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News

Conservative MP’s bill to repeal Section 13 moves to committee

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Canada 2011 Federal Election Seats
Canada 2011 Federal Election Results

Andrew sent me this article from the Chronicle Herald.

Excerpt:

To protect freedom of expression in Canada, sometimes you need a majority government in Ottawa.

That’s the moral of the story of a Conservative backbencher’s private member’s bill — which has now cleared second reading in the House of Commons and gone to committee — seeking to repeal Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Let’s recall the exact wording of that infamous clause. Hate messages, according to Section 13 (1), are communications “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”

In other words, if I were to write something critical about Islam, for example, and someone reading my column felt it “likely” that my words could provoke “contempt” towards Muslims, they could lodge a complaint against me with one of Canada’s government-created human rights commissions.

Truth would not be a defence. Neither would my intent. And the person complaining wouldn’t even have to be a Muslim.

That’s because, on top of the appallingly loose wording of this section of federal human rights law — a clause echoed in its provincial counterparts — any complaints are adjudicated by government-appointed tribunals, where the standard protections afforded any accused in a court of law don’t necessarily apply.

When complainants’ cases go forward, taxpayers pick up the tab. Meanwhile, those accused must pay to defend themselves out of their own pockets.

It’s a system ripe for abuse. And that’s exactly what has happened. We’ve seen comics fined for insulting hecklers (B.C. human rights tribunal), former publishers spend $100,000 in legal fees over three years to defend themselves for printing “offensive” cartoons (Alberta human rights commission), and Maclean’s magazine investigated by three human rights bodies (federal, Ontario and B.C.) for running an article on Muslim demographics in Europe.

The Conservatives have long opposed Section 13, but didn’t feel they had the support they needed from the other parties, as a minority government, to push the issue legislatively.

They also were concerned, with good reason, that some opponents might twist the issue for political advantage, slamming the Tories for being soft on hate.

Yes, Bill C-304, which aims to repeal Sections 13 and 54 (dealing with penalties under S.13), was put forward by Alberta MP Brian Storseth (Westlock-St. Paul) and is a private member’s bill, but the legislation has the justice minister’s endorsement. So there’s a good chance the bill will be back in the Commons this spring for final reading, then on to the Senate and, hopefully, passage and royal assent.

The bill, if made law, would take effect a year after receiving royal assent.

Canada does not protect free speech right now. Repealing Section 13 would be good, but Canada is not a good place for families to raise children. Even if they get Section 13 repealed, there is still the recent unanimous Supreme Court decision affirming that the provincial governments have a right to decide what children will believe – not parents. The Supreme Court was mostly selected by the previous Liberal governments.

News

Canadian Conservative MP Joe Oliver declares war on green radicals

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Canada 2011 Federal Election Seats
Canada 2011 Federal Election Seats

Terence Corcoran writes in the Financial Post about the Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver.

Excerpt:

Through most of 2011, Canadian energy officials in politics and industry watched with bewildered helplessness and some shock as Washington allowed environmentalists to seize control of TransCanada’s $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline issue. They stood by aghast as President Barack Obama, a captive of U.S. green activists and Hollywood movie stars, caved in to political pressure and postponed a decision to approve the project, a potential economic bonanza that promised to deliver thousands of jobs to Americans and billions of barrels of Canadian oil sands production to Texas.

No such green hijacking is going to take place in Canada, at least not without an official fight. On the eve of hearings, which begin Tuesday in Kitimat, B.C., into the $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline — to carry the same oil sands production from Alberta to the West Coast and on to China — the Harper government clearly aims to do what Barack Obama cannot or will not do in America, namely stand up to the growth-killing professional green movement.

It is a cliché in journalism to declare metaphorical wars at the drop of a news release. In this case, it looks like war is exactly what Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver launched Monday in an unprecedented open letter warning that Canada will not allow “environmental and other radical groups” to “hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.”

What a welcome war this is. Never before has a Canadian politician challenged the hitherto saintly protectors of the environment in such direct language. More importantly, Mr. Oliver took straight aim at a troubling trend in Canadian environmentalism — the foreign funding of Canadian green activist groups with the express purpose of shutting down Canadian resource development — first documented in the National Post by Vancouver investigative writer Vivian Krause.

“These groups,” said Mr. Oliver, “seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interests to undermine Canada’s national economic interest. They attract jet-setting celebrities with some of the largest personal carbon footprints in the world to lecture Canadians not to develop our natural resources.”

That’s one reason why the Canadian economy is booming.

We elected a President who gave $535 million to Solyndra, blocked the Keystone XL pipeline, placed a moratorium on Gulf oil drilling and subsidized the Chevy Volt to by $250,000 PER VEHICLE. Note that all of the Chevy Volts sold have now been recalled for repairs. We could have been like Canada, if only we had not elected environmentalists and socialists.

News

UK Liberal Democrats oppose tax breaks for getting married and staying married

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From the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

 In a speech designed to reassert the Liberal Democrats’ voice in government, the embattled Deputy Prime Minister will also set out his vision of an “Open Society” — in direct contrast to the Big Society trumpeted by David Cameron, the Prime Minister.

Tax breaks for married couples are a key demand of the Tory faithful and Mr Cameron has committed to their introduction before the next election. The issue has the potential to become a major source of friction within the Coalition in the New Year.

As Mr Clegg delivers his speech in Westminster on Sunday, a number of Tory MPs will meet David Gauke, the Treasury minister, to press the government to introduce the tax break for married couples as soon as possible. It means Mr Clegg is now in open disagreement with the senior Coalition partner on two major areas of policy — the marriage tax break and Europe.

In his speech to Demos, the Left-leaning think tank, Mr Clegg will say: “We should not take a particular version of the family institution, such as the 1950s model of suit-wearing, breadwinning dad and aproned, homemaking mother, and try and preserve it in aspic.

“That’s why Open Society Liberals and Big Society Conservatives will take a different view on a tax break for marriage. We can all agree that strong relationships between parents are important, but not agree that the state should use the tax system to encourage a particular family form.”

[…] Research has suggested that children brought up by two married parents living together are happier, fare better at school and are less likely to become heavily involved in alcohol, crime or drugs.

The Centre for Social Justice [CSJ], a pro-family think tank set up by Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said that just one in 11 married couples separated before their child’s fifth birthday, compared with a third of unmarried couples.

Gavin Poole, its executive director, said: “Nick Clegg’s stance flies in the face of all the evidence, completely ignoring national and international data demonstrating how important marriage is to the health and wellbeing of children and families.”

And this isn’t surprising – Obama has said the same thing about not preferring traditional marriage over other arrangements.

Excerpt:

President Obama has included homosexual couples raising children in a list of “American families” in a recent proclamation declaring Monday National Family Day.

“Whether children are raised by two parents, a single parent, grandparents, a same-sex couple, or a guardian,” said Obama in the proclamation, “families encourage us to do our best and enable us to accomplish great things.”

The president went on to encourage participation in Family Day by sharing an evening meal as a family unit.  “A strong nation is made up of strong families, and on this Family Day, we rededicate ourselves to ensuring that every American family has the chance to build a better, healthier future for themselves and their children,” he said.

The family day proclamation is in keeping with Obama’s oft-professed support for the homosexualist agenda.

When Obama proclaimed June “LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) Pride Month,” he reiterated that he supports several issues on the homosexual docket, including homosexual hate crime legislation, homosexual “affirmative action” in the workplace, allowing open homosexuals in the military, and adoption to homosexual couples.

During the same month, Obama signed a presidential memorandum extending spousal benefits to homosexual partners and other unmarried partners of federal employees.

It’s important to realize that the secular left, including our own Democrats here at home, are committed to the destruction of marriage. They support policies like sex education, single mother welfare, no-fault divorce, redefining marriage, and so on. They do not support traditional marriage. And they will oppose and and all incentives given to people who choose to marry and who choose to stay married. They do not care about providing children with a stable environment to grow up in, with a mother and a father who are biologically linked to the children. They would rather have more children growing up in poverty and exposed to violence, neglect and abuse than promote traditional marriage.

The secular left opposes traditional marriage for 2 reasons. First, they do not like the way that traditional marriage tends to lend itself to the man working and the woman staying at home – they want both people to work and pay taxes, so the parents are “equal” and they want the government feed and educate the children instead, so all the children are “equal”. Second, they do want to encourage “healthy attitudes” about sex, so that people who have sex before marriage do not feel guilty about it – since the school has told them that “everyone is doing it”. The left doesn’t want people who decide not to marry to feel bad about sex. They prefer to remove the moral boundaries that protect children.

In fact, if you are a woman, and you vote for the leftists, and you are wondering why you are not married, you should understand that the very policies you vote for are the policies that take away a man’s willingness to marry and his ability to perform the traditional obligations of a husband and father. He has no reason to commit in order to get sex – you’re giving him sex for free. And he has no money to provide for a family – he paid it all to the state in taxes. And he has no ability to lead on moral and spiritual issues – that’s all been beaten out of him in the public schools, where objective morality and theism are frowned on. Think before you vote.