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Conservative government reforms public sector pensions in Canada

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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (evil!)

From the National Post.

Excerpt:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says planned changes to the pension plan for members of Parliament won’t take effect until after the next election, noting it would not be fair to change the rules during the current term.

[…]The object, the finance minister says, is for members of parliament and public servants to contribute 50% of the cost of their pensions.

Treasury Board President Tony Clement says changes to the MP pension plan will see them paying almost four times more in contributions.

He says MP contributions will jump to about $39,000 from the present level of about $11,000 and the bill would delay retirement age for a full pension to 65 from the present 55.

The changes, for a while at least, will create a two-tier system — with some existing MPs still being able to collect pension benefits at age 55. After the next election, all new MPs who qualify for the plan will have to wait until they are 65 before getting full pension benefits.

It was also expected that the bill would include cost-saving measures to change the federal employee pension plan so that new workers who join the public service starting in 2013 will see the normal age of their retirement raised to 65 from 60.

Clement says the changes will move public service and MP pension contributions to a 50-50 split, similar to private sector plans.

He says the changes will save taxpayers $2.6-billion over five years.

The bill passed the House of Commons today, and is on its way to the Conservative-controlled Senate. Harper will sign it, and then drink a chalice brim-full with the tears of his pathetic socialist enemies, as is his custom since gaining the majority in 2011.

Also, Conservative Party MP Pierre Poilievre (Nepean-Carleton = evil!) has been pushing the right of workers not to have to join a union, nor to have to pay union dues against their will:

While chieftains at the government’s largest union celebrated a separatist victory in Quebec on Wednesday, a Conservative MP said he will push for legislation to allow workers to opt out of paying dues.

Ottawa MP Pierre Poilievre says by supporting the Parti Quebecois and Quebec Solidaire and other activities, the NDP-friendly Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) is not acting in the interests of the majority of its 172,000 members.

Poilievre’s riding is home to thousands of government workers – some of whom have expressed their disbelief to him over the use of dues to fund political and militant activity, including supporting student protesters in Montreal.

He says he will advocate for passage of a private member’s bill in Parliament that would force unions to open their books to learn how dues are spent.

And while he is a parliamentary secretary and can’t introduce private bills, he will encourage and help others draft legislation that would allow union members the choice of paying dues.

“It stands to reason that the law should not force workers against their will to pay union dues to radical causes of PSAC union bosses,” he said.

“Workers should have the right to know how their union dues are spent and if they don’t like what they see, the freedom to opt out of paying them.”

Previously, the evil Harper banned per-vote subsidies for political parties:

The Conservatives’ budget bill tabled Tuesday will end taxpayer-funded subsidies for federal political parties, a proposal that helped spark the 2008 coalition crisis but was promised again by the Tories in the spring election campaign.

[…]The 2011 Tory election platform cited $27.4 million as the cost to the taxpayer last year of the current $2 per vote subsidy.

[…]The other parties generally, but the Bloc Québécois in particular, do not match the Conservatives’ ability to fundraise from grassroots party members. An end to the party subsidies puts parties that are not effective at grassroots fundraising at a major financial disadvantage.

Returns filed with Elections Canada for 2010 show the Conservative party raising $17.4 million from some 95,000 donors. Other parties were far behind: the Liberals raised approximately $6.4 million from over 32,000 donors, while the NDP raised $4.3 million from just under 23,000 donors. The Bloc Québécois, then the third-largest party in the House of Commons, raised only $640,000 on its own from fewer than 6,000 donors.

And the evil Harper planned to banning loans to political parties from unions:

The Harper government’s plan to ban corporate and union loans to political parties will further tighten a revenue-raising vise on the opposition parties. The Liberal Party will be especially squeezed, as it prepares for a leadership race in 2013.

The goal of the legislation, which was introduced into the House Wednesday by Democratic Reform Minister Tim Uppal, is “to reduce the potential for undue influence of wealthy interests in the political process,” according a government release.

But the effect could be to further widen the gap between the Tories’ revenue-raising efforts and those of other parties, who badly trail in total campaign contributions from individual donors.

[…]Individuals will still be allowed to lend money, but their combined loans and donations will not be allowed to exceed the $1,100 annual contribution limit.

Banks and other accredited financial institutions will be able to lend money to parties and candidates, and political parties can lend money to constituency associations or candidates. But the terms must be publicly disclosed, including the amount, interest rate and the names of the lenders and guarantors, allowing other parties and the media to know who is in hock to whom and for how much.

Political contributions from unions are already banned.

We don’t see that level of aggression down here, do we? Canada even requires photo ID for voting, so there is no voter fraud. And they are reforming their immigration and welfare programs to eliminate fraud there, too. Unreal. It’s like they actually think that being conservative means… being conservative. Instead of kow-towing to the leftist media at cocktail parties.

It seems like Canada is embracing the free enterprise system at a time when we are turning our backs on it. And they’ve been reaping the benefits: smaller deficits, less spending and lower unemployment. We will get our chance in November to try and catch up to their financial success if we can kick our socialist President out.

News

Fascism: Ontario education minister wants to stop Catholic schools from teaching pro-life view

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Political map of Canada
Political map of Canada

From Life Site News.

Excerpt:

In what pro-life leaders are calling a stunning and unprecedented attack on religious freedom, Ontario’s Education Minister has apparently declared that Catholic schools can no longer teach that abortion is wrong.

Laurel Broten, who serves under Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty, said Wednesday that Catholic schools are barred from teaching this core moral belief because Bill 13, the government’s controversial “anti-bullying” law, prohibits “misogyny.”

“Taking away a woman’s right to choose could arguably be considered one of the most misogynistic actions that one could take,” she told the Canadian Press. “I don’t think there is a conflict between choosing Catholic education for your children and supporting a woman’s right to choose.”

Bill 13 had already been slammed by Ontario’s bishops as an attack on religious freedom because it forces Catholic schools to allow “gay-straight alliance” clubs.

And confirmation:

 An official transcript sent to LifeSiteNews by the Ontario government confirms that Dalton McGuinty’s Education Minister told media on Wednesday that Catholic schools should not be teaching that abortion is wrong because it is a violation of the government’s newly-enacted anti-bullying bill.

[…]In her press conference, Minister Broten went beyond saying that Catholic schools cannot teach their pro-life beliefs, insinuating that they must actually adopt a “pro-choice” position. “We must ensure that women, young girls in our schools, especially highlighted during the week of the first ever Day of the Girl tomorrow, that young girls can make the choices that they make. This is not about being pro-abortion, it is about being pro-choice,” she stated.

A reporter pointed out that in the debates around Bill 13 there was no mention of abortion, and so asked why she had brought up the controversial bill.

“Bill 13 has in it a clear indication of ensuring that our schools are safe, accepting places for all our students,” she explained. “That includes of LGBTQ students. That includes young girls in our school. Bill 13 is about tackling misogyny, taking away a woman’s right to choose could arguably be one of the most misogynistic actions that one could take.”

“There are many, many families that send their children to Catholic school and choose that education for their children that also support a woman’s right to choose,” she continued. “And as I said, I don’t think that there is a contrast or a conflict between choosing a Catholic education for your children and supporting a woman’s right to choose.”

And reactions from pro-lifers:

Since LifeSiteNews first published the shocking comments Wednesday, they have ignited a firestorm of criticism from pro-life and faith leaders in both Canada and the U.S. and across denominational lines.

Dr. Margaret Somerville, the founding director of McGill University’s Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, called it an “appalling” violation of religious freedom. “If Bill 13 were interpreted in the way the Minister suggests, in my opinion, it would be unconstitutional as offending freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and free speech, as well as contrary to parents’ obligations and rights with respect to their children, and so on,” she told LifeSiteNews.

[…]Steve Phelan, communications director for the Virginia-based Human Life International, called it “a case of radical, secular leftists trying to take away the most basic rights of those with whom they disagree.”

William Saunders, Senior Vice-President of Legal Affairs for Americans United for Life, said the comments show the “totalitarian instincts” of pro-abortion politicians, but also stressed that “it can’t be misogynistic to oppose something that is so harmful to women, as many recent studies show.”

“That’s the dirty secret about abortion – how harmful it is to women; and so to suggest it’s misogynist is to completely miss the point,” he explained.

[…]Somerville said the Minister’s comments are a sign of abortion advocates’ desperation, which she sees as hopeful.

“The fact that they can’t discuss abortion shows how frightened they are that they cannot support their case in an open public square and get others to support it,” she said. “And now, if we take the Minister’s comments as an indicator, that fear seems to have increased: They don’t want to let anyone even disagree with them, indeed, they want to go further and have everyone ‘preach what they preach’ about abortion. So much for their stance of adopting so-called “progressive” values which is supposed to include their ideology of tolerance for diversity and manifest this in practice.”

Now, I am not a Roman Catholic. I am an evangelical Protestant Christian, and proud of it. But I do defend religious liberty for all. There is nothing that I hold to more strongly than religious liberty, the first and most precious of our American liberties. I think it is important for us here to look around the world and to see which groups are opposed to religious liberty and freedom of conscience. It’s not the conservatives. It’s the progressives. And that’s why we must never vote for them, for any reason. We have to defend that right, as a matter of the first importance – not just for us, but for everyone else, too.

It’s important for social conservatives to understand never to make common cause with those who support big government and the restriction of basic liberties. We need to embrace small government and fiscal conservatism so that government never gets powerful enough to take away our freedoms. For a start, government should not be in control of education at the federal level. As social conservatives, we should be promoting state and local control of education, right to work laws and school vouchers. There is a connection between fiscal policy and social policy that both sides need to understand.

Must-see videos on education policy

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After legalizing gay marriage, France set to ban ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from official documents

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From the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

France is set to ban the words “mother” and “father” from all official documents under controversial plans to legalise gay marriage.

The move… means only the word “parents” would be used in identical marriage ceremonies for all heterosexual and same-sex couples.

The draft law states that “marriage is a union of two people, of different or the same gender”.

It says all references to “mothers and fathers” in the civil code – which enshrines French law – will be swapped for simply “parents”.

The law would also give equal adoption rights to homosexual and heterosexual couples.

[…]President Francois Hollande pledged in his manifesto to legalise gay marriage. The draft law will be presented to his cabinet for approval on October 31.

Hollande is a socialist, just like Barack Obama, who also favors gay marriage, and infanticide, too. Not just abortion, infanticide.

This is not surprising – the same thing has been done in other countries, like Spain:

Ironically, the Socialist government claims that although it pushed through legislation to benefit a small minority of the population – and in the process changed the definition of marriage – that this could in no way be construed as an attack on the traditional family. Indeed, the government claims that it is in truth pro-family.

So now, jump fast forward to last Friday.

That’s when the Spanish government announced a ministerial order that new births would have to be registered at the State Civil Registries in the Family Book under the headings of Parent (progenitor) A, and Parent (progenitor) B.

In other words, the terms “Father” and “Mother” were to be no longer used.

In Spain, marriages, births and deaths are all recorded at Civil Registries, with most of those actions being noted in a Family Book (Libro de Familia). While the example isn’t perfect, think of the Family Book as an extended birth certificate.

Juan Fernando López Aguilar, Spanish Minister of Justice, excused the ministerial order by claiming since the government modified “the status of civil marriages, to allow the union of same-sex couples, it was necessary for a new format for the Family Book (Libro de Familia) and one that used terms such as “Parent A” and “Parent B” instead of “Father” and “Mother.”

That’s right. To match up it’s same-sex marriage legislation to the Civil Registry, the government deemed that Spaniards could no longer qualify themselves as either “Fathers” or “Mothers” of their children.

Canada does the same thing:

In Canada, they’ve already done this. Following the passing of the Civil Marriage Act, all official documentation and legislation was amended, erasing “husbands” and “wives”. And because same-sex couples primarily use reproductive technology to procreate, some Canadian legislation has been amended to replace the term “natural parent” with “legal parent”. As one report describes it: “In short, the adoption exception – that who is a child’s parent is established by legal fiat, not biological connection – becomes the norm for all children.” Most strikingly, on birth certificates some Canadian provinces have replaced the term “father” and “mother” with “Parent 1” and “Parent 2”.

That policy was put in place by the Liberal party, which is the socialist party in Canada, and with the full support of the communist party of Canada, the New Democrat Party.

It’s important to understand what effects these leftist, anti-family, anti-marriage policies have, especially on children. This is what Barack Obama and his socialist friends in other countries want. Leftists are anti-marriage and anti-family. They don’t like mothers and fathers raising children. They want the children to be alone in the world, and shuffled around to various people, and eventually raised by the state and brainwashed to serve the state. Feminism has so poisoned people against the traditional family – and especially the traditional male roles of protector, provider and moral/spiritual leader – that no one is willing to resist the push by socialists to destroy marriage and family.

Imagine being a child and growing up with no access to your biological mother or your biological father, or both of them. This is the horror that the left unleashes on little children, assuming they don’t murder you in the womb. As if it isn’t bad enough to push feminist policies like no-fault divorce and subsidized single motherhood, now they have to go even further. Let me be clear. We should be putting into place policies that promote the nuclear family – a mother and a father being chaste, marrying once for life, and having children who grow up in a loving, stable environment. We should not be promoting recreational sex and promiscuity as equivalent to marriage. Children deserve better.

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