The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
Compared to the people of the United States, we Canadians are far more generous in supporting the poor, the sick, the needy and other worthy causes, right?
Actually, that assumption is completely false. In a recent study of generosity in Canada and the United States, the Fraser Institute found that charitable donations amount to 1.67 per cent of aggregate income in the United States as compared to just 0.72 per cent in Canada.
This is not to suggest that Canadians are unusually stingy. In Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, reports that the people of the United States also give more than twice as much of their income to charity as the British and Dutch, almost three times as much as the French, more than five times as much as the Germans, and more than 10 times as much as the Italians.
As in Canada, so in every country of Western Europe, the percentage of personal income donated to charity is less than half the level in the United States. Why is that? Why are the peoples of Canada and Western Europe so much less generous than the people of the United States?
One prime factor is the extraordinarily high percentage of committed Christians in the United States. In a recent survey of attitudes in the countries of Europe and North America, the Pew Research Centre found that the proportion of the population for whom religion is “very important” amounts to 59 per cent in the United States as compared to just 30 per cent in Canada, 33 per cent in Britain, 27 per cent in Italy and a mere 11 per cent in France.
Brooks has found that there is a strong and specific correlation between religious faith and support for charity. He relates that: “All across Europe, we find that religious citizens are more than twice as likely to volunteer for charities and causes as secularists.”
In the United States, religious people who say they devote “a great deal of effort” to their spiritual lives are 42 percentage points more likely to contribute to charity than secularists who have little or no religious faith. Moreover, religious Americans do not just give to their churches: They are also significantly more likely than secular Americans to donate money and time to non-religious charities such as the United Way.
Brooks has also found a strong and specific correlation between political ideology and charity. In both the United States and Europe, conservatives who believe in limited government are far more likely to make charitable contributions than are liberals who think government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality.
Note the irony: Liberals who support the governmental redistribution of income are apt to deride conservatives as selfish, yet these liberals are far less likely than conservatives to donate their own time and money to help the poor and needy. Of course, there are subsets within both groups: For example, religious liberals are a lot more generous than secular conservatives.
Many of the liberals who give little or nothing to charity attempt to justify their selfishness on the ground that government is more effective than private charity at redistributing income. Perhaps so, but at what cost? When Bob Rae’s New Democratic Party government of Ontario increased welfare benefits in the middle of a recession at the beginning of the 1990s, the predictable result was a crisis of soaring welfare dependency that demoralized thousands of workers and disrupted their families.
Brooks persuasively argues that the combination of relatively small government and high rates of charitable givings has contributed to the extraordinary economic prosperity and relatively high living standards for all income classes in the United States. And he also contends that it’s no coincidence that unlike Canada and Europe, the United States, the world’s most Christian and conservative democracy, has avoided a calamitous drop in birth rates.
Canadians might well meditate upon Brooks’s findings: Perhaps, with more religious conviction and less reliance on big government, we, too, might also become more generous, more prosperous and less reliant on massive levels of immigration to sustain the population.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Recipients disgrace the Order of Canada
The Interim
By Rory Leishman
Governor General Michaelle Jean outraged many Canadians on June 29, by announcing the appointment of the Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes to the Order of Canada. Hawkes is not only the longstanding pastor of Toronto’s Metropolitan Community Church but also one of the foremost gay activists in Canada and a leading proponent of same-sex marriage.
Several critics of the appointment directed their ire at Prime Minister Stephen Harper. That was a mistake. In making appointments to the Order of Canada, the Governor General must act upon the recommendations of an independent advisory council headed by the Chief Justice of Canada.
In addition to the Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada, the advisory council includes five other ex officio members as well as five temporary members who are nominated by the ex officio members of the Council and appointed by the Governor General for a three-year term. Of the 11 persons currently serving on the Advisory Council, the great majority were chosen directly or indirectly by previous Liberal governments.
The appointment of Hawkes is not the only recent controversy engendered by the Order of Canada. In February, Jean conferred the honour on Michele Landsberg, a radical feminist, left-wing journalist and one of the most notorious proponents of abortion on demand in Canada.
Moreover, Jean and the Advisory Committee considered Landsberg worthy to serve not just as an ordinary Member, but as an Officer of the Order of Canada. Four years earlier, Landsberg’s husband, Stephen Lewis, the former leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, was appointed to the highest rank of Companion of the Order of Canada.
In the latest notice of appointments, both former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien and former Reform Party leader Preston Manning have also been designated as Companions of the Order of Canada. In Manning’s case, the distinction is well deserved and most exceptional. Over the past 40 years, few of the social activists among the more than 5,000 Canadians who have been appointed to the Order of Canada have been social conservatives. The overwhelming majority have been liberals and left-wingers.
Notably missing from the ranks of the Order of Canada are such distinguished Canadians as Jim Hughes, leader of the Campaign Life Coalition; Gwen Landolt, National Vice-President of RealWomen of Canada; William Gairdner, author, professor, philanthropist and champion of the natural family; and Dr. L. L. (Barrie) deVeber, who, among a long list of distinctions, is President of The Euthanasia Coalition of Ontario, and Founding President of The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research.
It’s appropriate that many recipients of the Order of Canada are ordinary Canadians who have been recognized for “a lifetime of distinguished service in or to a particular community, group or field of activity.” Who, though, could better qualify for such a distinction than Joanne Dieleman, former director of Aid to Women, a crisis-pregnancy centre located next to an abortuary in downtown Toronto?
Despite having eight children of her own and caring for innumerable foster children, Dieleman found the time and energy over the past 25 years to provide counseling, emotional and financial assistance to women troubled by a crisis pregnancy. During 19 of these years, Dieleman served as the unpaid director of Aid to Women. Altogether, she is credited with helping to save the lives of 1,500 babies.
That Dieleman and others like her have not been named to the Order of Canada is scandalous. At the least, the House of Commons Government Operations Committee should bring McLachlin and her colleagues on the Advisory Council to account before an open hearing and grill them on their biased recommendations for Order of Canada appointments. Most especially, members of the Committee should admonish the Advisory Council to stop discriminating against distinguished Canadians who uphold the natural family and the sanctity of human life.
Given the dominance of transgressive liberals and leftists in Parliament, no such hearing is likely any time soon. Regardless, the failure of the Governor General to appoint principled Canadians like Dieleman to the Order of Canada in recognition of their outstanding service will in no way impair their heroic determination to go on fulfilling their duty to do the right as God gives them to see the right.
By Rory Leishman
Governor General Michaelle Jean outraged many Canadians on June 29, by announcing the appointment of the Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes to the Order of Canada. Hawkes is not only the longstanding pastor of Toronto’s Metropolitan Community Church but also one of the foremost gay activists in Canada and a leading proponent of same-sex marriage.
Several critics of the appointment directed their ire at Prime Minister Stephen Harper. That was a mistake. In making appointments to the Order of Canada, the Governor General must act upon the recommendations of an independent advisory council headed by the Chief Justice of Canada.
In addition to the Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada, the advisory council includes five other ex officio members as well as five temporary members who are nominated by the ex officio members of the Council and appointed by the Governor General for a three-year term. Of the 11 persons currently serving on the Advisory Council, the great majority were chosen directly or indirectly by previous Liberal governments.
The appointment of Hawkes is not the only recent controversy engendered by the Order of Canada. In February, Jean conferred the honour on Michele Landsberg, a radical feminist, left-wing journalist and one of the most notorious proponents of abortion on demand in Canada.
Moreover, Jean and the Advisory Committee considered Landsberg worthy to serve not just as an ordinary Member, but as an Officer of the Order of Canada. Four years earlier, Landsberg’s husband, Stephen Lewis, the former leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, was appointed to the highest rank of Companion of the Order of Canada.
In the latest notice of appointments, both former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien and former Reform Party leader Preston Manning have also been designated as Companions of the Order of Canada. In Manning’s case, the distinction is well deserved and most exceptional. Over the past 40 years, few of the social activists among the more than 5,000 Canadians who have been appointed to the Order of Canada have been social conservatives. The overwhelming majority have been liberals and left-wingers.
Notably missing from the ranks of the Order of Canada are such distinguished Canadians as Jim Hughes, leader of the Campaign Life Coalition; Gwen Landolt, National Vice-President of RealWomen of Canada; William Gairdner, author, professor, philanthropist and champion of the natural family; and Dr. L. L. (Barrie) deVeber, who, among a long list of distinctions, is President of The Euthanasia Coalition of Ontario, and Founding President of The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research.
It’s appropriate that many recipients of the Order of Canada are ordinary Canadians who have been recognized for “a lifetime of distinguished service in or to a particular community, group or field of activity.” Who, though, could better qualify for such a distinction than Joanne Dieleman, former director of Aid to Women, a crisis-pregnancy centre located next to an abortuary in downtown Toronto?
Despite having eight children of her own and caring for innumerable foster children, Dieleman found the time and energy over the past 25 years to provide counseling, emotional and financial assistance to women troubled by a crisis pregnancy. During 19 of these years, Dieleman served as the unpaid director of Aid to Women. Altogether, she is credited with helping to save the lives of 1,500 babies.
That Dieleman and others like her have not been named to the Order of Canada is scandalous. At the least, the House of Commons Government Operations Committee should bring McLachlin and her colleagues on the Advisory Council to account before an open hearing and grill them on their biased recommendations for Order of Canada appointments. Most especially, members of the Committee should admonish the Advisory Council to stop discriminating against distinguished Canadians who uphold the natural family and the sanctity of human life.
Given the dominance of transgressive liberals and leftists in Parliament, no such hearing is likely any time soon. Regardless, the failure of the Governor General to appoint principled Canadians like Dieleman to the Order of Canada in recognition of their outstanding service will in no way impair their heroic determination to go on fulfilling their duty to do the right as God gives them to see the right.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Worthy candidates for the Order of Canada
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
On June 29, Governor General Michaelle Jean announced the appointment of the Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes to the Order of Canada. He is the pastor of Toronto’s Metropolitan Community Church and one of the foremost proponents of same-sex marriage in Canada.
Earlier this year, Jean also invested Michele Landsberg into the Order of Canada, not as an ordinary Member like Hawkes, but with the higher rank of an Officer. Landsberg is a radical feminist, left-wing journalist and one of the most notorious proponents of abortion on demand in Canada.
Critics of these appointments should direct their ire not at Prime Minister Stephen Harper but at Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada. She is the ex officio head of the advisory council that recommends Order of Canada recipients to the Governor General.
Jean has also recently designated former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien and former Reform Party leader Preston Manning as Companions of the Order of Canada. In Manning’s case, the distinction is both well deserved and most exceptional. Over the past 40 years, few of the social activists among the more than 5,000 recipients of the Order of Canada have been social conservatives: The overwhelming majority have been liberals and left-wingers.
Notably missing from the ranks of the Order of Canada are eminent Canadians like Dr. L. L. (Barrie) deVeber, Professor Emeritus in Paediatrics and Oncology at the University of Western Ontario. He is also the former director of the Pediatric Hematology and Oncology program at the Children’s Hospital of Western Ontario.
DeVeber is an internationally recognized pioneer in palliative paediatric dare and currently serves as the President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of Ontario. He is also the Founding President of The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research, an organization previously known as the Human Life Research Institute that was renamed in his honour in 1996.
As President of Alliance for Life Canada in May, 1975, deVeber presented a petition with more than one million signatures to Parliament, requesting legal protection for the life of the unborn. As a medical researcher, professor, clinician and community volunteer, deVeber ranks among the most accomplished of contemporary Canadians. Yet he holds no rank whatever in the Order of Canada.
Among the many other prominent social conservatives who richly deserve the Order of Canada is Salim Mansur, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario. He is internationally renowned as an outspoken Muslim champion of freedom and democracy.
Mansur has frequently appeared on network television and written extensively for newspapers and magazines in Canada and the United States, including National Review, the Middle East Forum and Frontpagemag. He is a founder of the Washington-based Centre for Islamic Pluralism; a member of the academic council for the Centre for Security Policy, also based in Washington, DC; and a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies.
In February, 2006, Mansur teamed up with David Frum for a debate in Doha, Qatar, with two apologists for Hamas that was broadcast internationally on the BBC. Salim acquitted himself well, forthrightly denouncing the anti-Semitism and terrorism of Hamas. For his impartial advocacy of justice for both Arabs and Israelis, Mansur received a “Profile in Courage” award at a national meeting of the American Jewish Congress in Los Angeles in September.
Granted, not everyone admires Mansur. In a letter in November to UWO President Paul Davenport, Mohammed Elmasry, National President of the Canadian Islamic Congress, denounced Mansur for having allegedly published opinion-based columns that “consistently denigrate Islam and Muslims” and “are filled with hate-literature expressions.”
Elmasry is hardly in a position to level such charges. In 2004, he was subjected to a hate-crime investigation, (albeit never charged), by the Halton Regional Police for having stated on the Michael Coren television program that all Israeli citizens over the age of 18 are fair targets for assassination by Palestinian suicide bombers.
Like Mansur, deVeber also has his critics. Nonetheless, as exemplars of the courage, integrity and moral convictions that are essential to the peace, prosperity and very survival of Canada as a free and democratic county, both deVeber and Mansur clearly rank among the distinguished Canadians who eminently deserve the Order of Canada.
By Rory Leishman
On June 29, Governor General Michaelle Jean announced the appointment of the Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes to the Order of Canada. He is the pastor of Toronto’s Metropolitan Community Church and one of the foremost proponents of same-sex marriage in Canada.
Earlier this year, Jean also invested Michele Landsberg into the Order of Canada, not as an ordinary Member like Hawkes, but with the higher rank of an Officer. Landsberg is a radical feminist, left-wing journalist and one of the most notorious proponents of abortion on demand in Canada.
Critics of these appointments should direct their ire not at Prime Minister Stephen Harper but at Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada. She is the ex officio head of the advisory council that recommends Order of Canada recipients to the Governor General.
Jean has also recently designated former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien and former Reform Party leader Preston Manning as Companions of the Order of Canada. In Manning’s case, the distinction is both well deserved and most exceptional. Over the past 40 years, few of the social activists among the more than 5,000 recipients of the Order of Canada have been social conservatives: The overwhelming majority have been liberals and left-wingers.
Notably missing from the ranks of the Order of Canada are eminent Canadians like Dr. L. L. (Barrie) deVeber, Professor Emeritus in Paediatrics and Oncology at the University of Western Ontario. He is also the former director of the Pediatric Hematology and Oncology program at the Children’s Hospital of Western Ontario.
DeVeber is an internationally recognized pioneer in palliative paediatric dare and currently serves as the President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of Ontario. He is also the Founding President of The deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research, an organization previously known as the Human Life Research Institute that was renamed in his honour in 1996.
As President of Alliance for Life Canada in May, 1975, deVeber presented a petition with more than one million signatures to Parliament, requesting legal protection for the life of the unborn. As a medical researcher, professor, clinician and community volunteer, deVeber ranks among the most accomplished of contemporary Canadians. Yet he holds no rank whatever in the Order of Canada.
Among the many other prominent social conservatives who richly deserve the Order of Canada is Salim Mansur, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario. He is internationally renowned as an outspoken Muslim champion of freedom and democracy.
Mansur has frequently appeared on network television and written extensively for newspapers and magazines in Canada and the United States, including National Review, the Middle East Forum and Frontpagemag. He is a founder of the Washington-based Centre for Islamic Pluralism; a member of the academic council for the Centre for Security Policy, also based in Washington, DC; and a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies.
In February, 2006, Mansur teamed up with David Frum for a debate in Doha, Qatar, with two apologists for Hamas that was broadcast internationally on the BBC. Salim acquitted himself well, forthrightly denouncing the anti-Semitism and terrorism of Hamas. For his impartial advocacy of justice for both Arabs and Israelis, Mansur received a “Profile in Courage” award at a national meeting of the American Jewish Congress in Los Angeles in September.
Granted, not everyone admires Mansur. In a letter in November to UWO President Paul Davenport, Mohammed Elmasry, National President of the Canadian Islamic Congress, denounced Mansur for having allegedly published opinion-based columns that “consistently denigrate Islam and Muslims” and “are filled with hate-literature expressions.”
Elmasry is hardly in a position to level such charges. In 2004, he was subjected to a hate-crime investigation, (albeit never charged), by the Halton Regional Police for having stated on the Michael Coren television program that all Israeli citizens over the age of 18 are fair targets for assassination by Palestinian suicide bombers.
Like Mansur, deVeber also has his critics. Nonetheless, as exemplars of the courage, integrity and moral convictions that are essential to the peace, prosperity and very survival of Canada as a free and democratic county, both deVeber and Mansur clearly rank among the distinguished Canadians who eminently deserve the Order of Canada.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
McGuinty flouts the Pope
Catholic Insight
By Rory Leishman
In an exchange with reporters on May 15, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty repudiated the admonition of Pope Benedict XVI that Catholic politicians are no less obligated than all other people to uphold the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. "I have a different constituency than does the Pope,” said McGuinty. “I am responsible for representing all kinds of people from all kinds of different backgrounds, different faiths, different cultures, different traditions."
McGuinty added: “There’s one particular aspect of myself that is in common with the Pope … I happen to be Catholic.” Is that right? How can anyone claim to be Catholic while defying the most solemn pronouncements of the Church on fundamental principles of morality?
McGuinty, of course, is not alone in taking this self-serving stance. Numerous other Catholic politicians have done the same. In a press conference on May 9, Pope Benedict singled out the Catholic politicians in Mexico who recently voted to legalize abortion during the first 12 weeks of life. Benedict noted that in approving this law, these legislators had excommunicated themselves, because “the killing of an innocent human child is incompatible with being in communion with the body of Christ.”
In response to this statement, McGuinty has, in effect, accused the Pope of violating the separation of church and state. The charge is groundless. The Pope has never issued any instructions to the legislatures of Mexico, Canada, Ontario or any other jurisdiction. He has simply reminded Catholic politicians of their Christian duty to oppose abortion and uphold the sanctity of human life.
McGuinty presumes to disagree. Notwithstanding the Pope’s instruction, he contends that he has an overriding duty as a politician to pander to the people even when their wishes violate the teaching of the Catholic Church on the most profoundly important moral issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Just how far, though, would McGuinty take this argument? Peter Singer, the notorious professor of ethics at Princeton University, argues that the law should permit a medical doctor to kill a severely handicapped newborn infant at the request of the child’s parents. According to McGuinty’s logic, if the majority of the people of Ontario were to embrace this perverse notion, he would be morally obligated as a political leader also to favour infanticide.
That’s plainly absurd. Surely, there must be some vitally important moral principles that McGuinty would not violate for the purpose of gaining and retaining political power.
On one point, McGuinty is right: He and the Pope have different responsibilities. While the Pope has a duty to expound the fundamental principles of the natural moral law, it’s up to legislators like McGuinty to translate those principles into state laws and public policy.
Instead, McGuinty has become a law unto himself. He flouts the fundamental moral teachings of the Catholic Church.
Pope John Paul II clearly spelled out the position of the Church on abortion in his definitive encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life). In remarks directed specifically to legislators, John Paul stated: “When it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality.”
In Canada, only Parliament can outlaw abortion through an amendment to the federal criminal code. However, the provincial legislatures could at least limit the number of abortions by such measures as defunding the death-dealing procedure, introducing parental notification laws and requiring a mother to see an ultrasound recording of her baby in the womb before consenting to an abortion.
What, though, has McGuinty done to curb abortion on demand in Ontario? Absolutely nothing. He has not even made clear his absolute personal opposition to abortion both as a private individual and a public legislator.
That’s shameful. McGuinty might still be a Catholic, but according to no less an authority than Pope Benedict XVI, he and other likewise errant Catholic politicians are not entitled to approach the Eucharist until they sincerely repent for their complicity in the evil of abortion.
By Rory Leishman
In an exchange with reporters on May 15, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty repudiated the admonition of Pope Benedict XVI that Catholic politicians are no less obligated than all other people to uphold the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. "I have a different constituency than does the Pope,” said McGuinty. “I am responsible for representing all kinds of people from all kinds of different backgrounds, different faiths, different cultures, different traditions."
McGuinty added: “There’s one particular aspect of myself that is in common with the Pope … I happen to be Catholic.” Is that right? How can anyone claim to be Catholic while defying the most solemn pronouncements of the Church on fundamental principles of morality?
McGuinty, of course, is not alone in taking this self-serving stance. Numerous other Catholic politicians have done the same. In a press conference on May 9, Pope Benedict singled out the Catholic politicians in Mexico who recently voted to legalize abortion during the first 12 weeks of life. Benedict noted that in approving this law, these legislators had excommunicated themselves, because “the killing of an innocent human child is incompatible with being in communion with the body of Christ.”
In response to this statement, McGuinty has, in effect, accused the Pope of violating the separation of church and state. The charge is groundless. The Pope has never issued any instructions to the legislatures of Mexico, Canada, Ontario or any other jurisdiction. He has simply reminded Catholic politicians of their Christian duty to oppose abortion and uphold the sanctity of human life.
McGuinty presumes to disagree. Notwithstanding the Pope’s instruction, he contends that he has an overriding duty as a politician to pander to the people even when their wishes violate the teaching of the Catholic Church on the most profoundly important moral issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Just how far, though, would McGuinty take this argument? Peter Singer, the notorious professor of ethics at Princeton University, argues that the law should permit a medical doctor to kill a severely handicapped newborn infant at the request of the child’s parents. According to McGuinty’s logic, if the majority of the people of Ontario were to embrace this perverse notion, he would be morally obligated as a political leader also to favour infanticide.
That’s plainly absurd. Surely, there must be some vitally important moral principles that McGuinty would not violate for the purpose of gaining and retaining political power.
On one point, McGuinty is right: He and the Pope have different responsibilities. While the Pope has a duty to expound the fundamental principles of the natural moral law, it’s up to legislators like McGuinty to translate those principles into state laws and public policy.
Instead, McGuinty has become a law unto himself. He flouts the fundamental moral teachings of the Catholic Church.
Pope John Paul II clearly spelled out the position of the Church on abortion in his definitive encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life). In remarks directed specifically to legislators, John Paul stated: “When it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality.”
In Canada, only Parliament can outlaw abortion through an amendment to the federal criminal code. However, the provincial legislatures could at least limit the number of abortions by such measures as defunding the death-dealing procedure, introducing parental notification laws and requiring a mother to see an ultrasound recording of her baby in the womb before consenting to an abortion.
What, though, has McGuinty done to curb abortion on demand in Ontario? Absolutely nothing. He has not even made clear his absolute personal opposition to abortion both as a private individual and a public legislator.
That’s shameful. McGuinty might still be a Catholic, but according to no less an authority than Pope Benedict XVI, he and other likewise errant Catholic politicians are not entitled to approach the Eucharist until they sincerely repent for their complicity in the evil of abortion.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Violent dimensions of marital breakdown
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
The shocking death by murder suicide of two London police officers earlier this month has underlined once again that no Canadians are immune to the potentially violent consequences of a breakdown in marital relations. However, the extent of spousal homicide in Canada should not be exaggerated. The fact is that such tragic and deplorable crimes are rare, and getting rarer.
In a study published last year by Statistics Canada, Melanie Kowalskir eported that there were only 74 spousal homicides in all of Canada during 2004. Moreover, the rate of spousal homicides in 2004 was just 4.3 per one million spouses, down 16 per cent from 2000.
While most of the perpetratorswere male, fully 20 per cent were female. Common law spouses are especially at risk. According to Statistics Canada, they comprised just 13 per cent of spousal relationships, yet accounted forno less than 40 per cent of all spousal homicides between 1994 and 2004.
Of course, spousal homicide is only a small, albeit extreme, part of the overall issue of spousal violence. To get an accurate understanding of the full extent of the problem, Statistics Canada conducted a massive General Social Survey (GSS) on Victimization in 1999. This study, the most definitive ever conducted on family violence in Canada, was based on arandom sample of approximately 24,000 Canadian men and women aged 15 and over.
The results were startling. Although government and the mass media concentrated then, as they continue to do now, almost exclusively on spousal violence against women, Statistics Canada found in this study that men are hardly less likely than women to be victims of spousal violence. Specifically, Statistics Canada reports: “Results from the 1999 GSS found that eight per cent of women and seven per cent of men who were married or living common-law experienced some type of spousal violence in the past five years.” A follow-up survey in 2004 produced similar results, although the number of victims had marginally declined by about 47,000 among women and 4,000 among men.
The GSS surveys have also found that men and women vary in the kind of spousal violence they experience. For example, far more men than women say they have been kicked, bitten, hit or slapped by a spouse, whereas far more women than men say they have been beaten, choked or sexually assaulted in a spousal attack.
Women are also more likely than men to use a weapon in a spousal fight. However, given the superior physical strength of men, it’s not surprising that women usually come out the worse in spousal brawls. The 2004 GSS survey found that 13 per cent of the female victims of spousal abuse, compared to only two per cent of the men, said they had sought medical attention for aninjury inflicted in a violent altercation with their spouse.
This same survey also indicated that spousal violence is more than “twice as common among homosexual couples compared with heterosexual couples.” Studies in other countries have come to similar conclusions. In 2003, the British Journal of Psychiatry reported that a representative, cross-sectional survey of men and women in England and Wales had found that “38 per cent of the gay men and 31 per cent of the lesbians admitted having been physically attacked during the preceding five years.”
Altogether, the data from Canada and elsewhere indicate that people living in common law marriages and same-sex unions are far more likely than legally married couples to become embroiled in spousal violence. Why is that?
A large part of the explanation is that common law relationships and same sex unions are much more prone to breakdown than are legally married unions.It is during the period when an intimate sexual relationship is breakingapart that tensions between the couples tend to escalate and the risks of spousal violence become the most acute.
Here, then, is one among many good reasons for Canadians to avoid informal sexual liaisons outside of marriage: There is overwhelming statistical evidence to prove that legally married husbands and wives who fulfil their wedding vows to love and cherish each other in a sexually exclusive relationship are exceedingly unlikely to experience spousal homicide or any other form of domestic violence.
By Rory Leishman
The shocking death by murder suicide of two London police officers earlier this month has underlined once again that no Canadians are immune to the potentially violent consequences of a breakdown in marital relations. However, the extent of spousal homicide in Canada should not be exaggerated. The fact is that such tragic and deplorable crimes are rare, and getting rarer.
In a study published last year by Statistics Canada, Melanie Kowalskir eported that there were only 74 spousal homicides in all of Canada during 2004. Moreover, the rate of spousal homicides in 2004 was just 4.3 per one million spouses, down 16 per cent from 2000.
While most of the perpetratorswere male, fully 20 per cent were female. Common law spouses are especially at risk. According to Statistics Canada, they comprised just 13 per cent of spousal relationships, yet accounted forno less than 40 per cent of all spousal homicides between 1994 and 2004.
Of course, spousal homicide is only a small, albeit extreme, part of the overall issue of spousal violence. To get an accurate understanding of the full extent of the problem, Statistics Canada conducted a massive General Social Survey (GSS) on Victimization in 1999. This study, the most definitive ever conducted on family violence in Canada, was based on arandom sample of approximately 24,000 Canadian men and women aged 15 and over.
The results were startling. Although government and the mass media concentrated then, as they continue to do now, almost exclusively on spousal violence against women, Statistics Canada found in this study that men are hardly less likely than women to be victims of spousal violence. Specifically, Statistics Canada reports: “Results from the 1999 GSS found that eight per cent of women and seven per cent of men who were married or living common-law experienced some type of spousal violence in the past five years.” A follow-up survey in 2004 produced similar results, although the number of victims had marginally declined by about 47,000 among women and 4,000 among men.
The GSS surveys have also found that men and women vary in the kind of spousal violence they experience. For example, far more men than women say they have been kicked, bitten, hit or slapped by a spouse, whereas far more women than men say they have been beaten, choked or sexually assaulted in a spousal attack.
Women are also more likely than men to use a weapon in a spousal fight. However, given the superior physical strength of men, it’s not surprising that women usually come out the worse in spousal brawls. The 2004 GSS survey found that 13 per cent of the female victims of spousal abuse, compared to only two per cent of the men, said they had sought medical attention for aninjury inflicted in a violent altercation with their spouse.
This same survey also indicated that spousal violence is more than “twice as common among homosexual couples compared with heterosexual couples.” Studies in other countries have come to similar conclusions. In 2003, the British Journal of Psychiatry reported that a representative, cross-sectional survey of men and women in England and Wales had found that “38 per cent of the gay men and 31 per cent of the lesbians admitted having been physically attacked during the preceding five years.”
Altogether, the data from Canada and elsewhere indicate that people living in common law marriages and same-sex unions are far more likely than legally married couples to become embroiled in spousal violence. Why is that?
A large part of the explanation is that common law relationships and same sex unions are much more prone to breakdown than are legally married unions.It is during the period when an intimate sexual relationship is breakingapart that tensions between the couples tend to escalate and the risks of spousal violence become the most acute.
Here, then, is one among many good reasons for Canadians to avoid informal sexual liaisons outside of marriage: There is overwhelming statistical evidence to prove that legally married husbands and wives who fulfil their wedding vows to love and cherish each other in a sexually exclusive relationship are exceedingly unlikely to experience spousal homicide or any other form of domestic violence.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
A user-pay solution to traffic congestion
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
Over the past 40 years, London, like every other city in Canada, has been on a road-building spree: Virtually every major artery has been significantlyexpanded, yet the traffic congestion is worse than ever. What can be done?
It’s evident that simply building and expanding ever more roads and streets in growing cities like London will not solve the problem. Experience from around the world suggests that no amount of road construction can keep pace with the rapidly increasing numbers of cars in countries that are blessed with sustained economic growth.
Some environmentalists contend that a hefty increase in gasoline taxes would eliminate traffic congestion, although there is no evidence to support this contention. Throughout Western Europe, many cities are plagued with massive traffic jams, despite modern roads and gasoline taxes that are more than two and three times higher than in Canada.
Many cities in Europe and North America have found that a combination of reduced fares and better service for mass transit can persuade some commuters to abandon their cars, but not nearly enough to end traffic jams. It’s a safe bet that even if mass transit were free, a large proportion of urban commuters would still prefer to travel directly to their homes,workplaces and other destinations by automobile despite the inconvenience of traffic jams.
Commuters are all the more likely to travel by automobile, when it’s not they, themselves, but the entire community that has to pay much of the costs for traffic congestion in the form of higher greenhouse gas emissions as well as expensive delays in moving people and merchandise. Moreover, these costs are not at all trivial. Transport Canada recently estimated that traffic delays cost nine large urban areas more than $3 billion annually.
What, then, can be done? Robert Lindsey, a professor of economics at the University of Alberta, commends the solution advanced by Ken Livingston, the socialist mayor of London, England, who is popularly known as “Red Ken.” In an illuminating commentary for the C. D. Howe Institute entitled “Congestion Relief: Assessing the Case for Road Tolls in Canada,” Lindsey points out that Livingston first invested in additional transit buses during his inaugural term in office and then, in February, 2003, levied a new system of road tolls called the London Congestion Charge on motorists driving into a 21-square kilometer area in the centre of the city between 7:00 am and 6:30 pm on weekdays.
Vehicles entering this core area are identified by cameras like those used on Toronto’s 407 toll road that automatically photographs the licence plates of passing vehicles. This efficient system is a considerable money maker. Under terms of the Greater London Authority Act, all of the revenues generated by the London Congestion Charge must be used to improve the city’s network of roads, streets and facilities for mass transit.
So far, Livingstone’s initiative has proven to be hugely successful. Both traffic congestion and automobile pollution have been considerably reduced. And virtually all in the city have benefited: Everyone who still drives into the heart of the city encounters fewer traffic jams, while all others enjoy the advantages of improved mass transit, including faster bus service on congestion-free roads and streets.
Of course, a system that works for a vast metropolis like London, England, might not be suitable for many smaller cities. However, Lindsey points out in his commentary that over the past 20 years, the Norwegian cities of Bergen and Trondheim – both less than half the size of London, Ontario –have also come up with systems for charging motorists entering into their downtown areas that have been successful in reducing congestion, cutting pollution and raising considerable revenues for improving urban transportation and financing environmental projects.
Lindsey makes a compelling case in his commentary for having Canada’s largest cities -- Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver – experiment with roadtolls. Politicians and city engineers in smaller cities like London, Ontario, should also give serious consideration to this idea.
Make the polluter pay is a sound principle. And there is no better way to make car drivers pay for their pollution than through a system of road tolls that are well calculated to cut greenhouse gas emissions and ease traffic congestion.
By Rory Leishman
Over the past 40 years, London, like every other city in Canada, has been on a road-building spree: Virtually every major artery has been significantlyexpanded, yet the traffic congestion is worse than ever. What can be done?
It’s evident that simply building and expanding ever more roads and streets in growing cities like London will not solve the problem. Experience from around the world suggests that no amount of road construction can keep pace with the rapidly increasing numbers of cars in countries that are blessed with sustained economic growth.
Some environmentalists contend that a hefty increase in gasoline taxes would eliminate traffic congestion, although there is no evidence to support this contention. Throughout Western Europe, many cities are plagued with massive traffic jams, despite modern roads and gasoline taxes that are more than two and three times higher than in Canada.
Many cities in Europe and North America have found that a combination of reduced fares and better service for mass transit can persuade some commuters to abandon their cars, but not nearly enough to end traffic jams. It’s a safe bet that even if mass transit were free, a large proportion of urban commuters would still prefer to travel directly to their homes,workplaces and other destinations by automobile despite the inconvenience of traffic jams.
Commuters are all the more likely to travel by automobile, when it’s not they, themselves, but the entire community that has to pay much of the costs for traffic congestion in the form of higher greenhouse gas emissions as well as expensive delays in moving people and merchandise. Moreover, these costs are not at all trivial. Transport Canada recently estimated that traffic delays cost nine large urban areas more than $3 billion annually.
What, then, can be done? Robert Lindsey, a professor of economics at the University of Alberta, commends the solution advanced by Ken Livingston, the socialist mayor of London, England, who is popularly known as “Red Ken.” In an illuminating commentary for the C. D. Howe Institute entitled “Congestion Relief: Assessing the Case for Road Tolls in Canada,” Lindsey points out that Livingston first invested in additional transit buses during his inaugural term in office and then, in February, 2003, levied a new system of road tolls called the London Congestion Charge on motorists driving into a 21-square kilometer area in the centre of the city between 7:00 am and 6:30 pm on weekdays.
Vehicles entering this core area are identified by cameras like those used on Toronto’s 407 toll road that automatically photographs the licence plates of passing vehicles. This efficient system is a considerable money maker. Under terms of the Greater London Authority Act, all of the revenues generated by the London Congestion Charge must be used to improve the city’s network of roads, streets and facilities for mass transit.
So far, Livingstone’s initiative has proven to be hugely successful. Both traffic congestion and automobile pollution have been considerably reduced. And virtually all in the city have benefited: Everyone who still drives into the heart of the city encounters fewer traffic jams, while all others enjoy the advantages of improved mass transit, including faster bus service on congestion-free roads and streets.
Of course, a system that works for a vast metropolis like London, England, might not be suitable for many smaller cities. However, Lindsey points out in his commentary that over the past 20 years, the Norwegian cities of Bergen and Trondheim – both less than half the size of London, Ontario –have also come up with systems for charging motorists entering into their downtown areas that have been successful in reducing congestion, cutting pollution and raising considerable revenues for improving urban transportation and financing environmental projects.
Lindsey makes a compelling case in his commentary for having Canada’s largest cities -- Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver – experiment with roadtolls. Politicians and city engineers in smaller cities like London, Ontario, should also give serious consideration to this idea.
Make the polluter pay is a sound principle. And there is no better way to make car drivers pay for their pollution than through a system of road tolls that are well calculated to cut greenhouse gas emissions and ease traffic congestion.
Friday, June 01, 2007
A significant pro-life judicial victory
The Interim
By Rory Leishman
In a landmark, five-to-four ruling in Gonzalez v. Carhart on April 18, the United States Supreme Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act which the Congress enacted and President George W. Bush signed into law in 2003.
In reasons for the majority in Carhart, Mr. Justice Anthony Kennedy described partial-birth abortion (also known as intact dilation and evacuation) as a procedure in which an abortion doctor typically delivers all but the head of a living baby from the womb, before piercing or crushing the baby’s skull so the head can pass through the cervix.
Kennedy agreed with the finding of the United States Congress that: “Implicitly approving such a brutal and inhumane procedure by choosing not to prohibit it will further coarsen society to the humanity of not only newborns, but all vulnerable and innocent human life, making it increasingly difficult to protect such life." On this basis, he upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which makes it is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years imprisonment for an abortion doctor to perform a partial-birth abortion, unless the procedure is “necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury.”
The Parliament of Canada should take note: Thanks to the calamitous judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Morgentaler, 1988, Canada is the only democracy in the world that has no law governing abortion. If a mother decides, for whatever reason, that she no longer wants her pre-born baby, it is lawful in Canada for an unscrupulous abortion doctor to kill that baby at any time during the pregnancy right up to just a few seconds before birth.
Granted, late-term abortions are very rare in Canada. But so is infanticide. It makes no sense for the Criminal Code to condemn the deliberate killing of a newborn infant, while doing nothing to curtail late-term abortions.
Carhart represents a small, but significant, step back from the 1973 ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade that initiated abortion on demand. In a torturous attempt to justify this decision, the majority of the Court in Roe argued that women have a right to abortion by virtue of the “right to privacy” contained in “penumbras formed by emanations” of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have repudiated Roe. In a concurring opinion in Carhart, they reiterated their view “that the Court's abortion jurisprudence, including Roe v. Wade, has no basis in the Constitution.”
In a future case that deals directly with Roe, Chief Justice John Roberts and Mr. Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. -– both recent appointees of President Bush – are likely also to agree that Roe was wrongly decided, because there is nothing in the plain language or the history of Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that prohibits the legislatures of the states from constricting abortion.
Correspondingly, there is nothing in the plain language or the history of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that authorized the Supreme Court of Canada to strike down Canada’s abortion law. In a dissenting opinion in Morgentaler, Mr. Justice William McIntyre persuasively argued that even in the Charter era, it is “for Parliament to pronounce on, and to direct, social policy.”
McIntyre explained: “This is not because Parliament can claim all wisdom and knowledge but simply because Parliament is elected for that purpose in a free democracy and, in addition, has the facilities -- the exposure to public opinion and information -- as well as the political power to make effective its decisions.”
In Morgentaler, McIntyre exercised judicial restraint: He fulfilled his duty as a judge to uphold the law and the Constitution, while leaving legislating to legislators.
Alas, there is today no judge on the Supreme Court of Canada in the McIntyre mould. None can be counted upon to uphold the separation of legislative and judicial powers.
Our judicial rulers in Canada profess to be enlightened and compassionate, yet none shows any disposition to agree with judgment of the United States Supreme Court on the urgent need to curtail at least the horrors of partial-birth abortion. What a shame and what a pity.
By Rory Leishman
In a landmark, five-to-four ruling in Gonzalez v. Carhart on April 18, the United States Supreme Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act which the Congress enacted and President George W. Bush signed into law in 2003.
In reasons for the majority in Carhart, Mr. Justice Anthony Kennedy described partial-birth abortion (also known as intact dilation and evacuation) as a procedure in which an abortion doctor typically delivers all but the head of a living baby from the womb, before piercing or crushing the baby’s skull so the head can pass through the cervix.
Kennedy agreed with the finding of the United States Congress that: “Implicitly approving such a brutal and inhumane procedure by choosing not to prohibit it will further coarsen society to the humanity of not only newborns, but all vulnerable and innocent human life, making it increasingly difficult to protect such life." On this basis, he upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which makes it is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years imprisonment for an abortion doctor to perform a partial-birth abortion, unless the procedure is “necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury.”
The Parliament of Canada should take note: Thanks to the calamitous judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Morgentaler, 1988, Canada is the only democracy in the world that has no law governing abortion. If a mother decides, for whatever reason, that she no longer wants her pre-born baby, it is lawful in Canada for an unscrupulous abortion doctor to kill that baby at any time during the pregnancy right up to just a few seconds before birth.
Granted, late-term abortions are very rare in Canada. But so is infanticide. It makes no sense for the Criminal Code to condemn the deliberate killing of a newborn infant, while doing nothing to curtail late-term abortions.
Carhart represents a small, but significant, step back from the 1973 ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade that initiated abortion on demand. In a torturous attempt to justify this decision, the majority of the Court in Roe argued that women have a right to abortion by virtue of the “right to privacy” contained in “penumbras formed by emanations” of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have repudiated Roe. In a concurring opinion in Carhart, they reiterated their view “that the Court's abortion jurisprudence, including Roe v. Wade, has no basis in the Constitution.”
In a future case that deals directly with Roe, Chief Justice John Roberts and Mr. Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. -– both recent appointees of President Bush – are likely also to agree that Roe was wrongly decided, because there is nothing in the plain language or the history of Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that prohibits the legislatures of the states from constricting abortion.
Correspondingly, there is nothing in the plain language or the history of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that authorized the Supreme Court of Canada to strike down Canada’s abortion law. In a dissenting opinion in Morgentaler, Mr. Justice William McIntyre persuasively argued that even in the Charter era, it is “for Parliament to pronounce on, and to direct, social policy.”
McIntyre explained: “This is not because Parliament can claim all wisdom and knowledge but simply because Parliament is elected for that purpose in a free democracy and, in addition, has the facilities -- the exposure to public opinion and information -- as well as the political power to make effective its decisions.”
In Morgentaler, McIntyre exercised judicial restraint: He fulfilled his duty as a judge to uphold the law and the Constitution, while leaving legislating to legislators.
Alas, there is today no judge on the Supreme Court of Canada in the McIntyre mould. None can be counted upon to uphold the separation of legislative and judicial powers.
Our judicial rulers in Canada profess to be enlightened and compassionate, yet none shows any disposition to agree with judgment of the United States Supreme Court on the urgent need to curtail at least the horrors of partial-birth abortion. What a shame and what a pity.
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