Tag Archives: Canada

News

Canadian federal election is today: please vote for Stephen Harper!

16 Comments
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Prime Minister Stephen Harper

I try to keep up with elections in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, so I know that there is a Canadian election today. I want to encourage all my Canadian readers to vote, and to help me answer your concerns about Stephen Harper, I have an absolutely marvelous post from Catholic writer Denyse O’Leary.

She writes:

Why are traditional religious communities dying?

[…][I]n a secular society, religious traditions are usually mediated through private institutions. Each decline in the importance of such institutions shuts off a passage to the life beyond that they mediate.

A child can grow up in a religious home today and discover that there are really only two players that matter: himself and big government. The only mediator and advocate is his entitlement card.

As he loses all interest in traditional spiritual life, he discovers the true faith of the progressive society:

Government controls more and more important stuff, and free association controls less and less. Government grants “freedom” to indulge oneself, of course, but that is almost a sacrament, and one that tends to weaken the citizen.

The transformation does not happen all at once, but by degrees. Recently, I was informed by a woman who considers herself a Catholic that abortion and euthanasia are mere “boutique issues,” compared to the awful things Stephen Harper is doing.

Just take in her basic idea for a moment:

The fundamental duty of government is to protect and advance human lives, but progressives know that their real business is currying favour with the growing numbers of fashionable identity groups. Increasingly, such groups will finance their advances on the public dollar. Some of the largesse may come from stripping traditional religious people and institutions of their property (possibly also in fines for non-compliance with some secularist belief). Most people we run into in the plaza will just be “nice” about the whole thing, no matter what is happening.

How do Christians respond?

Much as I sympathize, bracing for storms to come, I think Christians are mainly victims of ourselves.

Consider the excuses I hear (I am talking about legitimate Christian ones, not fundamentally anti-Christian ones, like the “boutique issue” claim above):

* “But Harper did nothing about abortion!”
Oh, for heaven’s sakes! As someone who dealt at close quarters with the abortion lobby for decades, I know they will gladly shut down free speech and freedom of conscience altogether to gain their ends. The euthanasia people will likely do the same. Until their fangs are drawn, nothing can really be done. Harper knows that drawing their fangs will be a serious struggle. And if you are not in it for the fight of your life, don’t interfere by demanding useless demonstrations of loyalty. Other parties will advance and cement their interests more than Harper’s will.

* “A spell of persecution would do us good”
Why is it always Western Christians who think this, not the Middle Eastern Christian and Yazidi girls sold into sex slavery, partly a result of the policy choices of progressive government? Reality check: Persecution causes the worst of human nature to flourish in our own communities as well as the best. Most communities cannot handle the strain. Do any of the Seven Churches of Asia exist today? Even one? Why is that?

[…]What should we do? It will take decades to send progressivism to its deserved reward. I will start by voting for the only party that is not actually hostile to our traditional values (like the right to live, and to speak freely).

[…]We need to grow up and stop funding, and voting for our enemies, and making excuses for anti-Christian bigots. (All the while making pathetic scolding noises.) If we need to change our bank accounts, our votes, our alumni donor policies, we do it individually because that is the responsible thing for an individual Christian adult to do.

And you don’t have to take her word for it, you can just look over to Europe and see how things are going in left-turning countries that embrace social justice. It’s a Christianity-killer.

Here’s a fairly recent paper (PDF) that explains it:

What accounts for cross-national variation in religiosity as measured by church attendance and non-religious rates? Examining answers from both secularization theory and the religious economy perspective, we assert that cross-national variation in religious participation is a function of government welfare spending and provide a theory that links macro-sociological outcomes with individual rationality. Churches historically have provided social welfare. As governments gradually assume many of these welfare functions, individuals with elastic preferences for spiritual goods will reduce their level of participation since the desired welfare goods can be obtained from secular sources. Cross-national data on welfare spending and religious participation show a strong negative relationship between these two variables after controlling for other aspects of modernization.

Kudos to Denyse for understanding what is happening in her country. At least one Canadian Christian understands the relationship between the Christian church’s influence and the size of government.

Voter Guide

By the way, here is a voter guide to the positions of the 3 parties that will be of interest to voters:

Voter Guide (click for much larger image)
Voter Guide (click for much larger image)

It was posted by my Canadian friend Coralie. She follows these things quite closely.

Notice that both  the leftist parties want to get rid of income splitting and tax-free savings accounts. Income-splitting for seniors allows one spouse to retire, and the income of the working spouse is split with the non-working spouse, so they pay less taxes. Families with young children also are eligible for income splitting, which is a boon to stay-at-home moms. And the tax-free savings account is like a ROTH IRA, except better – you can pull out all the tax-free gains at any time, for any reason, and the gains are NEVER taxed. We have nothing like that in the USA. It has changed the character of Canadians to value saving over spending, making them more responsible and independent from government. TFSAs are how you change the character of a nation.

Why vote for Stephen Harper?

My Canadian friend McKenzie is conservative now, but she was not always, and I remember her asking me a while back to explain what conservatives stand for. Well, I found an article that re-caps what Stephen Harper has achieved in the last 9 years. The article lists 100 accomplishments, with links to each one.

Here are some that stuck out to me:

  • Adoption Expense Tax Credit increased — from a one-time $13,100 to 15,000 in 2014
  • Age of Consent Legislation — raised from 14 to 16 effective May 1, 2008
  • Beyond the Border Agreement with the U.S. — passed in late 2011, on perimeter security co-operation
  • Canada Apprentice Loan Program — up to $4000 for those registered in any Red Seals apprenticeship training announced in January 2015
  • Canada/EU Trade Agreement — although ratification still required, an `End of Negotiations`Agreement signed on September 26, 2014
  • Canadian Wheat Board Monopoly Ends — Bill C18 removed the CWB’s monopoly regarding decisions made by many Western farmers to market their wheat
  • Columbia Free Trade Agreement — went into force on August 15th, 2011
  • Consumer Product Safety Act — came into effect June 20, 2011 to ensure manufacturers do not market dangerous products
  • Corporate Tax Rate — reduced from 18% to 16.5% effective January 2012, with another 1.5% reduction in 2012 to 15%
  • Corrupt Regimes Act (C-61) – allows Canada to act upon the request of a foreign state to freeze the assets that their former leaders and members of their entourage, including family members, senior officials and associates, may have placed in Canadian financial institutions
  • Employment Insurance Premiums Reduced —  in the fall of 2014 by 15% for to encourage small businesses to hire
  • Exploited Persons Act — legislation that received Royal Assent to protect against drug, organized or prostitution type of crime
  • Express Entry Immigration into Canada Program — when skilled immigrants to Canada will get quick entry so that they can contribute to economy
  • Fairness at the Pumps Act (C-14) – protects Canadian consumers from inaccurate measurements when purchasing gasoline effective August 2014
  • Family Caregiver Tax Credit — Bill C-13 established a new $2000 tax credit on December 15, 2011 to help families dealing with challenging medical expenses
  • Family Income Splitting — families with children under 18 will be allowed to split income beginning in 2014 up to $50,000 with credit capped at $2000.00
  • Federal Infrastructure Plan — longest long-term plan in Canadian history supporting projects that enhance economic growth, job creation and productivity
  • Free Trade Agreement — signed on July 2, 2009 — between Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland
  • Gun Registry Scrapped — as the legislation passed Third Reading
  • GST /HST– Goods & Services Tax Cut — From 7% to 6% and then to 5%
  • Honduras Free Trade Agreement — completed and signed on November 5th, 2013 and will enter into force on June 19, 2014
  • Income Splitting for Canadian Seniors — a change to the Income Tax Act for pensioners starting in 2006
  • Jordan Free Trade Agreement — went into force on October 1st, 2012
  • Kid’s sport tax credit — up to $500 per child
  • Mission Against ISIL extended March 30, 2015 — to aid the people of Iraq and Syria
  • Ombudsman for Victims of Crime — Established
  • Panama Free Trade Agreement — went into force on April 1st, 2013
  • Peru – Canada Free Trade Agreement — adopted by Parliament June 18, 2009
  • Protecting Victims from Sexual Offenders — signed on December 15, 2010 to protect children against sexual predators
  • Safe Streets & Communities Act — passed March June 13, 2012 to protect children and communities against terrorism
  • South Korea Free Trade Agreement Signed on September 22, 2014 — 1st Asia Pacific Agreement with final legislative steps for full implementation on November 26, 2014
  • Tax cuts made 160 Times — since the Conservatives took office in 2006
  • Tax Free Savings Account with an initial annual limit of $5500.00 — which was raised to $10,000 in April 2015 budget
  • Taxpayers Bill of Rights
  • Taxpayers Ombudsman
  • Temporary Foreign Workers Program — reforms made so that Canadians are hired first
  • Universal Child Care Benefit — in 2006 $1,200.00 per year for every child under age six
  • Universal Child Care Benefit Enhancement — effective January 1st, 2015, beginning July 1st, 2015, parents will receive $160.00 per child per month up to age six and $60.00 for each child aged 6 to 17
  • Victims Bill of Rights — Bill C-32 passed on June 18th, 2014

It’s important to know what you are voting for, not just what you are voting against.

News

Should parents or the state be responsible for educating children?

Leave a comment
National Education Association
National Education Association

This article from the Public Discourse is interesting because it shows the very different views that big government people have of marriage and family.

It starts by talking about laws in North America, especially in more liberal areas:

The view of marriage as a mere creature of the state to be redefined at will goes hand in hand with the idea that children “belong” primarily to the state, which then delegates (limited) childrearing authority to whomever the state defines as the child’s parents.

[…]We also see the state encroaching on parental authority in order to enforce the new orthodoxy regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. “Equality” requires teaching that all family forms are equally good, and public schools do this by introducing “diversity-oriented” activities and readings – including books like Mommy, Momma and Me – across the curriculum.

California, New Jersey and the District of Columbia have made it illegal to give counseling to minors who have sexual-identity issues that in any way discourages them from fostering those tendencies, regardless of whether or not the child would like to receive such counseling, and regardless of whether or not those issues seem to stem from earlier traumas such as sexual abuse. Similar bills are pending in fifteen other states. School guidance counselors are also frequently connected with Gay-Straight Alliances and similar organizations, often placing confused teenagers in contact with such organizations without the consent or even knowledge of the parents.

In a particularly sad Massachusetts case, which I learned about from the parents involved, a teenager was sent by his guidance counselor to a gay youth organization. The organization then turned him against his family and encouraged him to stop seeing the therapist he had been seeing since childhood to deal with the effects of abuse by an older bully in school. As things escalated he was effectively kidnapped by the school guidance counselor and then taken from his home by the Department of Children and Families, without the parents ever having even been accused of abuse or neglect. The boy was eventually returned home after a second social worker investigated the case and deemed the parents to be exceptionally responsible and loving.

There is reason to believe that what happened to this family was not an isolated incident. At their booth at the Massachusetts Gay Youth Pride Parade, Department of Children and Families officials boasted about how they routinely manipulate standard processes to remove children with sexual-identity issues from the homes of conservative and Christian parents.

Does that sounds OK to you? I know that in my case that would not be OK, because one of the main reasons why I am interested in marriage is so that my children will get their values from their parents, and not from, for example, the convicted child pornographer who wrote the gay-friendly curriculum in Ontario, Canada. If I have a choice between me and their mother, and this very liberal Minister of Education, then I choose us.

How far would the secular leftists go to stop me and my future wife from educating our kids? Well, it’s always useful to look at what the secular left has done in countries where there is less of a Christian influence.

For example, the Public Discourse article talks about Germany and Sweden:

The story of the Romeike family highlights the injustice of this situation. Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, along with their five children, lived in a southwest German town called Bietigheim-Bissinge, where their three oldest children attended the public schools. All was well until the parents began to noticedistressing changes in their children. After further investigation, Mr. Romeike was appalled to find that their son Daniel’s health textbook used foul language to refer to sexual acts, and was concerned more generally that the values conveyed in his children’s classes and readings conflicted with the Christian moral and religious values he and his wife strove to pass on to their children at home.

In response, the Romeikes pulled their children out of the public schools and began educating them at home. A protracted battle with state authorities ensued, including police attempts to enter the Romeikes’ home and bring the children to school by force, along with onerous fines adding up to 7,000 Euros. Fearing imprisonment and loss of custody of their children, the Romeikes moved to the United States where they would be free to educate their children as they thought best. Although their request for asylum was denied—a bad sign with regard to respect for parental rights on the part of the current United States government—they were granted permission to remain indefinitely in the country shortly before their scheduled deportation in 2014.

The Johansson family in Sweden—where homeschooling has also been illegal since 2010—was not so fortunate. In 2009, when seven-year-old Domenic Johansson and his parents were on an airplane about to leave Sweden permanently for India (his mother’s home country), armed Swedish police entered the plane and took Domenic into custody on the grounds that he was homeschooled, despite the facts that school was not in session and that homeschooling was still legal at the time. Social workers also claimed that the presence of some cavities in Domenic’s baby teeth constituted evidence of physical neglect.

Since then, Domenic has lived in a foster home, with state-supervised parental visitation for a mere hour every five weeks. A Swedish court definitively terminated the Johanssons’ parental rights in 2012, primarily on the basis that their “isolation” of Domenic from other children his own age was psychologically harmful. The European Court of Human Rights upheld the decision in January 2015, but the Johanssons have not given up hope. They are bringing a new case to the Swedish courts in the hopes of finally being reunited with their now twelve-year-old son. Dozens of other Swedish families have fled the country in order to be able to homeschool their children.

The article mentions Bill 10, which was passed in Alberta, the most conservative province in Canada. That bill, “disallows parents from exempting their children from classroom discussions of homosexuality, and which requires all schools, including faith-based schools, to allow pro-homosexual student clubs like gay-straight alliances.” Does that sound OK with you? Because I can promise you that the Ontario child pornographer Minister of Education is 100% on board with it. He loves that anything that gets your kids thinking about sex at earlier and earlier ages. He’s a secular leftist. Strong families and respect for parental authority put the brakes on his agenda. But he is all for having the schools push sex on young children, and without informing parents. And this big-government education system is all taxpayer-funded. The taxes are mandatory, and there is NO opt-out.

News

Mulcair and Trudeau want convicted Canadian terrorists to retain citizenship

1 Comment
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Prime Minister Stephen Harper

This is from the National Post, one of Canada’s two national newspapers.

Excerpt:

The government used its new power to revoke the citizenship of convicted terrorists for the first time on Friday against the imprisoned ringleader of the 2006 al-Qaida-inspired plot to detonate truck bombs in downtown Toronto.

Zakaria Amara was notified in a letter sent to the Quebec penitentiary where is he serving a life sentence that he is no longer a Canadian. He still holds citizenship in Jordan and could be deported there following his release from prison.

[…]Legislation that came into force in May, over the opposition of the NDP and Liberals, allows the government to revoke the citizenship of Canadians who have been convicted of terrorism offences — provided they hold citizenship in a second country.

The law also applies to dual citizens convicted of treason and spying for foreign governments, as well as members of armed groups at war against Canada. A little more than half-a-dozen Canadians have been notified so far that the government was considering revoking their citizenship.

Now, you would think that a law like this would be common sense, but in Canada, you’d be wrong. Two-thirds of the electorate are pro-terrorism in Canada, owing largely to mass immigration from Muslim countries, and and an education system that is anti-Western civilization in a suicidal way. And the leaders of the two socialist opposition parties reflect that suicidal view.

More:

NDP leader Tom Mulcair has said he would scrap the citizenship revocation law, and on Friday Liberal leader Justin Trudeau repeated his pledge to repeal it. “The bill creates second-class citizens,” he said. “No elected official should ever have the exclusive power to revoke Canadian citizenship. Under a Liberal government there will be no two-tiered citizenship. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”

Let’s find out exactly who we are talking about here:

Amara emerged in 2005 as one of two leaders of a terrorist group that trained on a rural property north of the city and, inspired by al-Qaida, began planning attacks they thought would convince Canada to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

Amara led a faction that was acquiring the components for large truck bombs that were to be detonated during the morning rush hour outside the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service office beside the CN Tower. An Ontario military base was also to be attacked.

Justice Bruce Durno called the plot “spine chilling” and said “the potential for loss of life existed on a scale never before seen in Canada. It was almost unthinkable without the suggestion that metal chips would be put in the bombs. Had the plan been implemented it would have changed the lives of many, if not all Canadians forever.”

Under the liberal governments of the 1980s and 1990s, Canada experienced mass immigration from countries that had no understanding of nor allegiance to Western democratic ideals. This was desired in order to build a majority that would support bigger government, higher taxes, and more dependency. No effort was made to teach incoming immigrants to value democracy and Judeo-Christian values as the source of Canadian success. There were several terrorist attack in Canada during Harper’s 8 year run. If Canada elects leftists, these will continue. Only now, government will not have the tools they need to protect the public from their past immigration laxity. Be warned, Canadians.