Category: Rights

Just because I haven’t been around for a couple o’ days doesn’t mean that I haven’t got anything to say.

It seems that the HypoGrits have dropped a big ol’ brick o’ fudge in their collective longjohns over Harper’s intentions to take the first steps to follow through on his commitment to actually introduce a little bit of democracy into their precious little Red Chamber.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find that monicker — “Red Chamber” — to be more than just a little ironic? For years, the Librano$ have used the Senate as their personal porkbarrel for favoured stooges and little political failsafe against any legislation that they might not like. Hey, just because the public boots you from office doesn’t mean you can’t still gum up the works with your appointed/annointed Senate flunkies; right? To listen to the Fiberals, you’d think that ol’ Steve was raping the very soul of Canadian traditions. Newly-minted UberGrit Stephane Dion cacked up this lovely little hairball for the rest of us to have a look at:

“…completely irresponsible… The very moment the two chambers would be elected, they would have (the) same behaviour, a greater likelihood that you would have a stalemate without some kind of dispute mechanism.”

Like the kind of stalemates that we have now, whenever the Grits don’t like something? Smirkin’ Jack! wasn’t any better:

“It will give the Senate more dysfunctionality and they’ll be able to monkey with the business of the House of Commons even more then they have up to now.”

And you just know that you can’t possibly have something like this on the table without hearing of doom, gloom and general asshattery from the lollygagging Librano$ of the Upper House:

“We’ve had it since Confederation and it does very good work,” said Sen. Art Eggleton, a former Liberal cabinet minister.

“This is silliness quite frankly. Mr. Harper should be focused on the environment, on Afghanistan,” added Sen. Terry Mercer.

Of course. Anything that might curtail the Librano$’ ability to monkey with the wishes of the people, as expressed through their choice of representation, must be silly. I mean, come on now, we can’t have the unwashed masses sticking their noses into the business of choosing who gets to play in the high-an’-mighty Fiberals’ personal little sandbox now, can we? How silly would that be??

This one though, has just got to be my favourite:

“We don’t want to start a new constitutional round,” added Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe.

Hey, Gillesigan, listen up: When Quebec actually signs the Constitution, then Quebec can bitch about it. Until then, kindly stick a croisant in it and shut the f#*% up!

Then, there are the proposed changes to the Human Rights Act, which have essensially left the Liberals — the “natural guardians” of all human rights in Canada 🙄 — shrieking “HE STOLE MY BALLOONS!!” at the top of their lungs:

Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice wants to repeal a 30-year-old section of the Human Rights Act that has blocked complaints against Ottawa and band councils acting under the archaic Indian Act.

“First Nations citizens don’t have the same rights and remedies as other Canadians,” Prentice said. “We think that’s unacceptable and we’re prepared to move on it.”

Very interesting that they should be bothered by this. Even more interesting that so many band councils should have their panties in a bunch over it:

National native leaders rejected the bill, however, saying they can’t support what they called a rushed and unilateral move that would sow dissent and tension on reserves.

Is that so? Gee whiz, guys, what the heck makes you say that? Just what is it about giving natives, particularly native women, the same rights to avenues of redress that every honky in the land has enjoyed for … well, for as long as I can remember, anyway?

Already cash-strapped band councils could be peppered with claims. Allegations of unfair treatment would likely range from housing disputes to fights over how higher education funds are shared.

Ottawa is also expected to be targeted for various despised policies. Those include Indian Act rules governing status.

For years, the Indian Act stripped thousands of native women of their Indian status along with rights and benefits when they married non-native men.

So let me see if I’ve got this straight: You think this act is a bad thing because, if it goes through, you guys might find yourselves suddenly accountable to the very folks that you’ve shafted. Have I got that right?

Well, the feds are going to be in the crosshairs too, but you don’t hear them complaining. Sounds like they’re actually willing to stand up and take responsibility for past screwups that they didn’t even do (maybe because they know that the Fiberals never will).

Once again, the Tories are making good on promises that they made — and that other parties made too, but nevered fulfilled them — and once again, the predictable suspects are howling that the sky is falling.

Nope. Nothing new here.

And away we go. Strap yourselves in, boys and girls, because this ride is promising to be bumpier than a ride on Highway 32 at 120Kmph. Yes, the big, bad Tories are making good on yet another election promise by bringing the issue of same-sex “marriage” back to the House, this time for a free vote, and the usuals are wasting no time getting themselves worked up into a lather. Gee, what are the odds? 🙄

The Conservative government under HMPM Stephen Harper has announced that they are going to fulfill their election promise to review Bill C-38 in the Commons and submit the issue to a truly free vote.

Government sources say the Conservatives will table a motion asking MPs whether the debate on gay marriage should be re-opened, which could see debate start Wednesday and could be voted on late next week.

The HypoGrits and their social engineering henchmen would have you believe that this is all a done deal and that the Tories are whipping a dead horse because there “has already been a free vote” on the issue. But Bill C-38, you may recall, was undemocratically rammed through the House in June of last year after then-PM Martin ordered all cabinet ministers to vote in favour of the bill or else lose their jobs. Joe Comuzzi, the minister responsible for Northern Ontario, resigned his post in protest so that he could vote against the bill. The final count: 158-133.

Hardly an ideological victory, especially when one considers that the entire Liberal cabinet was voting under duress. The Grits at the time, tried to spin this issue as a question of the Charter:

The “vote is about the Charter of Rights,” said Martin. “We’re a nation of minorities and in a nation of minorities you don’t cherry-pick rights.”

There’s just one little problem with that: the Charter — which was a poorly thought-out document to begin with — says absolutely nothing about gay marriage, or homosexuality, or marriage, or sexual inclination, or anything else having to do with this issue. You will find no reference whatsoever to sexual orientation anywhere in the Charter. It just plain isn’t there. The courts, however, have decided that they can “read in” things that aren’t in the Charter and that the Charter, therefore, says whatever they say it says.

Ever since then, the Charter has been wielded as a hatchet by a motley assortment of malevolent social engineering malcontents to impose upon the rest of us changes to our very way of life that could never have been passed in the House (where all who sit are periodically held accountable to those whose lives they are fiddling with). It has also been used in some truly disturbing ways, not the least of which is the erosion of religious rights, by federally funded special interest groups, under the pretense of “equality.”

As a result of all this Machiavellian manipulation and using the Charter as a sword rather than a shield, this issue has become less and less about whether or not Adam and Steve can get hitched and more and more about just who does and does not make the laws in this country: the government (chosen by, and accountable to, the people) or the courts (elected by, and accountable to, none)? When laws are made by those who owe no obedience whatsoever to the citizenry, there is a name for that kind of system; and it’s not democracy.

What kind of country do you want to live in?

Crack a cold one, throw Flight of the Valkyries on the turntable and enjoy the spectacle of all the soaring swine. That’s right boys and girls, Rick Mercer said something with which I am in total agreement. He actually manages to take all the criticism of Harper’s stance with China and, in what I must admit is a very Canadian fashion, put it in just the right light.

No, I haven’t been drinking. Well, not that much anyway. Here, see for yourself and see what you think.

Opinions have been flying fast and thick lately over HMPM Stephen Harper’s decision to take a harder line with the communist Chinese regime’s human rights record than previous Liberal governments have. For those of you that have been in a cave and haven’t heard yet, the PM has declared that he will pursue a policy of “constructive engagement” with China, rather than the fawning appeasement displayed by previous governments. Lefties in the MSM, naturally, are flummoxed. Some of the more honest, however, are willing to suck it up and say otherwise.

Harper said that, while trade with China may be important, Canadians have values and a fundamental, deep-rooted sense of right and wrong and ” they don’t want us to sell that out to the almighty dollar.” Previous HypoGrit governments have insisted that trade with China is somehow vital to our economy but as one of my favourite loudmouths, Ezra Levant, put it in his Calgary Sun column today:

If the idea was that being China’s moral apologist would help Canadian businessmen sell to China, that idea failed.

China-Canada trade has increased during the past decade, but it has been China selling their goods to us, not the other way around. Canada buys about triple from China what they buy from us. And what China covets most is our energy and other natural resources — global commodities Canada would sell on the world market.

Silence about Chinese fascism has not made Canada rich from China — though both Paul Martin’s sons’ business, Canada Steamship Lines, and Jean Chretien’s son-in-law’s business, Power Corp., have thrived there.

How very convenient. China’s economy grows, the balance of trade shifts away from our favour, but at least 2 former PMs’ kin get filthy rich in the deal. Nice. So, will a sour relationship with China hurt our economy? Not a chance.

We run a massive trade deficit with China. The fact of the matter is that neglecting human rights hasn’t opened a lot of doors either. So obviously, we don’t think you get anywhere by shortchanging your values.

– Prime Minister Stephen Harper

In the short run, it could be a bother because we’ve gotten used to cheap Chinese goods. In the long run, however, it is China that would be on the short end of the stick in any trade fracas. The name of the game is “raw materials and natural resources: we have ’em and they need ’em; it’s just a question of price.” While cheap manufacturing jobs can easily pack up and move to a democratic India and not end up costing much more than they do now, natural resources have a bothersome habit of staying put. And we aren’t going to run out of people to sell our oil to anytime soon.

China has a long history of ignoring our interests, our principles and even our sovereignty. Harper has decided that he isn’t going to sit still for that kind of crap. The Prime Minister’s decision to stand up to this Asian bully has returned us to our rightful place on the world stage as a nation that holds true to its beliefs and is cause for us to take pride, not to be second guessing.

China’s president, Hu Jintao, had requested to meet with Harper at the conference. But Hu refused to allow Harper to raise specific issues, demanding the meeting be “strategic” only — abstract generalities and pleasantries, precisely the kind of thing at which Chretien and Martin excelled.

Avoiding specific issues meant China would never have to answer for specific actions, ranging from detaining a Canadian citizen in a Chinese jail, to violating Canadian trademarks and other intellectual property, as China so brazenly does, such as with their “Redberry” rip-off of Canada’s BlackBerry.

When Harper’s diplomats pressed for a meeting about substantive matters, the Chinese reneged.

Had it been Chretien or Martin who were snubbed, they’d have panicked and gone into appeasement mode.

They probably would have groveled, promised not to raise prickly issues, and perhaps even raised Canada’s absurd annual gift of $65 million a year to China in foreign aid, the largest amount we give to any country.

Harper dug in. Then an amazing thing happened. After Harper’s statement on human rights, his declaration of his plans to speak openly about China, Beijing called Ottawa, and asked for the meeting again. They blinked. There are a few lessons here.

Indeed there are.

First things first: a flip o’ my chapeau to the Relapsed Catholic for beating me to the punch on this one.

Some people will look at the issue and think that I’m referring to Xeno in the usual “xenophobia” context. Not so.

I’m referring to Xeno of Elea, the Greek pholosopher famous for, amongst other things, his paradoxes. You know; those bothersome little questions that, by their very nature, seem to have no possible answer at all. Perhaps the most famous of all of them was the question which has so often been paraphrased like this:

What, exactly, would occur if an immovable object were to be struck by an irresistable force?

What, indeed? It is beginning to seem as if this very question is, as you read this, being played out in Regina.

Bill Whatcott, a “long-time pro-life and family campaigner” from the Big Flat, has recently been slapped to the tune of $17,500 by Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Tribunal for… wait for it… hurt feelings.

Yup, that’s right. We’ve gone from “sticks and stones may break my bones” to “BOO HOO, he hurt my feelings, your honour; WHERE’S MY CHEQUE?!?!”

Okay, let’s examine this, shall we? First, in my opinion: yeah, he went a little overboard and crossed the line of decent debate (kinda hard to look reasonable strolling down the street holding a sign saying “Bare Bottomed Pitifuls are Celebrating Buggery in Regina. God Help Us!”), but it is still damned hard to slap down the very logical points that he does make:

If you can find factual inaccuracies in my flyers or if you can find that I said something in bad faith, at that point there should be civil penalties […] I’d be the first one to agree with that. […] If I’m lying by saying that homosexuals are predisposed to sexually transmitted diseases at a rate greater than the general population, by all means find me liable for slander. If I’m wrong in saying….that there is a predisposition in homosexuality towards the sexual abuse of children, if that can be factually proven to be wrong, find me guilty of libel. But don’t tell me that I can’t say something that is true.

In other words: “prove me wrong and I’ll take my medicine.” Sounds reasonable to me. Also sounds like the best way to deal with any disagreement, debate or what have you.

But the problem here (and a chilling one it is) is that the SHRC doesn’t seem to give a damn about bothersome little things like facts or truth. According to Janice Gingell (a lawyer for the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission):

Sexual orientation is a protected category under the code and you are not allowed to say things that will cause other people to feel hatred or ridicule or belittlement towards members of those protected categories.

Yup, you got it. Thou Shalt Not Speak Against The Priviledged Group. Period. Truth? Lies? Doesn’t matter. Just sit the hell down and shut the hell up. Forget freedom of reli… aw, screw it. Forget any freedoms you think you have. None of them matter. You aren’t one of the Protected Ones. So you’re screwed.

Orwell himself couldn’t have done better.

Getting back to Xeno….

…he will not pay a $17,500 fine ordered by Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Tribunal […] Whatcott has vowed to continue distributing his flyers with about 3,500 more to go out on Thursday.

Wow, what are the odds? Who could have ever imagined that of all Canadians, it would be the French that would get grumpy about antismoking laws? As a lot of people (especially smokers in la Belle Province) already know, Quebec hopped on the anti-puffing hypocrisy hayride earlier this year and became the latest in the lineup of regions to ban a perfectly legal substance from just about everyplace in public.

It now seems that a motley crew of bar owners, employees and patrons have taken up the idea that the Quebec antismoking laws are… hmm… how should I put this?

Complètement plein du merde? Pardon my French.

Not being content to merely sit around puffing away in the rain and griping, about 150 owners and employees turned out for a bit of a noisy demonstration outside the provincial courthouse in Montreal. Meanwhile, inside the courthouse:

A Quebec Superior Court judge will be asked today to repeal the province’s anti-smoking law in time for the holidays.

Maintaining they have suffered irreparable financial damage since Quebec banned smoking in bars and restaurants May 31, Quebec bar owners are scheduled to appear in court to ask for an injunction that would temporarily overturn the tough new law.

The injunction is a stop-gap measure while bar owners wait for the Supreme Court of Canada to hear their case challenging the constitutionality of Quebec’s anti-smoking law.

Seriously, folks; just how long did anyone think it was going to take for this to happen?

First things first, let’s get my own bias out of the way. Yes, I smoke; yes, I know it’s a bad habit; and no, I don’t want my kids doing it. But I am also sick and God damned tired of all the hypocrisy from the second-hand-smoke finger wagging crowd. The same frigging idiots that tell me that I can’t sit down and enjoy a stogie in my favourite pub are the same nattering nannies that trumpet the virtues of letting junkies shoot up in comfort and now, giving potheads their own toking pit at work! No, I’m NOT making that up:

TORONTO (Reuters) – The use of medical marijuana has given two Toronto professors the right to something that many students could only dream of — access to specially ventilated rooms where they can indulge in peace.

So, let me get this straight: if I want a butt at the bar with my buddies, I’m either SOL or getting fined (or both), but if I wanna get stoned, I’m not only fine and dandy, I’m going to get a nice little space set aside for me at public expense.  I’m not the only one smelling the bullshit here, am I?

And don’t bother with any of that “second hand smoke” or “burden on the healthcare system” crap, either. The main toxin that you suck back every day is vehicle exhaust and, at over eight bucks a pack, I’m putting a lot more money into the health care system than a nonsmoker is, so don’t try to pretend we aren’t paying our own way.

Another thing that irks me is the “with smoking banned in bars, more nonsmokers will start coming out” nonsense. If there were a market for smoke-free pubs, the free market would have jumped on that bandwagon long ago. How many smoke-free pubs did you ever hear of before it was enforced by Big Nanny? None. But, just in London alone, dozens of small pubs have gone belly up since the Ministry Of Knowing What’s Best For You declared that their patrons had to take their habit out into the elements. That’s a bunch of lost jobs.

You can’t encourage junkies out of one side of your mouth while condemning us out the other. We aren’t doing anything illegal, we pay our own damn way and we are getting damned tired of being treated like second class citizens by holier-than-thou wannabe architects of the future.

As for me, I think I’m gonna go have me a smoke now…