Tag Archives: Government

News

Alison Redford opposes conscience rights for pro-life doctors and nurses

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Map of Canada
Map of Canada

I’m monitoring the exciting election in Alberta between radical leftist Alison Redford and moderate conservative/libertarian Danielle Smith. The Progressive Conservative party has been dominating the province for years, but their new leader Alison Redford is a liberal extremist on social policy and fiscal policy.

Take a look at Alison Redford’s radically pro-abortion and pro-gay-marriage views:

In a list of party principles approved at the Wildrose annual general meeting last year, members voted in a clause that reads: “Wildrose members believe the Government of Alberta should…implement legislation protecting the ‘conscience rights’ of health-care professionals.” Ms. Smith also told the Rocky Mountain Civil Liberties Association that “Wildrose will ensure conscience rights for marriage commissioners and health professionals,” according to a summary of candidate positions published by the association in August, 2011.

Ms. Redford, who opposes the notion of conscience rights, eagerly responded to a reporter when asked about it Wednesday, hoping it will cast the Wildrose as a hard-right party and win back supporters.

“I was very frightened to hear the discussion today.… I certainly respect people’s personal beliefs, but I believe in a province where we have to treat individuals with dignity and respect. We have to live in a community where we respect diversity and we understand that everyone feels safe and included,” Ms. Redford said.

She said doctors would be expected to prescribe birth control and perform abortions, regardless of personal beliefs, to ensure that “all of the unique families in this province have the opportunity to know that when they’re accessing services, they can trust those services can be provided. And when they take on professional responsibilities, I expect them to be able to meet those professional responsibilities. I think it’s a critical discussion in this election.”

[…]The Wildrose says conscience rights cases will be among those heard by justices in a new Human Rights Division of the Alberta provincial court. Anyone filing a complaint and needing legal aid will be referred to a roster of “human rights advocates.”

These advocates will have specialized training in human rights law and be in good standing with the Law Society of Alberta. The division will be funded with money currently used for the Alberta Human Rights Commission, which Wildrose plans to scrap.

Danielle Smith’s view is a moderate view – it’s more moderate than Redford’s leftist view.

On fiscal issues, Danielle Smith has proposed returning some of the money from budget surpluses to taxpayers, but the leftist Alison Redford opposes that.

Take a look at this column.

Excerpt:

[…]…Alison Redford wondered whether or not Albertans could be trusted to spend such bonuses wisely.

Redford and the tut-tutting experts reveal one thing with their criticisms: They believe all money belongs to governments and you and I should be grateful for whatever crumbs we are permitted to keep. If you cannot demonstrate you have a higher purpose for the money you earn than the schemes proposed by politicians, bureaucrats and academics, then you have no right to complain if government taxes away giant gobs of your income to spend on the “public good.”

On the other hand, the proposal by Smith to send each Albertan a cheque whenever the provincial budget is in surplus is an indication that Wildrose believes what you earn is yours and government should tax away only as much as is necessary to fund essential services. If a government finds itself with more money on its hands than it needs to cover the spending it budgeted for in a given year, it should be obliged to return the overage to taxpayers rather than rub its hands with glee and look for new ways to spend.

Again, Danielle’s view is a moderate view – it only returns money to taxpayers if there is a surplus. Redford, on the other hand, has been spending like a drunken sailor since she took office, and most Albertans I know think that tax increases are just around the corner.

The latest poll shows the Wildrose with a 13-point lead over the Alison Redford’s leftist Progressive Conservative party.

Details:

Wildrose: 43% (+10)

PC: 30% (-6)

Danielle Smith: 56% approve, 32% disapprove (57-30 in Calgary, 50-42 in Edmonton)

Alison Redford: 48% approve, 43% disapprove (45-45 in Calgary, 45-43 in Edmonton)

You can watch an interview about the election here.

Polemics

Is there a bullying epidemic against gay students?

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From the Lilley Pad – the blog of Canadian journalist Brian Lilley.

Excerpt:

We are being told it is part of a bullying epidemic, specifically an anti-gay bullying epidemic. We are told that suicide rates are huge.

Now the numbers don’t back this up.

We’ve talked before on this show that men between 35 and 54 are the most likely group to commit suicide, men in their 90s have among the highest success rates compared to attempts.

Teen boys, specifically gay teen boys killing themselves is tragic, just as every suicide is but it is not an epidemic.

Neither is there an epidemic of bullying in Canada or the United States.

In an op-ed in the Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal, Nick Gillespie detailed how bullying rates in the US have bounced from 28% of kids being bullied in 2005 to 32% in 2007 and then back down to 28% in 2009 the most recent year available.

Here in Canada the rate sits at about 25% of children reporting bullying, a number that has remained fairly steady and is similar to the 20-22% reported by a pair of academics who have studied this issue across Canada.

What are kids bullied about most often?

You would think from the news media that it is sexual orientation but it’s not.

Body image is by far the leader, followed by grades or marks, cultural background, language, gender, religion and then income.

So what is driving this?

I’d say it is an agenda and that agenda was on display last week at the Ontario Legislature.

We’ve discussed the attempt by the McGuinty government in Ontario to force Catholic schools to let kids set up and run their own gay-straight alliance clubs even though such a club would go against Catholic teaching.

Well now it is clear they don’t care. Liberal cabinet minister Glenn Murray selectively quoted from the Catholic Catechism last week. He read the part saying that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” a fancy way of saying they are not the normal way sex is performed. As a gay man Murray obviously would object to that and many of you might as well. But here’s what Murray said next that should worry everyone.

“I have to say to the bishops: ‘You’re not allowed to do that anymore.’”

He is now trying to dictate and bully a religion on what its doctrine should be.

He wants to tell Catholics what they can believe, what they can say, what they can teach.

You don’t need to be Catholic to be concerned that the Ontario government has gone from being co-parent to co-pastor as well.

Forget separation of church and state, in Ontario the McGuinty government will tell you what to believe in your house of worship.

Like the Redford government in Alberta trying to tell homeschooling parents and private schools what they could teach, even about faith, this is disturbing but not a surprising step for the progressive left.

At its heart, this is about control.

Read the whole thing.

Brian Lilley actually talked about this issue on Sun TV, with another Canadian conservative Michael Coren. The video is worth a look.

News

Government spending bankrupts our children and grandchildren

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Ohio conservative Jim Jordan speaks out for generations not yet born.

Excerpt:

Government spending at its current level is “immoral, wrong and unfair” to the future generations that will be left to pay off ever increasing amounts of debt, Rep. Jim Jordan, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee tells Newsmax.TV.

That’s why the new budget proposal the committee revealed on Tuesday is so much better than another GOP proposal put forward by Budget Committee chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan, he said.

“We have a debt that is bigger than our entire economy, a debt that’s bigger than our GDP,” said the Ohio congressman. “We have to talk straight with the American people and say we are now making interest payments of $230 billion a year and that is going to increase dramatically over the next 10 years to where interest payments will be bigger than what we currently spend on national defense.

“It is immoral, it is wrong, it is unfair for one generation to live for the moment, to spend for the moment and send the bill to our kids and our grandkids. That is just wrong.”

Jordan said one of the things that makes America great is the concept that each generation makes sacrifices so their children can have a better life than they had. “Each generation has done it for the next until now.

“For the first time in American history we have a generation of Americans living for the moment and saying, ‘That’s OK, and we will send the bill to someone else.’

“We need to make that case and spell out what happens if we don’t begin to fix it, that we will in fact have a debt crisis just like Greece, just like Italy, just like these other countries are facing today. That should not happen to the greatest country in the world and that’s what our budget would prevent.”

This is why we should not believe the Democrats when they tell us sob stories about need to spending more money “fore the children”. The only thing that the children will get from the Democrats is unemployment and debt.