aside from also speaking about our government-imposed unhealthy relationship between employees and employers, Coren got me thinking by phrasing the incident that sparked this whole thing in the way he did:

One employee announced to colleagues that she was a lesbian and began discussing her sexuality. Eventually she was let go. She complained to the Human Rights Commission, which fined Christian Horizons and demanded the change. Demanded, in fact, that they not be Christian.

I hadn’t considered it until reading Coren’s column, but what if we flipped this around and an employee started sharing their Christian faith with colleagues? I doubt it would end up before a HRC. And even if we buy into the secularist axiom that homosexuals are born wired to be homophilic (one that, like all such axioms on fetal tissue, the origins of life and the universe, and climate change conveniently lacks that indisputable proof that axioms usually come with), can the state successfully argue that a believing Christian isn’t just as equally inseparable from their faith and what it makes him or her? Think of the parallels: some people in churches leave to join other religions, and some homosexuals realize they just aren’t homosexuals any longer; both groups claim that their respective affiliations colour everything they do; and both groups have their affiliations protected under the current legal community’s consensus.

It’s an interesting situation: one where a group tasked with going out into all the world to spread their Good News has their constitutionally recognized right to do so repressed, while another had beneficial rights literally penciled into the highest document of the land is allowed to ignore the acronym every employee should know: NSFW (Not Safe For Work). It wasn’t the lesbian woman’s decision to become a lesbian that got her fired, it was her insistence on preaching the news to the rest of her co-workers that did. Curious that, when any Christian who pulled a similar stunt would be out by 3pm, box of belongings in hand. To use Coren’s wording, a sane nation would actually follow it’s own laws and both groups would be able to share away but that would also presume that groups like HRCs would be under the law too, now wouldn’t it?

Christian Horizons: Funny, They Don’t Mind the First-Rate Services…

I think that a lot of libertarians (of all bends) out there can really get behind the idea that the government should not be dictating to employers under what terms they must employ their workers. After all, without such restrictions, many of the unions on life-support today would’ve gone the way of the dodo back when disco was first popular, and we wouldn’t have the delicate dance that is many internal human resources documents today. Individuals and employers would come up with a mutual understanding of job duties, compensation and prohibitions, making society more proactive and conscious when dealing with employment. It would also have kept current employment trends away, such as those which set up semi-long, restrictive trial periods that employers use currently as a line of defence against picking up bad recruits before prohibitive employment laws set in.

So when it comes to the case of Waterloo region’s Christian Horizons, the first thing that we should keep in mind is that the government came to them first, not the other way around. If the government didn’t like the way that the outwardly Christian organization did business, or specifically how it hired it’s employees, it shouldn’t have agreed to whatever contracts were set up with CH — after all, with a name like Christian Horizons, it’s not like they were hiding a secret agenda or anything! Now we can debate on whether the government has any business funding any philosophically or ethically-biased group (it’s certainly hard not to, and even liberal atheism has certainly gotten its share through causes like the Court Challenges Programme), but we have to start here with the understanding that the government of the day entered into a deal with CH knowing, or responsible for knowing full well that the organization was guided by divine principles; in the private sector, if you partner up with another company and then expect a change, not only do you become a laughing stalk but chances are you’ll also see your business deteriorate soon afterwards. What the crowd who cites CH’s government funding are trying to do is bad business and bad manners, period.

Next, as far as employment laws are concerned, I have to admit that it’s no surprise that John Tory has once again demonstrated that his lust to win seats in Toronto trumps all common sense and principle, not to mention the desire to hang onto that rural rump that his party currently possesses in the legislature. If a company decides to abide under Charter-protected freedoms of religion as it conducts its business, what right does the state have to come in and impose its own morality. If what the company does is bad practice, won’t its reputation get around and the court of public opinion weed out any unwarranted behaviours? Who would want to buy from a reseller who refuses to hire women when they know full-well that a boycott could be right around the corner? Likewise, we expect Christian organizations, Muslim centres and urbane companies to all hire and work according to what their respective entities stand for. If the public tolerates it through their business practices, so what? Or are we actually, finally brave enough to admit that this is just an attempt to impose state-sanctioned atheist secularism into every aspect of society? I didn’t think so.

Much of this will matter very little though as we will once again see a rip-roaring battle ensue where the God-haters and religiophobes of our society once again rise us to defend a separation of church and state concept they barely understand and always reinvent to suite the flavour of the day. Nowhere will be hear of the 500+ years of jurisprudence that has allowed Christian organizations to serve the public good over that period of time and gave Canada, in particular, such bedrock foundations as the Sisters of St. Joseph, the YMCA or Christian Horizions — all of which have, by a desire to serve a higher calling, given us cheaper, wholesome and quality social services than we would’ve had if we just had the state do it all itself from the beginning. Certainly there will not be a mention of that. Of course, once the crusading secularists have weeded out every vestige of Christian presence in our society, who will be left to do all the things that government is too incompetent to do properly and the rest of us are too selfish to do willingly?

Did the TTC Just Kill It’s Sweet Public-Private Partnership Deal?

Amazing, just sheerly amazing! That’s the only thing that can be said about the TTC union’s decision to reject a deal so sweet that the last week was littered with dozens of columns expressing the devastating effects of allowing TTC employees a golden goose as big as being guaranteed highest bidder for not just any contract in Toronto, but in the GTA. First Toronto, tomorrow the world?…

While the reasons for the union, essentially a private organization unaccountable to voters, to reject such a honey of deal remains unclear at this time, it might be time to eulogize this sort of hostage-victim relationship that the transit workers have enjoyed with the city over the last few decades since it’ll never be sweeter than this again. Combined with an illegal strike in 2006, today’s sudden cancellation of service will likely mark a turn in already sour public temperament after the aforementioned week of learning from the media just how much they had to empty the cupboard this time to appease the already well-compensated workers. As a general rule, you don’t come back to the kid you just stole lunch money again for another sucker punch indulgence. That’s exactly what the TTC has done here, prompting both Comrade Miller and a formerly reluctant Dalton McGuinty to reach a deal legislating back-to-work orders, on top of considering a further provision making the TTC essential service. If that last part is successful (and it should be since paying our taxes to public unions is also an essential service), the TTC will have lost most of the ridiculous bargaining powers it used to hold the 2 million-plus city at bay. The threats of literally shutting down the city will evaporate over night and Toronto might actually be able to keep new contract raises under the rate of inflation.

If, on the other hand, the TTC fights back and takes a page from the teachers unions’ during the Bill Davis years in the 1970s, we’ll enter into an ugly, painful, but necessary stage where the public’s outrage with an out of control union will flare up so quickly that we might actually begin to see private transportation grow to a significant level of business. Fleets of shuttle cars, taxis and other creative means of moving people would remove any necessity for the TTC, which would be relegated to a poor cousin dependent on government honey for survival, and much akin to the CBC today. We might see a Mike Harris-type Premier come along and ask why the TTC’s subway service just couldn’t be privatized like the 407 was nine years ago, since commuters already pay for the TTC as it is.

In short, the TTC is about to be de-clawed, and if it shows any teeth because of the procedure, it might find itself further surgically altered. The TTC’s literally putting all it’s stakes on the line today though. Enjoy the nice Saturday weather and smugness today though, for tomorrow you find out that you’ll get more than you bargained for!

UPDATE: Views from Joanne and Tony, with more to follow I’m sure!

Canada’s Biggest Mistake: A “The Politic” Take…

Now that the National Post has wrapped up it’s series on “Canada’s Biggest Mistake”, I figure that us Blogging Tories can add in our own takes. If you’re interested in participating, I ask that you leave me a comment (I don’t read them much these days anymore, but I’ll make an exception here) and I’ll post a link to your take; hopefully we’ll have a nice little collection by the end of the week!

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Keeping track of all the National Post entries, I have to admit that all the big ones were covered: The Charter, multiculturalism, abortion, The Tragically Hip (actually, that last one didn’t appear, but it should’ve!). The topics covered by Post columnists had the common theme of being either the cumulation of, or source of the social ills we experience today. As I got thinking about this, I quickly came to think of our “biggest mistake” as being something which is a cause, not an effect and furthermore, our biggest mistake should’ve been the biggest cause of things that has hurt us as a nation since.

Once I got into this frame of mind, the riddle became simple: government education! You have to go back a’ways to find a time before we had such a system, but as Ontario’s last election showed, we’re still paying the price for it today. If you take any other problem that we’ve had in the last 100 years since the advent of “public” education, you’ll find that an argument can be made that the government’s meddling in our childrens’ upbringing caused it: Poor performance in the world? Government education. A narcissistic and euthanasia-bent society? Government education. The crumbling of our ability to govern ourselves? Government education. You get the point I’m sure. There’s also the more minor results (relatively speaking) like the over-bearing and scofflaw unions that now indoctrinate our children year after year, or the massive debts that our provincial governments have accumulated because they got tangled in the teaching domain in the first place.

The one thing that makes this mistake unique from the others explored though is that it isn’t unique to Canada. The United States, western Europe, and Australia have all been duped by the allure of having big government pay for every little boy and girl’s enlightenment. If it weren’t for the sparsely populated elitist, religious and cultural private schools consistently out-performing the government systems in the western world, we wouldn’t even have a way of knowing just how much we’re failing our kids. It does present an opportunity for Canada as well though. If we were to take a leadership role in the 21st century by revitalizing and reinvigorating our school systems, doing away with political controls and the presumption that parents aren’t the best decision makers for their children, it would take practically no effort for us to excel to the head of the pack and become the best-educated most potential-blessed nation on the Earth. We’d become the new Japanese, as it were. It’s all something to think about, both from a contemporary and from a visionary point of view. Who knows, our kids might even learn how to properly do their taxes in a couple of generations!

Quebec to secede from the CRTC ??

This is music to my ears!

The Bloc Québécois is poised to table potentially controversial legislation giving Quebec the power to opt out of the national Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and set up its own telecommunications regulator.

Hopefully the Bloc succeeds and leads the way to the eventual dissolution of the entire Commission.

Could Dion Lose His Own Party’s Memebership?

The Ottawa Sun reports today that indeed it’s quite possible and that the recently vocal Quebec wing of the Liberal Party is stirring with a movement to invoke a clause never used before to revoke Dion’s membership in the Liberal party. I’m not sure how this would affect the Montreal area MP as past expulsions have usually come with the party leader’s blessing and hence the MP in question has been forced to either sit as an Independent or as a member of another party’s caucus. Maybe Dion can become the country’s first Green MP to follow up with his open flirtation with Elizabeth May last year!

While it would certainly embarrass Dion to have to register as a Liberal in another province (if it even comes to that), I think it’s safe to say that PM Harper will still be fighting against Dion in the next election as Dion has nothing to lose at this point in sticking around: there is already open dissatisfaction with his leadership; he’s never contested an election before and will never have the chance again if he cedes his right to do so now; he still has a massive leadership race debt to pay off and not many people will come out to hear the “failed former leader of the Liberal party” speak at a $200/plate dinner; his is under no obligation to have a leadership review vote and if his public image is any indication, he whole-heartedly believes he is the best Liberal leader the party could have right now and is morally obligated to stay on.

In the interest of fair play, I should confess that many Conservatives like myself would actually be more upset if Dion were to retire prematurely as he has done a fantastic job in helping us in Parliament. If another leadership race were triggered, it’d be hard to imagine how things would play out between now and October, 2009. The Liberals would probably want a quick race both to stop the bleeding they’ve been inflicting upon themselves since January, 2006 and to keep costs down both for the central party and the A-list candidates who are still fighting off leadership debts. Parliament wouldn’t change that much as the Conservatives pretty much has a majority as it is right now, although the Liberals would be in even worse financial shape than they are now with the extra costs, making it impossible for them to fight an effective election campaign (they’re currently prepared to borrow most of their campaign costs).

These prohibitive costs must be a small comfort to those who have surrounded themselves around Dion though as none of them actually involve the leader’s ability to deliver and because it’s still pretty well accepted that Dion’s days are numbered, with the only question being whether the last day comes before or after an election. Just remember Stephane, if this Liberal thing doesn’t work out, you’ll always have that fling with Lizzy last year!

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